Building A Rod from a kit

[Fishin4Life]

I was looking at buying a rod building kit to experiment a little bit with making my own rod. Have any of you guys done this? It looks like you can save a ton over pre-made rods. Is it hard to get it it to turn out good? Or will I just be tossing money away. Thought it might be something fun to try.

[83walleye]

Nothing to it, although I'll bet you get better as you go. Tight wraps - no overlaps - follow the directions and you'll find a great new hobby. Cardboard box with cutouts - thread - a rod dryer is a good investment, but not absolutely necessary. I'd go with a Cabela's kit to start - their in-house blank kits are pretty good quality, and cheap as well.

[Fishin4Life]

I was looking into the cabela's one. I think it is $50, for a fast action MH casting rod kit. If it works well its a great rod for the price. I think I will go fer it. Thanks!

[SteveWilson]

It's fairly easy to the get the mechanics of rod building down. I still use the first rod I built. Learning how to determine guide spacing takes a bit of time and some of the other techniques can take a bit of skill but you can make a very, very good rod your first time out. You'll probably want to get catalogs from Jan's Netcraft and Mudhole and checkout rod-building.org for answers to some of your questions. As for saving money it's somewhat hit or miss. If you build a non-fly rod on a St. Croix blank using similar components it will end up costing you about the same as buying it. However, if you choose to use many of the non-name brand blanks you can build a better rod than the main makers for less money. When it comes to fly rod though, you can save a bunch of money building them yourself. Saving money shouldn't be the main driving factor though, getting exactly what you want should be. I build most of my rods but for trolling I think the Shimano Talora rods are great and I couldn't build one for the price they charge and I haven't been able to find a similar blank yet.

Once you start building your own rods and making some of your own lures (I tie flies, spinner baits, buzz baits, and mepps imitations) you'll have a certain satisfaction catching a fish with a rod and lure that you've built yourself.

[rushing]

Steve nailed it! Its not about saving money its about making something the way you want it. There is some skill invovled and its a learning process but its not hard just time consuming. A cheap kit is the way to go for starters then once you have a better idea of what it takes you can put alittle more money into it. I have only built fly rods but I plan on building a nice heavy cat rod this winter. Good Luck!

[Fishin4Life]

Cool thanks for all your input. Being a lifetime angler (since I was little) but only really heavy into it the last year or two, I still am unsure of exactly what I want in a Rod. But I think by trying many different styles and types I am gradually learning. Thought making one might be the best way really appriciate my gear, and hopefully turn out a great rod.

When you guys build yours, what details do you change to make it to you standards? Do you just varry the length in between each line guide? Maybe some pointers on how I can get it customized to my liking... A novice at best at my information on what makes a rod great.

I know I like 7' fast action so far, MH prefered for casting, but beyond that....My knowledge is limited.

[SteveWilson]

Quote:

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When you guys build yours, what details do you change to make it to you standards? Do you just varry the length in between each line guide? Maybe some pointers on how I can get it customized to my liking... A novice at best at my information on what makes a rod great.

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Well I've been getting fairly heavy into fly fishing and wanted a few great rods. Problem is a good Sage or Winston rod costs around $500 or more and the director of finance would shoot me if I bought $3K worth of Sage rods. So,

I built a few on great blanks (Dan Craft mostly) with excelent components for less than $200 per rod - much more within budget.

Anyhow, the first thing you'll do is spine the blank and make sure your guides are aligned with the spline. Most manufacturers don't spline their blanks before building as it would take too much time in a fast paced production environment. Spineing alone will improve things.

The second is in selecting guides and guide spacing. I like to build spining rods with a specific reel in mind and I will use the reel to determine where the crossover (that's what I call it) guide is; from there out to the tip the guides are fairly small, from the crossover guide to the reel is where the diameter of the guides grows greatly. From there I static balance the guide spacing to follow the curve of the specific blank. Factory rods have their guides at the exact same place, rod after rod, without taking into account the natural varience between blanks. As a custom builder you have the ability to match the guides to the blank. You can always test cast before wraping the guides to make sure that you're happy with the results before commiting to it. Factory guide spacings are a good starting place though and I will use them as a reference, but always feel free to improve.

The third area are handles. I have somewhat small hands but have always prefered larger grips on things - tennis rackets, musical instruments, fishing rods, you name it. I guess being a bass player all my life has gotten me use to large grips. So, when I make a rod for me I can make the handle any shape I want, in any style, and any size. Who says an ultralight rod needs a tiny grip! Conversely, I can make a short (6') muskie/pike rod with a fairly long but thinner grip that my 7 year old daughter and 8 year old son can use. It's fun watching my 7 year old tackle a 26" pike!

Lastly when you build your own rod you can decorate it any way you want. My daughter has a nice 5'6" light rod, built on a discontinued St. Croix Legend Ultra blank, with rainbow guides and hot pink metalic wraps - looks way cool, fishes great, and matches her pink camo pants, buzz off shirt, and pink cap. She can slaughter her fair share of crappies and bass. My son of course favors blue, so I built him a Medium 6'6" two piece spining rod with blue cork and burt cork in a checkerdboard pattern, color changing metalic blue/red paint, rainbow guides, metalic blue wraps, and some gold/blue/copper/dark blue metalic butt wraps. My self, I like a bit of color in my wraps and like working with cork on the handles. Since very high quality cork is getting hard to find and expensive, I'm using more composite cork product and using different colors and paterns in my work. I also like fly rods with single foot guides - hard to find commercially, easy to do by yourself. It's a nice feeling when a couple of fellas see you land a decent size steelhead on the Brule and they ask you what gear your using and you say "I made it myself on a fly I tied, landed in a net that I built."

[83walleye]

One other thing - start with a spinning rod. Single foot guides mean you'll have only five or six guides to tie instead of double foot guides, which means twice as many wraps. Just makes it easier first time around...but whatever - you'll have fun!!!! rod-building.org is a great resource as well.

And I forgot to add the Cabela's instructions are great - guide spacing is pretty important so that the blank loads appropriately while fighting fish - all to avoid breakage. They usually include a chart for all/any rods you may want to build.

[Fishin4Life]

Awesome, thanks for all the great information. I will let you know how it turns out when I get the kit (probably over the dull winter months )

[upnorth]

There is absolutely no reason that you have to double foot guides on a casting rod. I just built my self a heavy Musky Rod and except for the 1st 2 guides they are all single foot. And I also did a spiral wrap on it with split grips made of Spalted Birch, sweet setup.

The biggest thing you need for rod building is attention to detail. The rest you can learn. I build about 20 or so rods per year and I can tell you the ones I build now are much better constructed than the first few.

Building your own rods gives you the freedom to do it exactly the way you want it. I would also visit rod-building.org and do some searching and maybe ask a few questions.

[augernaut]

You may want to build your first rod from a kit, but after that, you will find yourself hooked (sorry), and soon you will be buying a lathe, turning your own grips, etc. It is a VERY addicting hobby. A couple tips from me:

1.) don't worry about the spine of the rod - any effect of rod spine is VERY overated when compared to the other forces acting on the rod - align your guides/reelseat along the straightest axis of the blank, this will maximize casting accuracy. In the past, rodbuilders really focused on the spine and it's alignment - this has, for the most part, really fallen by the wayside in the last couple years in favor of aligning along the straightest axis. For more info on this, check out rod-building dot org.

2.) Don't waste your money on sage, winston, loomis blanks. There are better blanks on the market for much less money. Dancraft as mentioned, CTS, and Batson/Rainshadow all make blanks that are superior to the big names - they just don't pay the advertising bill that the big names do :-)

4.) Overall, you will probably not save alot of money over a factory rod - don't build rods to save money, build them to craft yourself a rod built exactly the way you want it. Do some research into the best construction techniques, etc, and you will have a rod that is far superior to anything - and I mean anything - you can buy off of a rack.

[upnorth]

I am building a rainshadow RX7 9' 5 wt fly rod right now and that is one sweet blank.

I will also say the St. Croix blanks are pretty nice too. I just finished a 6' ultra light fast action for a guy at work, I may just have to order up a blank for me too That is the nicest ultra light I have put my hands on.

[nitroant]

If you can find a class to take, do it, it helped me a lot. The class I took was put on by some guys that I used to work with and they pretty much only do it for people they work with, but it helped tons. There is a place in Marine on the St. Croix called Wild River and a lot of local people get their stuff there. You used to be able to get St. Croix seconds that had scratches and stuff, but St. Croix has since stopped selling their seconds. Its a fun hobby and I enjoy fishing with all 4 of the custom rods I have built so far. I have one more blank to build and then I am done for a while. Make sure you mix the glues just as it says or they will either dry to quick, or never at all. Thorne Brothers sells parts and stuff to do your own rods, but I have found that there not interested in that too much and would rather sell you the rod finished. Not a rip on Thorne, I love the place, but just not the most helpful to a guy looking for help on building his own custom rod. There is plenty of info on the web too. The big thing is taking your time. Also, when you start the spinning process for epoxy on the thread for the eyes, make sure the cat is not around. That spinning rod is too much for them to handle and that glue is hard to get out of the hair, or at least that is what I have heard. Have fun and take your time. Start with something simple and maybe only one thread color. Black is the hardest to see when your winding it onto a black blank, but it looks the best even when the rows are not the tightest, so its nice for beginners.