rod building-who does it here? show off your work to give me some inspiration

[bikerfish]

Tim, if you can tie a fly on the end of your leader, you can build a rod. just takes some research and patience. give it a shot, take your time, and you'll have a wonderful fishing tool to be proud of. also, if you have anyone local to stop over and give you hands on advice, that is probably the best thing. I wish I would of had some of that when I started building, but I just learned things the hard way. but in the end, didn't matter. I have fun building them, and really, they are only fishing rods, not atlas rockets! winter is coming and it's great to sit inside and wrap some guides, dreaming about how the rod will cast, while the snow piles up outside.

 

[bikerfish]

Tim, if you can tie a fly on the end of your leader, you can build a rod. just takes some research and patience. give it a shot, take your time, and you'll have a wonderful fishing tool to be proud of. also, if you have anyone local to stop over and give you hands on advice, that is probably the best thing. I wish I would of had some of that when I started building, but I just learned things the hard way. but in the end, didn't matter. I have fun building them, and really, they are only fishing rods, not atlas rockets! winter is coming and it's great to sit inside and wrap some guides, dreaming about how the rod will cast, while the snow piles up outside.

 

[CPR]

I'm in the process of building three 9' 5wt rods on the following blanks

Batson RX8

St.Croix SCIV/SCII blend

Mudhole Custom MHX

I'm going to build them exactly the same but not label them to allow side by side casting tests without influence by brand prejudice. Of course, I still have to overcome the St.Croix having a different finish

 

[PACOFRANSICO]

Sevier "tiger eye" blanks are good unexpecive blanks. There coffe colored.

 

[Rolf]

Eroc I have the early factory version of that rod, (Loomis IMX), in a 4 weight and it is truly one of my favorites.

 

[PennKev]

Some of my builds:

 

[JackM]

You guys build some beautiful rods. Mine are not for show. But someone wanted to see pictures of first builds, so I'll try to dig up a photo of my bamboo banty rod. Here's a webpage I made a while back in another discussion:

http://home.comcast.net/~jmanderino/BooRod/banty.htm

It fishes. Needs the ferrule redone, though.

 

[eroc144]

Rolf - I have a Loomis 8' 4wt IMX as well and it IS my favorite fly rod. Drops tiny flies with a whisper and has the backbone to push heavily weighted stonefly nymphs with authority. It was a College graduation present for fishing Slate Run, but I use it everywhere. It's my go-to rod.

PennKev - Good stuff! I really like the double ring reel seats.

Jack - Did you make the blank too?

EG

 

[JackM]

No. Bought a 3 piece 9 footer. May have been Montague, can't remember. The reel hardware was original and the ferrules, so maybe an officianado can identify. I removed the reel hardware from the butt and remounted it on the bottom of the middle section. I think it may have been metal all the way across the seat, because I remember cutting it and inserting the wood piece (which I think I just made with a dow rod, a drill and some sandpaper/woodfile).

You can also see that the top downlock bracket is missing. I have the tightening ring, but the bracket was missing. Had I known what I was doing, I might have replaced it, but as it stands, the tightening ring has enough room under it to use as the bracket as well to hold the top reelfoot. Anyhow, the point is: it doesn't have to be pretty.

 

[bingsbaits]

This was my first build, Batson 8'6" 4wt.

With it's first fish.

2nd build was a Steelhead rod for Project Healing Waters.

This one is on the dryer as I type this, Batson RX7 9'6" 7wt.

 

[JackM]

Wow! Very nice wraps up the slope of the guide feet, which incidentally seems rather severe. Optical illusion?

What is the trick, a light adhesive on the top serfuce of the guide foot?

 

[bingsbaits]

They seemed like very thick eyes.
Could have sanded them back a little further.
I think having the point sanded right down to almost nothing helped get the thread started up the eye in a nice tight wrap.

 

[NCPAtrtbum]

Tim, thanks for the kind remarks. I too prefer the DL seats.. just something about the simplicity of them I suppose.

Biker, your builds are gorgeous btw!

 

[Fishidiot]

I build pretty much all the fly rods I fish with these days but have never been a stickler for perfect winds or other details (I'll break the rod eventually and re-cycle the seat and guides).

Anyway, here's a favorite of mine. This is my brookie pack rod and is 5' 6" in length. The handle and reel seat combined are less than eight inches. I've always liked the look and feel of very small fly rods. I also built the tiny landing net.

 

[thetonyage]

What are your guys thoughts on winding checks? Do you find them necessary? I was originally planning on waiting til my grip was mounted to measure the diameter of the blank with calipers in the exact spot it would be. I want to do a decorative butt wrap though and was thinking on just doing some kind of epoxy ramp. What do you all think?

 

[PACOFRANSICO]

Scrap the epoxy ramp and put a check on. The epoxy will run down the incline of the ramp while turning. A check is alot easier and im my opinion (which doesnt matter) cleaner looking. Theres to many potential problems in a thread epoxy ramp.

 

[CPR]

I agree with Paco. I put epoxy ramps in many of my spinning rods but never use one on a fly rod.

 

[afishinado]

I've done epoxy ramps on some very light trout rods. I often grip the rod and cast with my index finger extended up on the blank, and a rod with a ramp to the blank really fits my hand well. The process is not really that hard, but I wouldn't try it on my first rod.