mhackney 0 Report post Posted December 9, 2010 Many of you may know the name John Betts. He was Fly Rod & Reel's Angler of the Year in 2006, and author of Synthetic Flies which was a significant influence to many fly tyers, and Making Strip-built Fly Rods. John is also an accomplished reel maker. Recently, John transcribed hundreds of pages of his personal shop notes made over a period of three decades. The manuscript consists of over 400 pages of beautifully hand-written text and illustrations. More than 450 color photographs illustrate the background, ideas, procedures, and sequence of steps used to make reels of aluminum, brass and exotic woods. John has asked me to publish his book as a digital edition and make it FREE to everyone to download, use and print for personal use (the book is copyrighted and you are not permitted to redistribute or sell it). It will take many months of scanning and formatting to complete the work and the plan is to post new sections on a monthly basis over the course of a year. The first sections of the book - about 100 pages - have been posted and are now available here: Reels & Making Them. These first sections include the Cover, Frontis Plate, Front Art, Table of Contents, Introduction, Section 1 - Shop Drawings, Section 2 - Practice and Section 3 - A Diary. Regards, Michael Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites