Check with an automobile customizing website. They probably have posts and information about auto customizers painting chrome bumpers black.
Forum: rodboard

Do tournament casters mostly prefer painted blanks, finished blanks, or unfinished blanks for casting competitions? I imagine most tournament anglers use painted blanks to advertise their sponsors.
Forum: rodboard

Ten years ago I built an experimental fly rod out of a 2-piece 8' Rainshadow hot-shot blank. It turned out to be an 11 wt. and it throws a nice cast.
Forum: rodboard

When the wind blows you have to be able to cast 70' to cast 30 ' - or stay home. The ability of a rod or a fly caster to cast 90' is Never a disadvantage; quite the contrary.
Forum: rodboard

I am convinced that show and go are incompatible in many tools, including rods used to catch fish . The only absolute I will confess to is I would absolutely choose a fly rod I can cast 90 feet over a fly rod I can cast no more than 70 feet, no matter what its appearance.
Forum: rodboard

There is a trade off between decoration and performance in rod building. I bet many rod builders have dealt with customers who wanted the "most beautiful, most sensitive, fastest action rod ever" - where "beauty" was defined by adornments which decreased the completed rod's performance. If there were some way to explain, using observed measurements, that the weight added by ad
Forum: rodboard

So the more paint, epoxy, permagloss, or thread wraps you put on a blank the more the performance of the rod is degraded, but there is no way to quantify how much. Still, I think it's important to keep this trade off between function and appearance in mind when building a rod.
Forum: rodboard

I understand adding heavier guides and after a point more guides to a blank will result in a slower and less efficient rod. I assume this same result takes place noticeably at some point when more or heavier thread wraps/rod art, and heavier/more coats of rod finish are applied to a blank. Ignoring for the moment the reality of "leveraged weight" is there a point, an objective measureme
Forum: rodboard

Once the wrap is completed and coated the thread will not stretch any further than the epoxy, permagloss, or varnish will allow, no matter what type of thread is used.
Forum: rodboard

Michael: I was thinking about the degree of perfection in strength and application of adhesive - longer tube, less critical - but your speculation about a short tip-top tube leverage causing breakage is food for thought. Agree that weight of 20 wraps of thread or a couple millimeters of tip-top tube are beyond human sensation.
Forum: rodboard

How long should a tip-top tube be to offer best strength before it just produces unnecessary weight?
Forum: rodboard

In the absence of objective data I suspect different anglers would consider the same, UN-labeled blank to possess a different action: everything from "medium-slow" to "fast". After all, subjective opinions as to what is a "fast" car or a "slow" car differ wildly, especially when you ignore objective information, like speed in miles per hour.
Forum: rodboard

This brings us back to the chief benefit a custom rod builder has to offer: a rod customized to fit the user. First, trying to build rods cheaper than store-bought is a waste of time, but the custom builder can offer a rod which best suits its user. A "sensitive" carp rod is a whole lot different than a "sensitive" musky rod. A "smooth casting" fly rod for an angler
Forum: rodboard

Terry: Vibrations per second or fractions of foot pounds of energy transmitted from rod blank tip to butt could be used to measure "sensitivity". Of course this test would be performed on a bare blank since that is the topic of this thread, not finished rods. Scientific instruments can measure differences below the threshold of human perception, but even this information could (and woul
Forum: rodboard

I agree the transmission of vibrations and pressure through a rod blank can and could be measured. If a rod blank manufacturer had objective information which revealed the superiority of its product why would the seller neglect to advertise this information? I am confident the average angler is more than intelligent enough to understand facts like these.
Forum: rodboard

"Sensitivity and Feeling" belong in a lonely hearts website, not a fishing website.
Forum: rodboard

The chief selling points of these graphite guides are apparently "sensitivity" and "feeling", neither one of which can be measured or documented, while the price of these guides is easily documented.
Forum: rodboard

Graphite rates from 0.5 - 1 on moh's hardness scale - not much harder than soapstone - and guides are made of graphite?
Forum: rodboard

A loop in your fly line either gets tightened into a knot or pulled apart when it passes through the tip-top. A larger tip-top (within reason) is more likely to pull the loop apart. I fully agree with Donald and Michael.
Forum: rodboard

When will Cabela's change its name to "Bass PRO," or is a single-species fishing tackle company too restricted?
Forum: rodboard

Spineing a rod apparently is supposed to make it cast farther, but I have never seen evidence this is so. An accurate rod is like an accurate rifle. An accurate rod will always shoot to the same spot, which might not be straight ahead and never is straight ahead if there's any wind. As long as the rifle barrel, stock and sights don't move erratically each shot, or the rod's grips, guides and ferr
Forum: rodboard

How is an ice fishing rod for sturgeon used? Do you jig it or does it just connect the reel to bait on the bottom? Form follows function.
Forum: rodboard

It seems like alternating the direction of the spine 180 degrees in each successive rod section would result in a rod that had no spine at all, which would seem to be the ideal situation. Of course the finished rod probably wouldn't be very straight, but it could be worth it to have a neutral spine.
Forum: rodboard

Russell: I use a fly rod and fish from a kayak and wade, so I'm obliged to land my own fish. I usually fish the Indian River Estuary so there are a host of hefty salt-water species I could encounter. I HATE to lose a big fish after a long fight and I HATE even more to break a fly rod in the process. My request is a simple one: how much weight can a rod blank endure at a no more than 90 degree ben
Forum: rodboard

I still would like blank manufacturers to reveal the breaking-lifting strength of their rod blanks, for the same reasons I want line and leader makers to post the actual breaking strength of their products.
Forum: rodboard

Please suggest a alternate way to avoid high-sticking a 9-foot fly rod while fishing alone and landing a 15#+ salt-water fish - other than playing the fish to death? I have been searching a long time for a solution other than fish only next to a shallow shore.
Forum: rodboard

Russell: I appreciate the differences you point out between fresh and salt water fish and fishing. They are substantial differences. Much fly fishing is a solo act and the angler must land his own fish. The typical salt-water fly rod is nine feet long or longer, but carrying a gaff or a net with a five-foot handle is not practical most of the time. This forces the fly angler to do some high-stick
Forum: rodboard

I tend to think in terms of fly rods, which aren't much good at winching in big fish and are relatively fragile - to the degree that some savvy feather flingers tie ten or twenty yards of nylon monofilament between the end of the fly line and the beginning of the Dacron or GSP backing to act as a shock absorber when playing respectably-sized fish. Of course the suggested "weight" of a f
Forum: rodboard

Do any blank manufacturers reveal the approximate amount of weight their blank will lift before it shatters? In big-game rods this is a consideration. It makes little sense to use a 20# leader if the blank will shatter under 15# of tension. It makes sense for the weakest connection between angler and fish, the "fuse" as it were, to be something other than the rod.
Forum: rodboard

I understand pure titanium is nasty stuff: expensive and very difficult to shape. Ti plated guides only offer a couple of thousandths of vapor-deposited titanium over a base metal. Snake guides are extremely simple objects: a 3/4 turn and flat feet. I hope someone discovers the "secret" Ti alloy in the right diameter wire to make snake guides. They would add to a truly "custom&quo
Forum: rodboard