There is not right or wrong way to mount the reelseat. If the way you have it feels comfortable in your hands, leave it.
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I use that now for my refinished blanks, if you only do a couple of light coats on it, you more or less get a matte finish. If you put more coats on then you start to see more of a satin finish. I have tried just one coat of it and it evens things out real nice, gives the blank a uniform look.
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So the diameter of the cork does not match with the diameter of the reelseat is what you are saying? WIth using premade grips, the cork does not always fit up perfectly with reelseat.
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Did you try a dry fit of part before gluing them up. That tenion is suppose to slip inside the reelseat, but after looking at a picture of the cork, it does look a little longer than what I make my tennions on handles to slip inside the reelseat. I guess I am not sure what you mean exactly by mismatch between the parts. Any way to post a picture of it?
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You would then need to look into a fibergalss blank to have a slower reacting rod if you don't want a moderate action graphite crankbait blank.
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There is a gel polyurethane that you will find one some of the wood turning sites that I tried on blanks I stripped down that works very well. WIth just a couple of coats you get a nice matt finish to the rod and it gives a nice even look to the blank.
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I now always use 2 coats of finish. My first one soaks the threads and I make sure the tunnels are all filled on the guides. I have only enough finish to barely cover the threads, when it is dry, you can still see the ridges of the threads. Ont thing this does is make it much easier to take care of bubbles if they happen. Even if they happen later while it is turning, it ie easy to take a raz
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For the smaller guides I actually don't use anything. I get a few wraps of thread going, then slip the guide foot under the next thread enough so it will hold it in place. The I do a few more turns, then wiggle the guide gently till the end of the guide foot slips under the thread. You have to have good guide foot prep to get the thread to just barely catch the guide foot on that first thread.
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I do them most of the time for baitcasters unless it is asked not to be. Make sure you see how the person holds a rod and reel. I know for myself, I like to have a grip about 4" behind the reel to make sure my palm of my hand sits totally on the grip. I made one too short for myself one time and the end of the grip was hurting my hand, pressing into it.
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Anything in particular you like us to bring Dan?
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I started using just the reel foot from an old reel to line up split reel seats. I don't try to tighten it down all the way, just enough to make sure they line up. I use some of the blue painters tape to keep the parts from being pushed apart when I mount the reel foot.
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Not sure about the motor, but for taking off the finish, I prefer to scrape it off with a razor blade or hobby knife blade held perpendicular to the blank. Depending on the finish, light scraping will take the finish off very easily and not mess with the blank itself.
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With starting the thread a few turns and then slipping the guide foot under and making a few more turns, as long as you wiggle the guide and not pull on it, I have never had an issue with the guide popping out of the thread. Only time it pops out if I accidently pull instead of wiggle the guide.
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One thing you will see with the smaller guides on the tip section of the rod, you might have to learn a new release point depending on how you cast a lure. With less weight on the tip, it reacts quicker when you make a cast. When I first converted a rod to all micros and I made a cast, I noticed the lure was going to the left of where I was trying to target the cast. With the rod reacting quic
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If you want to add some weight, look into the balance weights from Baston. They have 3 different weights that simple screw onto a threaded piece on the butt of the rod. They can be left on or removed easily if the weight is not needed.
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For putting the finish on, I use a 200rpm setup. For finishing it up, mine are 4 or 6 rpm.
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If you are talking the ones that are like for 45 cents each per ring, they are ok. Just ordered more myself. You get a few that I will not use. Some are not the complete 1/2" thick, meaning a small portion of one of the faces of the ring is slightly missing. I tend to use these on the ends of grips where I know I will be removing the material anyway. I am not one that bothers to fill in
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Depends on what style of sprial wrap you are going to use. If you look at the simple spiral, you basically layout your guides as normal and add a bumper guide between the first and second guide. For where you are using more of a transition style using a total of 4 guides to go from 0 degrees down to 180 degrees I space them about 4" apart so I use a total spacing around 12" for the 4
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Those are made so at least the rear section does not need an arbor. You may just have to ream out that portion to fit it in the spot you want on the blank. The threaded portion of that reelseat needs an arbor. If you have to ream out the rear section, just be careful at doing this. Since there is not much material on the bottom portion of it, it is easy to ream it off center a bit. Found out
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Get in touch with the guys down at Swampland. Bill just worked with me on a decal. I happened to have some of the decal media so he just set up the image for me. But he can do the layout work and print it for you.
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Myself I would look at what Swampland has in the Castaway blanks. RIght now for crankbaits I have loved using the 963, 964 and 964 XP3 blanks. They are 8 foot, but have cut them down to 7 foot without any problems. Give them a call, they also have several other blanks that are good for crankbaits.
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Rich, What did you use for the magnets and where did you get them?
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I would say get a hold of Mudhole and get the blank sent back for a replacement.
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Red would then be your top color thread. For the threads below you want something contrasting like black and white.
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Size is to the outside of the insert or the inside of the frame. Frame thickness varies as does insert material.
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What will happen, if you build a casting rod in the conventional manner, all guides on top, when you put a load on the rod, it will want to spin on you. Thats why people use a sprial wrap for casting rods to make it stable under load. Even with using micro guides all on top, it will spin on you, but the force is not as great as if you were using a taller guide on top.
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I think the smallest double foot guide I have found is a 5 or 5.5 but it was not SIC. Fuji K series Alconites are 5.5 and I think the Kigan's have a 5.
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I tend to use a 6 or 5 double foot for the start and I like more of the revolver type of setup. I have tried the simple, but something just does not seem to work well for me. I then use 3's out to the tip.
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Depending on which spiral method you use, will dertermine how many guides you will eventually use. Lots of the manufactured rods seem to have too many micros on them, at least in my opinion. If it was conventional wrapped, I might use 1 or 2 more than the standard 1 for every foot + tip. If you do a simple spiral, then you would be adding one more guide, the bumper guide. If you are doing mor
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Get a hold one one of the suppliers, as long as they have the blank, I am sure they would be willing to figure out what the diameter of the blank is at the point where the winding check is going to go. Then you can make sure you get the right one.
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