fishing rod


A Subsidiary Of The Reel Mechanic

The Birth Of A Custom Fishing Rod
The illustrated steps in the creation of one of my
8' Spiral Wrapped rods.

Our blank is a RainShadow IP965
8' Med.Hvy. Action, Mod.Fast Tip
10-20 lb. test lines
3/8-11/4 oz. lures
It will be Spiral Wrapped
Spiral Wrap: A method for taking the line to the bottom of the rod on conventional casting type rods. Results in a bait casting rod which will not twist under load and is inherently more stable. There are many styles of this wrap, I use the "Bumper Style" mainly now days.

First I must find the rod blanks spine. (Spine Or "Effective Spine" is an effect created by several manufacturing anomalies. The result is that the rod blank will favor bending along a particular axis when load is applied.) I place the butt of the blank on a smooth surface. Support the extreme tip end with the fingers of one hand. With my other hand, I apply pressure to the middle area of the blank. I put a decent bend in it. As I do this I will find that the blank attempts to roll into a position where it wants to stay put. Any attempt to move the blank out of this position, while it is under pressure, will result in the blank trying to remain or returning to this same position. The OUTSIDE of this curve is referred to as the "effective spine" and should be marked for reference.

Next I need to ream out (make bigger) the rear and fore grips to fit the blank. I lay the grip on a flat surface. Insert my reamer into the grip. I roll the grip, and do not slide the reamer in and out. I keep rolling the grip until I get it to the size needed. This will take equal amounts from all sides of the grips.

Next it's time to check the balance of the rod. First I place the rear grip, reel seat, and fore grip onto the rod blank, I don't epoxy them at this point. Now I put the reel that will be used on the reel seat, and hang it on my fulcrum. Here you see that the rod with the reel attached, will balance just in front of the reel. This is a good balance point for this 8' rod. The trick now is to make sure as I add the guides wraps etc., that I don't add to the weight of the rods tip area.

Now it's time to mount grips and reel seat to the blank. I use a water proof rod builders two part epoxy. I lightly scuff the area that I will be mounting the grips and seat to and start with the main grip area, applying the epoxy and sliding the rear grip into position, next I work the reel seat area (as shown) adding the graphite arbors to center the seat onto the blank. Then the last step is to mount the fore grip and wind check.

Now off to the balance tool again. I need to check that the addition of the epoxy hasn't changed the weight of the rear of the rod. Here you see that it hasn't changed the balance.