There is no magic degree limit, just good practice. If you want a rod that can flex into a circle get a cheap low modulus one. Fiberglass seems particularly good for this. If you keep the flex out of the tip with any rod, it likely will not break. But the tip can break on any rod, so don't lift the rod too high! It's been my experience that the highest performance blanks, are also the
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You don't need much, and the beginner wrapping stands work fine forever. The Mudhole kit looks like a good place to start. And Mudhole has been very responsive from a customer service point of view. I'd buy with confidence. The one thing I might add, is a larger amount of the epoxy for gluing up your grip. That looks like a tiny amount in the kit. The ProGrip they supply is great and
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One thread wrap with each turn spaced 1/4 inch apart works perfectly. I just went through your exact dilemma But if you do nothing, and use a thick paste epoxy like rod bond, it will work fine too. Fit . one up and you;ll see.
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I've built several 8 and 9 weight rods with all Fuji ceramic guides(K series). I also use the Fuji titanium (F) tops. To keep weight to a minimum, I use titanium framed guides for the tip section and then the stainless "corrosion control" for the lower running guides. This makes for a good casting rod, keeps the cost reasonable. Drew
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I recommend that RodGeeks sell the excellent St Croix Handle kits. They don't seem to be available on the St Croix website any longer, and they were good kits with good cook at a good price. I am particularly interested in the HKF 3 and 4 kits, but all were good.
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"The Best" is a highly fluid, and subjective moving target. My favorite fly rods are the St Croix SCVs that I've built. And now that Rod Geeks will be carrying them, and will paint to order, that's going to be a difficult combo to beat. And even their Carbon4 rods are great and sound just like what you want for small $$. I've recently built 2 of the Carbon4s and have to say they a
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Yeah, the same questions. It's the same stuff. Me personally, I have used ProCoat, FlexCoat and Threadmaster. I'm not sure why, but Threadmaster Lite is my go to. But FlexCoat Lite is also very good, as is the ProCoat. It's hard to go wrong here. All epoxy is the same basic chemistry, so find one with the kinetics you like and build with it. FlexCoat has the best videos. Their videos are
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The Rx7+ blanks were good blanks and I doubt the Eternity2 is going to be better in any meaningful way. But if you just have the desire to build a new rod, that's cool too. Maybe use different guides, or different spacing or whatever. Like the original poster, I build for myself and friends. For me, I have built a pile of 8 weights. I like them all and have given a couple away. Half the
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I've built 3 of these, so not not huge experience, but I like them. Very good looking, and so far, none have broken in the hands of my friends. They are nice, fast action blanks. They can be had fairly inexpensively, so they fish above their $ grade. I'd build and use with confidence.
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The Galvan Torque-8 is a great reel. I have 2 of them for Salmon. It's worth a few $$ to have an excellent smooth drag and plenty of room on the spool for any line you would choose to run. The oldest of mine is 8 years old, and was referbed/updated at no charge by Galvan last year. Highly recommended. You can get basically the same reel for less $$ if you get the Galvan Rush Light. The cut
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There is little difference, in the end, between finishes. My guess is, it's all the same chemistry. My go to finish is ThreadMaster Lite. I also like FlexCoat light. I've used ProCoat regular and it's fine too. They all seem to hold up well and I've kind of standardized on one that works well for me and doesn't hold any air bubbles when cured. I only really make fly rods though, so keep tha
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I honestly can't see fixing that. Just get a new rod. Any fix will not be lasting and satisfactory.
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I've built several of the 8 weight Quickline blanks. Overall, it's a very decent blank, well priced, no issues. I would use Fuji K series and I'd recommend size 16 and then 12 before dropping to your running guides. If you're surf fishing, all your guides should be titanium to avoid rust issues. The REC snake guides are great. I use them on every rod I make. The tip top is your call b
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I really liked that long, long reamer with a better taper than most reamer sets you can buy. I like all the videos you guys put up. Very helpful.
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I have used the Mudhole set and an set of stainless spatulas I got at a hobby store for basically every rod I've made. There are no downsides that I can see, and I've never (knock on wood) had a bubble in the final finish. Other than a clean up after applying finish there is no extra work, and the brushes for me, are more trouble than they are worth. But everybody, gets to their own comfort sp
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Agree. It's not that hard. Build 1, then you know. Build 10 and you're good at it. Build 100 and you're a professional. But seriously, it isn't difficult. I'm between 10 and 100 for what it's worth. You don't need a "school"
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ABS plastic pipe is the stuff to use. It's lighter than PVC and very strong and tough. Most of my rod cases are ABS and the few that are not are thin wall PVC which use the same fittings. Thin wall PVC works well too. I've even recently put travel rods in PVC down spout which works great. (Just back from a trip to AK with travel rods in downspout! No issues) Fly rods are easy because
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Another Dremel vote here.
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Having built a bunch of fly rod blanks into travel spin rods, it can for sure be done. Despite it being an 8 wt, it will make a surprisingly soft and slow spinning rod. Definitely replace the guides with ceramic ring style. I'd strip the rod completely and start over with the spacing that is right for the rod. It can be pretty hard to get the handle off though, so keep that in mind. But if
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This is normal with a factory rod. I'd strip it and re-wrap. Tomorrow. Fenwick used a lot of standard colors so should be easy to match, but even if not, just get close and no one will notice. You could strip and re-wrap in 30 minutes, then it's just epoxy time. It's just a fishing rod and even if the color was completely wrong, it's still going to catch a fish just fine. But broken epoxy m
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First of all, if this is just your second rod, you did great. It's all together. It has a handle, a reel seat and guides. Go fish it before you do anything dumb like removing and rearranging the spacing. I often find I like 1 more guide than the recommended spacing, but the factory recommendation is a good place to start. Regarding finish, while no expert, the thing that improved mine the
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Another vote for 2 coats of thin epoxy. My favorite is Threadmaster lite. But Prokote is good, FlexCoat lite is good. All work perfectly well. I probably built 10 rods that were under $100 per blank prior to building several St Croix SC V fly rods that are my primary rods that I fish. I even built some close-out blanks from Utmost that were like $30 and they turned into fine rods. A sou
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I made my own wrapper years ago, but it's similar in function to the one from Mudhole. Price looks good. You don't need an epoxy mixer, at least I don't, and never have problems. Add to your list a pack of single edge razor blades. Don't forget reamers for the grip. They seem expensive at first, but make an otherwise difficult job easier. I used the slow speed dryer for a long time
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I agree that a kit would be a really good place to start. Mudhole and Get Bit have some kits in the $60 - $100 range that look perfect for you. If you want to spend less, you might have to piece it together from closeouts. Just remember, your 5th rod will be much nicer than your 1st, so don't "over invest" in your first one. I made that mistake, and a year later went back and stri
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What kind of rod? Unless it's a fly rod, I think the Fuji KTAG guides are hard to beat as running guides. Heck, I even use the titanium version on fly rods. If it's a spinning rod, I use the KWAG for the reduction guides, and again the titanium version if I really want light. The "A" stands for Alconite, which is Fuji speak for a high quality aluminum oxide ceramic ring, which
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My experience on the Kenai fishing for Sockeye, suggests it is pretty hard on your gear, and broken rods are very common. So if you are building for money and you would have to do your own warranty work, I would factor that in. It's different if you just build a rod for a friend for the cost of parts. But a $500 budget all in, doesn't sound like there would be much left for the builder. You
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I know them quite well and have 2 currently. Both 7/8s. They are excellent and more than that they stand up to significant abuse. They were made for a while in the 90s and early 2000s and were everyone's favorite inexpensive but good fly reel (about $200 or so). Mid 2000's they stopped making them and the reels, name and tooling were bought by a concern in Chicago and production was restarted
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I've been kind of impressed with the Rod Geeks blanks I've purchased. All 2 of them. But it's pretty quick to get a custom colored blank exactly as specified. And to get a custom painted blank, from Mexico in less than 10 days is pretty impressive. And the paint is exactly like St Croix painted blanks. Great colors, well done, etc. I really like their 4 piece travel blanks. No one else d
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Honestly, the Pfeuger reels are ok but long term junk throwaways. Okuma are also OK. Both work ok for a time. So if you are not sure that fly fishing an 8wt is your future, these will work. If your 8wt fly fishing is a longer term thing, you'll want a better reel. The Galvan Torque is a GREAT reel. Backed up with GREAT service. Upper end Lamsons are good, Bauers are really good, Lots of
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With most decals, the most important thing, is that there is a layer of epoxy UNDER it. It's an extra step, but then there is no difference in the refractive index on the material associated with the decal. That helps to hide the edges of the decal.
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