Building Fly Rod Questions

[rstaight 0]

Oh yea,

 

I reccomend getting a kit for the first rod you build. It gets you familer with the basic components and techniques with out having to worry about all the other stuff.

 

Mudhole.com is a good place for instructions and supplies.

[Bryon Anderson 0]

As far as the two rods you're planning to build, I would concur with what's already been said here--single-foot snakes on the 5 wt., single-foot spinning or casting style guides with ceramic inserts for the 10 wt. When you need to shoot line, the single-foot ceramic insert guides do make a big difference. They are also a lot easier on your fly line than any kind of snake guide, just in terms of wear.

 

A good resource, when you're ready to buy stuff, is www.mudhole.com. They have everything you could possibly want or need in the way of components, and their website has some tutorials for beginning rod builders too.

 

Enjoy! Rod building can be just as addictive as fly tying.

[Dave G. 0]

 

 

Enjoy! Rod building can be just as addictive as fly tying.

And rewarding !!

[Bryon Anderson 0]

 

 

 

Enjoy! Rod building can be just as addictive as fly tying.

And rewarding !!

 

Absolutely

[WVUontheFLY 0]

 

"....want the fighting butt for carp, large smallmouth, and possibly light salt possibly on a trip to Florida. For the 5wt I will be using a salt water action fly rod, same for the 10wt. There are so many times of guides I didn't know where to start.

 

 

Other considerations that I found helpful for me when building a rod ~ I think of the fish I'm after, the size of flies I'll be casting, then the line/leader/tippet regime, then the rod & reel. Building it backwards so to speak. A salt-proof reel is something else to look at too.

 

Get yer eyeballs over to http://www.rodbuildingforum.com & http://rodbuilding.org - tons of

good info when starting out.

 

 

 

Almost 95% of the time the 10wt will be used for musky, casting a 400g type 6 full sink line with 10-16" flies. Then the 5wt will be an absolute work horse for my smaller warm water endeavors and chucking streamers at trout.

 

I have been spending a lot of time on youtube and mudhole watching videos and trying to figure out the components for the different outfits I would like to build.

 

I am very appreciative with all the info everyone has been giving, also I am sure I will get just as consumed with building rods as I am with tying and fishing... lol

[BBBruce77 0]

The one piece of advice I was given, when I was in your place, was to up size all the guides one size larger than what is generally reccamended. The line just flows more easily through the larger guides.

[Capt Bob LeMay 0]

I do concur with most of the advice given with a few exceptions.... I'm not sure a fighting butt on a 5wt is needed - but if so I'd want it quite small -that 10wt will need a fighting butt... Make a point of getting a close look at new rods by Sage -you'd be hard pressed to improve on the guide setup that they use as far as size, spacing, and style of guides. I've built one or two rods with single foots over the years - but I've never been a fan of them. I use hard chromed snake guides for everything other than stripping guides which are conventional with ceramic inserts. The advice to go to larger sized guides won't hurt at all with the 10wt (once again get a close look at how Sage does it -they've got it down..).

 

For all the larger rods that I build myself, 8wts all the way up to serious "rug beaters" I do something you won't see much for the fighting butt... I mount the reelseat a bit forward (from one inch for an 8wt up to almost 1.5" for a 12wt from the end of the blank... Once the glue has hardened, I then turn down a soft foam piece for the fighting butt and work it onto the end of the blank (the foam butt is sized 1/4 to 1/2" longer than needed so there's an overlap of that amount off the end of the blank for real comfort when fighting a big fish when you're going to be on the rod for an hour or more. You're choking up on the rod since your hand is a bit higher on the blank when casting.... The hidden advantage is that with your reelseat slightly higher on the blank the rod feels just a bit lighter in your hand than it normally would.

 

I don't have a pic of a completed rod with this style of fighting butt - but here's three pics from a sample rod I used to use when helping a customer choose wraps, etc. It clearly shows everything except the turned foam butt.....

[Philly 0]

How to hold the guides on while wrapping has come up a couple times. When I started building I used small strips of masking tape to holding the guides in place when wrapping. This worked OK on the larger guides but not so much on the smaller ones. Tough to cut a thin enough strips even with a razor blade and then wrapping the masking tape with enough pressure to hold the guide in place. Someone, might have been Dale Clemens, suggested that I should pick up a pack of small orthodontic elastics. These are the small latex bands that were, might still be, used to maintain pressure on braces. They work great. You just slide them on the blank, then up and onto the guide foot. When you've got enough thread wrapped on the foot to hold it in place you can use scissors or a razor to cut them off. Because they're under tension, a light touch with the razor or nip with the scissors will pop them off.