Early 90s smokercraft with 90 horse merc. They are camping at vines. I will be out of town this weekend and next week up in BC for work but the next weekend I will be down fishing with them. Maybe see ya around.

Man! I love the color scheme in that last one! One thing I noticed, do you usually do your wraps with the handle already on the blank? I usually do the wrap first, then apply an end wrap where the handle comes to on the blank and epoxy the handle on over the very bottom edge of the end wrap.

I fit the handle directly to the blank, if I put the handle the hole in the handle would have to be larger than the diameter of the blank to fit over the thread and the blank would have to be built up with tape or something. I prefer not to do that.

I see, I just tend to have the handle drilled out just a touch larger than the blank, and then like you said, use tape to build arbors on it. One advantage, I think, is that you get more epoxy to hold the handle pieces to the blank.

Actually as with most glues the less epoxy or other bonding agent you need to fill the gap between the two pieces the stronger the bond. If you think about gluing two pieces of wood together you clamp them together and literally squeeze all the glue out.

However I have done a few handles similar to what you do, they have no failed, so I really don't think it is an issue.

Top notch work UpNorth! Great picts and explinations. The tip with the stick will help me alot. That step is a pain without it and I never thought of it, thanks...

The Popsicle stick sure does make it easier to cut all that stuff off without scaring your handle or blank. I picked that up off another forum(can't take credit for figuring it out myself).

Nice. Very Nice. Up, you got it going on. Great tutorial. I hope this site continues down that path. Thanks. Keeps us rod builders going to see that and pushes those sitting on the fence off into trying it. Good job.

Folks lets see more. Even at the basic levels. We got our own little community growing here!

T

I agree with CRF, even the basic stuff is nice too. I have seen come real clean nicely done stuff out there and that is worth showing off also.

WOW, very nice work. I have never gone that far with a wrap. I like the handle also

It is as addicting as the rest of rod building, once you start you never go bacd

What a great gift! My father in law is a great carpenter and does most of his work as a gift minus the cost of wood. I never have been artistic so I doubt I will jump into rod building but it sure blows my mind when I see it done well.

Not everyone does stuff that elaborate. It is just want I like to do. There are many, many very finely built custom rods out there that don't have that kind of thread work on them.

The biggest things is you can build it exactly the way you want it. You select the exact blank with action you want, you get the guides you want, the handle and reel seat that fit you, and if you want the colors that are pleasing to you.

It doesn't have to be fancy to be a nice custom made rod.

Well the more I fish the more picky I get about what I want in a rod... Did you start with really cheap blanks? I haven't spent a lot of time in this forum, maybe I can find a post that points to a good place to purchase blanks. A brief [YouNeedAuthorization] effort did not turn up much for me. I have a more than a gallon of epoxy from a project I ended up scrapping; although I am not sure if a certain type is preferred. Thanks for some inspiriation.

FJ.

I can help get you started. Email me at AWolfram@hotmail.com