Do-It-Yourself Building your own Fly RodWritten by Brett Fogle
Every so often somebody handy at creating things wonders “hey can I build a rod myself?” normal response has been, "Get a bunch of books." Here are a few additional observations, some gained from rich experience that only comes from making mistakes, which can be far more instructive than doing things right first time. Doing something right and you only learn one way to do job; do it wrong and you learn two ways AND why right way is right way.First, like man said, get some books. One of best is L.A. Garcia's Handcrafting a Graphite Fly Rod from Frank Amato Publications. The photos are excellent. Skip Morris has maybe a more comprehensive book, The Custom Graphite Fly Rod, which as I recall from scanning it at book store, covers repairs as well as essentials. Dale Clemens's excellent volumes are encyclopedic-probably more than you want or need to know about all kinds of rods. Then get some tools: a wrapping stand (about $30-50), a slow motor to rotate rod on stand while epoxy dries (shop for a cheap one and fit it on wrapping rig however you can), a small file, and an X-acto knife. Materials you'll need are two kinds of epoxy, one for rod wrapping and another for making grip and attaching reel seat, and some masking tape. Something called a "bubble buster" is fun. It's an alcohol torch for popping little bubbles before they dry in epoxy on your wrappings. It takes a light touch, though, because it makes your epoxy runny and it can fry nylon thread wrappings underneath. If you can hack $140 or so for a Flex Coat cork lathe powered by a hand drill, do it. Shaping handle on blank is a lot easier than jury-rigged methods I've tried for making grips off blank then boring them out to fit blank. The lathe lets you bore and fit cork rings one at a time, giving a perfect, on-center bond of cork to blank. Shaping grips off blank too easily leads to embarrassment, aggravation, and expense of making a new grip when you ream out too much of core or get it off center. If you get lathe now, maybe getting a friend to share cost, you can amortize cost over all rods you build. One advantage to lathe is that you can make your grips fat, which some find makes them more comfortable than those on off-the-rack rods. If you want to slim it down later, just tape on a guide(s) to counterbalance stripping guide(s) on lower section, put it back in lathe, and sand away. (Skip Morris does rough shaping on a lathe using a high-speed Dremel tool, which invites disaster if you slip and it digs into cork. You get more control and less risk using 40 or 60 grit sandpaper for that chore.) Now for rod itself. I suggest making a spinning rod first because your mistakes will be a lot easier to live with. When you're done, you can afford to keep it or give it away, unless you're too embarrassed by outcome. The important thing is that your brain, eyes, and hands will have learned basics of epoxy flow, wrapping, guide alignment, and grip shaping in process. Even if you can afford to do a clumsy first job on a $200 blank, why make something you don't want to fish with?
| | The Importance of Fly LinesWritten by Brett Fogle
Why are fly lines so important? Just like with fly rods and fly reels, fly lines need to match up with types of fly fishing that you do. This match should be made precisely, too. Thus, if you have a 5 weight fly rod and a 5 weight fly reel, and it extremely important to make sure you have a 5 weight fly line. By not having a properly "balanced" fly rod outfit (which is where fly rod, fly reel and fly line match in weight), angler is very likely to have extreme difficulty in casting.For example, using too light of a fly line for a particular fly rod will present severe casting challenges. Remember, in fly fishing, weight of fly line - not fly itself - is what allows angler to cast. The fly rod, as it is essential to casting, will not properly cast wrong weight fly line. Thus, where fly rod is "heavier" than fly line, fly rod will never be fully loaded (will not bend properly), since weight of fly line is not enough to properly bend rod during cast. Likewise, should fly line be heavier than fly rod, fly rod will bend excessively during cast, making line control an iffy proposition at best. In essence, if you forget everything you just read on fly lines, please try to remember this very simple thing. Make sure your fly line weight matches precisely weight of fly rod you are using as well as weight of fly reel you are using. In an ideal world, you want to always go by this formula : Fly Line Weight = Fly Rod Weight = Fly Reel Weight
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