Tom- I had a feeling someone had beat me to this though. It seems to me that this technique has a lot of potential for mass production of rods too- outwrapping has to be one of the more significant costs. In this case it could be quite lucrative to be the first with such a guide...
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Finally got my magazine last night. Great article on the threadless wraps! I remember reading vague, second-hand accounts of this method years ago on the Internet- but there is nothing like seeing it to get a person motivated. Thanks RodMaker! I submit this post to get vendors thinking. This method has a lot of promise, but the "1/3 as strong" issue will turn a lot of people (inc
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If it's faster and easier than using thread, and comparable in strength and durability, I'd throw my thread in the trash and smile faster than my three year old dives on a dropped Skittle. Lets face it, thread is a PITA. Worst part of rodmaking if you ask me, and a task I'd be happy to never do again (except maybe once in a blue moon just to remind myself what a pain it is).
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Given the choice, I would use the Uni-Butt every time. If I'm making the rod, a slick butt is not going to be much cheaper... Why? Because the uni-butt is soooooo much easier to mount. I would argue that if you charge properly for your time, you might find that the cost is not that different in the long run. I would allow at least two hours to 1) fit and glue up the shims for the slick but
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You do that by using the Object Manager tool. Just open the object manager and click on the icon that looks like a printer.
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Keep in mind too that if you build the rod on a two piece Unibutt, the angler can get a straight butt and a curved butt, and use whichever is most appropriate for the situation.
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I'm not sure how different swordfish are from other billfish, but I have spoken to quite a few billfish specialists and found some similarities in what they prefer. One thing that would be very important to know is the method of fishing- trolling vs. jigging vs. chunking. Here in the East, it seems that pretty much everyone trolls for billfish. In this case, the preference is for very short, s
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Make a base for the support rails to allow the whole works to be freestanding. Make the hole inside the headstock larger so that you can fit a larger rod into/through the whole headstock assembly. Put index marks on the rod supports to allow quick and easy rod centering. Have a single mount for the motor and the headstock, with a quick release cam to allow you to move that whole assemb
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What kind of water are you fishing in, and what kind of presentations will you make. Fishing big water with heavy jigs will call for a very different rod than small shallow streams with unweighted flukes. Also, if you are going for a lightweight rod, why use a casting reel? For most light smallmouth fishing, a spinning reel will be better suited to the task.
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Consider- if they are distinct SPOTS on the wrap that cross multiple strands on only one side of the rod- as if something touched it- it's not the thread on the spool that is contaminated. That would indicate that something happened *after* the rod was wrapped. Fingers with silicone or bacon grease, something in the air, whatever. If the thread itself was contaminated on the spool, or even
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You need a gimbal for offshore fish fighting even if you have a spiral wrap. When you fight a tuna or marlin or swordfish, those fish will often turn towards the boat and run right at you. You might have to recover 100 yards of line with no resistance whatsoever. The thumb of your left hand will be busy pushing the line back and forth to keep it off of the spool center, so you will not be able
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Been there... I now put foil into one of those condiment containers. Works perfectly.
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Two ways you can get crookedness- the guides lining up with the reel, and the blank coming out of the ferrule. I'm just saying to be very careful about both. You don't want your custom rod sticking out at an odd angle in with the anglers other rods... You want your rod to stand out because it's better- not because it's crooked! It happened to me once, on the second offshore rod I ever m
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I couldn't believe it the first time either, but yes, you just epoxy a few inches of rod into that little cavity. If done properly, the rod would break long before the bond would. Be careful to align the blank properly though, if you are not careful it's easy to have the rod emerge just a little crooked. Most guys who troll for marlin want a very stiff blank. I caught a 70 lb white marlin
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What happened? The fish spooled him? It could have been worse, they could have landed the 500 lb blue marlin on your rod, then tagged and released it without ever taking a picture... Happened to me two weeks ago. The next day they got a 250 lb blue and took a picture, but you can not see the rod in it. GRRRRRR....
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I would do the writing on waterslide paper, then a thin thin coat of Krylon, apply to blank, then a thin coat of epoxy. Then just do your two wipes and you are done. I've had permagloss eat several waterslides that I thought were completely coated with Krylon. A thin coat of epoxy and no worries. No one will notice the fine edge where the epoxy stopped except you...
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Cut and past the link. A man modified a factory rod to allow it to be fitted onto a prosthetic arm for his son. Genius!
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You don't need a Federal Tax ID# to own a business if you don't have any employees AND work out of your home (in Maryland). You can still get wholesale prices from any vendor- as long as you can prove you own a business, which you can do in several ways (faxing the paperwork from the State, for example).
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Yes, these rods are assembled very sloppily. But some, like my BPS Extreme ($49.99 with a $30 Pflueger reel on it!), is built on a very, very nice blank. I haven't found a reasonably priced spinning blank that is as stiff and light as this. If BPS would just buy these blanks and leave them alone, they could market the blanks themselves for $49.99 and they would compare favorably with everythin
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My Excel spreadsheet comes in handy all the time when a customer asks for a rod "just like that one you made me in 1999. It only takes me a few seconds to determine that the blank he wants is no longer in production (which seems to be the case most of the time).
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The eegshell effect and tendency to form "waves" when you build many, many layers makes using Permagloss for decals not worth the effort. I use Permagloss for all my guides, but find it far easier to use regular epoxy to get an attractive decal covering.
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I agree that for casting or line shooting the difference is minimal, but one additional consideration I rarely hear mentioned is how much more fun it is to fight a fish on a fly rod that has SIC rings instead of snakes. The feel in your line-tending hand of the fish is much more intense, I presume as a result of the slickness of the ceramic material. You feel every head shake as a tug, even on
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"I've known Bill for many years. He does know about the show and the magazine, but is interested in neither. He's a professional builder and builds to a certain level for a certain clientele. New techniques and methods don't interest him (or many others). He has his market and is happy with it. Nothing wrong with that." Tom, you have absolutely mastered the "backhanded compliment.
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Jay- blanks hit the gunnel in tuna fishing all the time with inexperience anglers. And no one ever fishes from their knees on purpose, if you did how would you chase the fish around the boat, or dip the rod to keep the line off the prop when the fish is spiralling under the boat? What happens is that sometimes a fish surges right as the boat dips into a wave, causing the angler to lean too far
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I have caught quite a few tuna over the last decade, including tuna over 200 lbs using stand up tackle, and having done this first-hand is the reason I would never use spiral wraps for such a rod. With all due respect, a rod leaning to the side from a huge fish causing your gimbal to twist your harness is not going to throw anyone to the deck of a boat. The torque that can be generated by a
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I use permagloss on 90% of my rods. Be forewarned that it might end up "patchy" looking on white silk. This doesn't happen on nylon, but it does on silk. I think it looks kind of cool that way, but you might not. If you want it to be very clear/transparent, use a heavy coat of thin epoxy instead and do whatever it takes to keep bubbles out from under the edges of the guide feet.
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The last tuna rod I made cost $240.58 in parts. That was with no fancy components, and wholesale (through Merrick). I have made passable fly rods for the $ I paid for the tuna blank. It's another world when you deal with offshore tackle. The guy I made this last pair of tuna rods for fishes out of a $500,000 boat and burns $250 a day in gas. He thinks $400 per rod is a steal.
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I've built about 20 saltwater rods for heavy striped bass trolling and tuna chunking/trolling using Fuji titanium SIC TNSG 16's and/or 12's over the last few years. The trolling rods often drag 16 oz of lead AND heavy umbrella rigs for hundreds of hours a year, and the tuna rods have taken yellowfin tuna up to 120 lbs. These are on very powerful rods, and even a 50 lb tuna is an unbelievably st
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Braided lines are no problem, but rust is... I made a set of 9 trolling rods with Hardloys for a charter captain, and in 3 years about 50% of the guides had a coat of surface rust and looked terrible. The Capt is a friend, and pretty meticulous about cleaning. All it takes is to put them away wet and salty once.... It's all titanium for me from now on, life is too short to be spent re-wrappin
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It's not as easy as just using white silk thread... You must be meticulous with your thread packing, you have to use the right kind of finish, and you have to use enough finish to completely penetrate the wraps AND have a think coating of finish above the wraps. I've played around with this a lot, and it's very tricky to get a wrap to be completely transparent.
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