Repairs

[Don]

I'm glad I built a rod building jig. Its seen allot of action and recently I used it to repair a newish Bait caster rod. I was at Rice's mkt in Bucks county during Covid. A guy had this rod for one dollar and it barely looked like it had ever been used. So I replaced the eye today using some part I had and so no purchased were made. I still have to varnish it. It is surprising how heavy some of these old school Ugly Stiks are and so it will either troll or catfish.

 

[Bootfoot]

A simple rod wrapper is nice to have. I cobbled one together a few years ago and just Recently used it to repair a 5 wt that I snapped in the tailgate of my truck. The repair cost nothing and is hardly noticeable unless you look at the rod. Otherwise the repair is invisible. Took the rod out tonight for some light sunnie an$ rock bass testing. No issues so far.

 

[troutspinner]

Nice setup. I made a setup many years ago using aluminum angle, kind of like bookshelves that I notched a V in and then used neoprene wheels on bearings. It worked really nice, I even bought a variable speed motor to wrap and automatically turn the rod for drying. I have no clue where it ended up though?

Now I just notch V’s on the ends of a cardboard box for repairs. It’s crude but it works for just repairing a guide.

 

[truecrimson]

How do you align the guides when you're putting them on?

 

[Don]

How do you align the guides when you're putting them on?

Line up the first one with the handle making sure that it's perpendicular to the flatness of the Reel seat. Then Line all the others up with that one. Look down through. Line'em all up. Some instructors suggest using a piece of soapstone or sharpie to make sight marks down the blank. I use a little tick of superglue or nail polish to hold the guides in place while I do final alignment. Then I usually place 1/4" wide masking tape over it to support it while I begin wrapping it. Once wrapped, but before glued of varnished I check alignment one mot time.
Matt covers this well:

Building a fiberglass rod

In this video series we walk you through every step of the way to building your own fiberglass fly rod. What differinciates this series from, say building a graphite rod, is we cover installing a stint (to fit reel seats on larger blanks), we will also be using varnish to seal the wraps, and...

www.proofflyfishing.com

 

[Solitario Lupo]

How do you align the guides when you're putting them on?

Use a china marker mark your distance then tape the guides on. With a thin strip of masking tape. Then spin the rod and look to see how straight it is also take the rod together and look down both ends.

 

[A-5]

How do you align the guides when you're putting them on?

Eye ball

 

[truecrimson]

Eye ball

They were never great and are not improving with age

 

[A-5]

Lol

 

[Don M]

Nice Job!! I have some othe pieces of blanks somewhere. I trash picked a broken saltwater rod last time out, It's going to make a good reamer. I can't seem use masking tape to hole guides, so I bought bands from Mudhole now no worries. I even test cast with little weight before wrapping.

 

[Don M]

If you have fluoresent lighting that is horizontal, to your build. The light will a straight beam of light down your blank.

 

[Don]

Cool trick. I look down them to be sure each succeeding Guide can be seen in line looking through them.