They are in a legal dispute with Shimano presently. Gary will not be heavily involved in the new company any more than he has been in the past several years - this is not an entirely new venture. ...............
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Rodmaker Volume 2 #1 or do a search of the archives here. You should be able to turn up plenty of good information. ..............
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Bait casting rods are pretty easy - you only need a couple of sizes, one for the butt guide (large and high enough to keep it off your hand or foregip under full load) and the rest can be as small as will still allow your line and any required connections to pass. ............
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RodMaker Volume 10 #4 has the details and photos/illustrations. There is an earlier version in the library here. There is only 1 choker guide - it will be the smallest guide used in the set-up (the runners are all the same size as the choker guide). The distance you asked about is from the face of the reel spool to the choker guide location. The line path is from the spool center to the
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You don't want to predetermine your guide sizes - let the line path show you what sizes to use and where to locate them. As George said, this will entail buying a few extra sizes to allow you to use what's required. .....................
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The procedure has been outlined in RodMaker. To do what you want, you are still going to have to completely drop/cut some threads and then pick them back up later. For instance, once you have a thread going around the blank, you can't hide it - it either winds around the blank, or you have to drop it by cutting and then picking it back up when you need it. This sort of thing is much harder
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Oh well, save your money and come to NC next winter for the largest rod building event in the world. .........
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Not necessarily. Non-stabilized wood is okay for most rod building applications, but you might want to let it dry/season a bit longer before turning it. Keep in mind that wood "moves" and this is just the nature of the beast. Stabilized and/or resin impregnated wood is great but not absolutely necessary. It's also a bit heavier than the same wood, non-stabilized or resin impregnat
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As soon as Bill Colby writes it, I'll publish it. ..........
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As always, craft history and current industry news. ............
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The new issue is being printed this week. It includes: Bernie Cohen’s development of EVA Inlays An EVA Inlay “How-To” with full step by step photographs The Convertible Spin/Fly Rod Construction No-Torque Casting Rod Reverse Tie-Off Loop Precision Shop Made Turning Mandrels The Custom Ordering Process Establishing a Baseline with the CCS Q&A Colum
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His brain is doing the same thing yours is - correcting it. He'll show it to somebody and they'll ask him about the spelling. Count on it. You might contact him and explain the error, offering to fix it before anyone else sees it. .............
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Yes. .............
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Barry, 1. If you’re using the same reels and the same line, then the guide set up from the butt to the choker guide will be indentical on both rods. The reel does not care how long the rod is. However, the longer rod will require additional running guides to account for the longer length. 2. The choker guide needs to be a certain distance from the reel. It’s not an arbitrary t
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An Alvey or mooching type reel might have a spool that large, but you'd be hard pressed to find a true spinning reel with a 6-1/2 inch diameter spool. The writer was either just tossing a make-believe figure out there or he may not understand the difference between diameter and circumference. I own several extremely large spinning reels. One is a Daiwa GS9, the largest spinning reel that Daiw
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The spiral wrap does reduce strain on the angler (and on the rod) but it isn't a cure for high sticking. A spiral wrapped rod is as apt to break under such bad fighting technique as is a conventionally wrapped rod. ..............
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The blanks have no idea what they're going to be used for. The same equipment is used, the same material is used, in the same way, to make both. There is no physical difference between a spinning and a casting blank. Those designations are simply words or terms in a catalog. Use whichever you want for whatever you want. The blank won't care. ..............
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The epoxy will continue to flow back into that space even if you remove it several times. What you have to do, is wait until it has set to a point where it no flows. Stop the rod, remove it, and then very light flame/heat it just enough so that everything smooths over. But not so much that the epoxy will flow back into that area. There is a certain window of time that you must work in to
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Once something works, most folks never attempt to find anything that works better. "Good enough" is human nature. If you took all the millions of various worthwhile innovations made throughout human history, you'd find that they all came from a relatively tiny percentage of all the people who have ever trod the planet. The NGC has been around longer than you might think. Fuji had p
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The largest spinning reels have spools that are about 2-3/4 inches to 3 inches in diameter. So that will put you with a choker guide about 65 to 75 inches up the rod from the reel. Find the closest guide to that distance and leave it and the rest out towards the tip alone. Replace the ones inside of that one and I think you'll find that it works pretty well. ...............
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Armand, With the RodMaker scale, you have a photograph and a percent clarity chart to go by, so if you feel what someone sent you is not true CG2 cork, you have something to argue with. You can't do that with Flor, because there is no standard behind it. It is whatever the dealer sells you. ................
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Actually there is only one standard - the RodMaker Cork Grade Scale. The rest are just terms with no standards behind them. "Flor" is shortened from "Floret" which was coined by Gene Bullard. Even then, there was no standard behind it. It was just the term he used for some cork he sourced direct from the grower. So even a cork ring with tons of holes and pits can correc
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A lot of that depends on the reel he'll use and if his line and any shock leader knots will pass the remaining guides. But if he's using the same stuff he did with his casting reel you should be okay. Here's what I'd do - get a rough idea of the NGC layout. Multiply his reel spool diameter by 27 and take that distance and see which current guide is the closest. Make that your choker guide and
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I saw the new Steel City lathe a few weeks ago. Granite bed and headstock. Sure to be square and true, and heavy. Which is a good thing provided you don't need to move it around. A local builder bought a Rikon and in the couple years he's had it it's given good service and no trouble. JET and Delta have both recently introduced slightly larger versions of their original midi-lathes. A littl
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Such statements are out in left field and are coming from those who haven’t actually read the article or viewed the illustrations that went along with it. Let’s stop short of calling them dumb and simply label them “uniformed.” The writer has mistaken the butt guide for the choker guide. They are not the same thing. The 27X factor isn’t used for locating the
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Definitely call Chase, Darrin or Joe at American Tackle. I'm sure they would like to validate if those were indeed their blanks. ..............
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That information was contained in RodMaker Magazine some time ago. I'd have to go back and look up the volume and issue number. It can certainly be done very well and very effectively. But it requires careful planning and operation on your part. ..............
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The New Guide Concept article in the library here should work well with your rod. However, I would locate the choker/intersect guide by multiplying your reel spool diameter by 27, and then locating the guide that distance from the face of the reel spool. Everything else, including the line path will be the same as what's in the online library article here. .................
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I would wrap up to the edges, not over them, because the thread may have a tendency to skip or gap as it comes off the media edge. If you apply the thread clamp as outlined in the article, the decal should stay affixed just fine until the application of epoxy. ..............
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Yes, the spine effect is going to be different based on how straight the blank is, the particular pattern involved, etc. It's created by a combination of manufacturing anomalies that are going to be different from blank to blank and company to company. But since spine has little to no effect on rod twist or casting accuracy, it's not something you need to be overly worried about. Most commercial
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