taking the plunge!
- This topic has 7 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated Oct 17, 2007 at 12:57 pm by
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Ordered a bunch of rod building stuff today, including a 7.5 ft 4 weight blank and parts to go on my 10 foot 6 wt!
Pretty stoked!
Any tips
Good advice Rich.
Prep those guide feet
Take your time and keep plenty of denatured alcohol and a good alcohol lamp or bic lighter close by when you finish the rod.
Color Preserver is for decorative wraps. Don’t use it on guide wraps. I’ve seen so many guide failures where CP was used that I’ve sworn it off for good.
Patrick,
Probably the single most useful tip I ever learned in building rods in marking guide placement and the temporary attachment of guides.
1) Once you know where your guides will be placed, use a permanent Sharpie like marker that matches the blank color closely. Mark the blank at the upper or lower foot end of the guide, not the center of the guide (Be consistent which end you always use.).
all good advice.
My advice is dont be afraid to redo a wrap…once, twice, however long it takes to make it right.
My first rod I got tired of doing things over and over and then just threw in the towel hoping that the epoxy would hide my mistakes…it didnt.
Get it right no matter how long it takes.
Most everything has been said that I was going to say. Just take your time and don’t get in a hurry. I still end up rewrapping about half of my guides because I am not happy with the first wrap. The only area that you can really mess up is with the epoxy finish. It’s hard to undo a mistake there. I would practice finishing wraps on a piece of old blank (broken rod) or dowel. Also, I don’t use 5 minute epoxy on the grip and reel seat. I trashed one catching the mistake after about 6 minutes.
I now use 60 minute epoxy for the grip and reel seat. I like Flex Coat Lite for the wraps and trim. It seems to work better for me. Don’t use color preserver, whatever you do. I used it on one rod and it is very hard to work with. I had problems with applying the CP and even more problems applying the epoxy over it.
One good source of information is a 12 part series by the late Al Campbell on FAOL. Here is a link.
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/begin/graphite/index.html
Also check out http://www.rodbuilding.org for a lot of good information, links and photos. It is a great source of new ideas.
just finished the butt section and it looks freaking awesome!
Totally stoked even thought the blanke I’m using probably won’t cast worth a darn, but you know 10 dollars and ebay = practice right?
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