Custom rod building!

Well, since my boat has been "finished" for a little bit now and I dont need to spend every night out there fiberglassing, I have decided to pick up rod making.

I got a rod building kit from Santa, my first project was to repair my wifes broken rod. She loves that rod, and they stopped making it.

So, I cut the rod where it was broken, put a insert from another rod inside the 2 broken parts. Then I wrapped it and then epoxied the thread.





I have also ordered all the parts to make my first custom rod. I am jumping right in and building myself a light travel rod for trout and panfish. Trying to make it as light weight as possible so I went with a split grip and microwave finesse guides.
I was going to go with a Tennessee handle (no reel seat, you tape the reel to the handle) but decided that since its a travel rod, I need to remove the reel pretty often, and having a seat would make that much easier.



Hoping that I can get good at this and start making a whole line of travel rods for people.

 

Got my first kit today!
Started out by dry fitting the grip and reel seat


Not going to install the reel seat or handle just yet, I needed to order some new winding checks as the ones that it came with were too large for this rod.
So, I will be mostly be working on the 2 other sections of the rod, first step is to find the spine of the rod so I can get everything lined up right. Im going to put on all the line guides first, do some testing and make sure they are where I want them. I can wrap and epoxy the line guides with the exception of the big guide that needs to be on the handle section before my winding checks show up.

I would like to learn how to do diamond wraps too, I think doing the bottom of the handle and a little bit past the front grip with a diamond fade wrap would look really nice.

 

Wrapping the guides, just using black right now, but I am going to do the 3 tip guides in orange. But this damn cat keeps trying to eat my thread

 

No pictures because its a black rod with black thread, but all the guides are on and epoxy is spread on the thread. Its just spinning in the drying rack right now, I need to let it spin for 24-72 hours for the epoxy to harden.
Once the guides are all done curing, I will be putting the ferrule wraps on and putting the tip on. Hoping by the time all that is done, my winding checks will be in so I can finish the grip.

 

Ok I lied, here are some pictures. You cant really see whats going on, but its there.
The guides I chose are way way smaller than I thought they would be, but they should do really well on a light rod with thin line.

 

Awesome! I built up a fly rod a few years ago and had a blast!

 

Playing around with diamond wrapping today. Im waiting on some more thread and some winding checks before I put the grip on, so I am using this time to screw around.

I really like this wrap, but I screwed it up by using black on the ends instead of using the same gray that I used in the wrap. I will be redoing the wrap again later, but doing it in 3 colors of orange along with the silver and gray.

 

Version 2 of the butt wrap. Used more wraps and changed the end wraps to be the same gray as the diamonds are.

 

Rod is all done, I went with a simple wrap for the handle because I wanted my first rod to not look too sloppy with a bad wrap. I will be practicing my wrapping before I commit to locking it in on a rod.
Next rod I am doing is going to be a medium heavy baitcaster travel rod, not sure on the colors for it, but I really want to do snake skin and brown thread with metallic brown trim.

 

pac bay, cheap power wrapper & dont look back...
makes wrapping more enjoyable & way faster....
When I first started wrapping, few people had the mindset you must crawl before you can run...
They said getting a power wrapper wasnt a good idea for a newbie...
Wrong, makes everything easier.....

 

I do need to get something that I can move the thread carriage on, right now I have to move the whole rod each time I need to do a wrap.

 

https://getbitoutdoors.com/batson-pwp

great brand, looks like one of the cheapest option these days...
I dont use the thread carriage, still just use bobbins to tension & control the threads...

batson makes rainshadow blanks, alps guides, great guy, met him multiple times...

 

I've built several rods. It's very therapeutic. I got bit by the self serve bug so bad that I had to move on to building my own drift boat. I'm on my 3rd one in 5 years.

I do not want to thread jack, so I will apologize.

This is my random project/ boat build thread if any one cares.https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/koditten-random-project-boat-build-thread.833295/

 

It is very therapeutic. Much more so than the boat I did last year... I was itchy for months after finishing that thing.

Im hoping to make some more rods mostly in designs I want, but I feel like I will not be saving any money building my own


https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/1980-hydrostream-vamp-resto-mod.814309/

 

You are probably correct.

I break so many rods by accident or give them away, it makes me little sense to go high end.

I only do fly rod fishing, so I don't have a dog in the hunt for other rod types.

I've spent time and money trying high end rods and basic Cabalas brands. The difference in performance is not enough for me to keep dropping the big money.

I'd rather spend $400 on 3 Cabalas rods vs $800 on one Orvis Helios.

I've made many people happy by donating 2 of those Cabalas rods.

Building your own rod is money ahead just for the satisfaction of doing it yourself.