A series of wood grips using various techniques to determine what I still need to master. The ellipse was an attempt to duplicate (somewhat) Ray Jergensens's Beautiful grip. This attempt indicates that mush has been learned and much more still needs to be learned. The grip on the far left is may take on a Ritz-Gordon grip and will be used on a Lamiglas based rod I am building for a customer.
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When I first learned how to build a fly rod, A custom rod builder who was also a fly rod tournament caster told me that he placed his fly rod in his casting arm and formed a right angle with his casting arm. He then reached up with his other arm and marked the place on the rod being built with his hand. That mark lets you determine the distance. I have followed that process for the sixty years I
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Ed, Like most of the responses you received, I use tape. I prefer the Blue tape. When I test cast my fly rod I usually cast for an hour or two. By the time I finish the guides are all askew. However the rod is still casting quite well. At times I think that all the effort we make to align the guides is wasted since the casts are quite okay whether the guides are aligned or not. ( Needless to
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Good Morning Jeff, If you look on the right side of the page for this forum, you will see a Library button. Open the library and down near the bottom you will see an article called Static Distribution. This article will explain how to place the guides. As for the number of guides, that is determined by the length of the rod. If it is 7 feet, then you will need either 7 or perhaps 8 guide
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You need to coat your wraps with Color Preserver made by U-40 (Trondak), Flex Coat, and/or Rod Dancer. Any of these will coat the thread and encapsulate the silicone that is present in your thread. Any thread that is made for sewing is very likely to be contaminated with Silicone. These color preservers are made from acrylic materials suspended in a solvent. They may appear to be diluted Elm
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Yes, you can use rod varnish. However, it is more viscous, not as hard, and not as flexible as Perma Gloss. Years ago when varnish was all we had, we would use it for all of these purposes, but today we have some extremely good finishes that makes our tasks easier. Phil is right. Trying to produce an even coating by working around guides, if not impossible, is an extremely difficult task. Mi
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Good Morning Earl, There are three type of finishes: Epoxy, Urethane (Perma Gloss), and Varnish. Varnish is the oldest type and is slightly amber in color. The epoxy and Perma Gloss are not tinted. They have the same "color" as water. I suspect that the coating on your rod is varnish and it has become brittle with age. If you want to recoat the rod blank itself, Perma Gloss w
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I have an old rod I had built for a family member who is no longer with us. The rod was an eight foot salmon rod built on a Sila Flex fiberglass blank. I built this around 1964. I used agate guides with nickel silver frames. The reel seat was an ordinary metal frame and hood. The grip was cork. The glue I used was a liquid Rod cement which was a thermal setting glue much like Pliobond. The
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Andrew, I have used ceramic rings on fly rods with both double footed guides and single footed guides. I did not see any improvement in casting distance or presentation. I did notice a slowing of the action--particularly with light weight rods (4 and 5 weight). If you are going to use this rod in saltwater I recommend Titanium Alloy frames and going with Silicon Carbide rings. I also reco
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Tony, I just finished a Eternity 2 rod for myself. I used a red/black 2 color twist thread and I trimmed it with a sea-green nylon thread. Much to my surprise, I found this combination quite satisfactory. I have used the red/black class color twist thread on black rod with sunrise yellow trim. I just felt that the yellow/orange sunrise color would not work with the light Cobalt blue that wa
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When I looked at your picture, the first thought I had was that the bottom of the guide had not been prepped and a rough protrusion had cut into the blank which could have weakened the rod blank at that point. Other than a defect in the blank I can not think think of another reason. Good luck with figuring this out Mike Blomme
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Trung, I also have a Turncrafter Lathe. I paid a little more for it and added the variable speed and an extension bed for it as well. There are many different chucks. You can go to the Penn State Industry web site and see what they offer. This is an important part of your lathe and as you have discovered it is essential in order to use your lathe safely. I recommend buying a chuck that c
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Mark, If this rod has not been rebuilt, then the guide set-up is almost certainly a Cone of Flight (COF). What we are using now is the NCP method. This method was originated by Fuji and now most spinning are now built this way. You get more casting distance and the ability to fight a fish is not hampered based on my own experiences. Just go to the Library on this forum and scroll down to th
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Michael, I use CP on all of my rods. I just finished building an Eternity2 9 ft fly rod. When I received my blank, I was quite surprised at the brightness. I sent an e-mail to Batson Enterprises and asked them what colors they used. They told me they didn't know what their test models had on them. So I was on my own and i tried quite a few combinations. I was a little bit surprised when I t
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Matthew, I do remember those early days. You forgot to mention the liquid rod cement. The closest relative today is Pliobond. That stuff took three days to cure. The lacquer used for color preserver was a beast. Until I discovered that filling the tunnels along the feet of the guides, I lived in Bubble @#$%&. One other thing that was different in that time was the absence of computers sit
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You might want to look at the Eternity2 and Revelation Blanks by Batson Enterprises. I just finished an eternity2 5wt. and love the feel of it. I haven't tried an 8 wt yet, but the five weights are really nice. Good luck on your search. Mike Blomme
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Hi Ken, I use color preserver on all of my rods. When I pick out the colors of the thread, I want to see those colors when I finish a rod. Now all CPs on the market work. I think that ChromaSeal gives me the best retention, but many others on the market work just fine. To apply my CP I use those little throw away brushes that many of our sponsors sell. I use them many times before disc
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Like Barney, I have been building fly rods for over 55 years. During that time I have followed some fads such as using very large snake guides as recommended by one of the fly fishing magazines. When I compared casts, I found that larger guides did not improve performance. The same was true when I tried single foot guides with and without ceramic rings. So I went back to snake guides and I a
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Mike Porter, I have building wishing rods since 1960. I built a very simple freshwater spinning rod for trout and Panfish. All aspects of this build was done by hand including cork grip sanding and shaping, wrapping guides and applying CP and finish(Varnish in those days). I can only claim that it was a very plain rod with blue thread without any trim. The only thing I can say for it is th
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Roger is correct. Buy a couple winding checks of different sizes. I also wrap thread where the winding check will sit with A or 2/0 thread to cushion the winding check from biting into the blank. Mike Blomme
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Sorry for my spelling error in my previous post. Mike Blomme
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I have used CP since I started building rods over fifty years ago. I have not had problems with any CP except the ones that were some typs of Model Airplane lacquer. My rule is too always fill the tunnels along the guide feet first. I then use two coats (maybe three if I feel paranoid that day). Most recently I have used Color Lock and Chroma Seal, but my all time best was Gudebrod 811. This
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Roger is right on. I have a similar set up, but I use Optivisors. One is a 7.5 diopter and the other is a 10 diopter. The 10 diopter isn't as useful because item depth of focus is too small. Mike Blomme
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The Blank is burgundy. However, I have been told that I should never use any organic solvent on a St. Croix blank. Thanks for your idea anyway. Mike Blomme
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Hi Phil, I have been experimenting, but I hadn't thought of that Thanks. Mike Blomme
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I had just finished a fly rod using a SCIV/SCII St. Croix blank except for the inscription. I had been using Speedball Opaque Acrylic inks for my inscriptions. Since Gudebrod 811 CP had disappeared I found that after applying the ink and letting it dry overnight, I needed to apply an art fixative to keep the ink from smearing when I applied the acrylic CP. On my fly rods I use PermaGloss for
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Hi Michael, Thanks for your comments. My experiment was only to determine how much if any fading would occur. I had no interest in trying to find out the effects of finish. I know that given enough exposure to ultraviolet light epoxy finishes will darken. Until they can devise a hardening agent that doesn't absorb UV, which leads to molecular rearrangement, Epoxy finishes will continue to da
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You are absolutely correct Randy. Mike Blomme
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Hi Michael Thanks for your comments. The separation that I have had in the past occurred while wrapping the thread and before applying CP and finish. I know that too much tension can be a problem and I was hoping have someone tell me their experiences with different brands since there has been so many new brands on the market since I last used metallic thread. Mike Blomme
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A couple of years ago, I made some wraps of metallic threads (various colors) on a piece of rod blank and placed them in my yard for a few months. In the summer we often have triple digit temps and mid to high nineties the rest of the time. I found that all of the wraps except the silver faded under such conditions. As a result I stopped using metallic threads. However, I am about to build a
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