Fishing - ROD BUILDING?

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- - ROD BUILDING? (http://www.fishingbanter.com/showthread.php?t=19571)

"Kevin Vang" wrote in message
t...
...You have just glued up your table top, and want to smooth it out.
You can plane it smooth with a handplane (say, $100, maybe a lot
less if you get lucky at a flea market) or you can spend $12,000
on an industrial strength Delta wide-bed planer....

Or you can take it to Kettle Moraine Hardwoods and let them do it for $0.10
per lineal foot.

Wolfgang
who, with transportation costs being what they are today, rarely travels to
either end of the spectrum, and then only when absolutely necessary.
:)

You have to decide what you want. Do you want to build ( assemble) a rod, or
do you just want a rod.

Turning a carbon fibre blank into a finished rod is not difficult at all,
and you don?t need any special tools to do it.

There is a learning curve to everything, and if you do use special tools,
then the learning curve is greater, as you need to learn how to use the
tools.

All you are basically doing here, is taking over part of the labour
intensive cost of finishing a rod, and cutting out some of the resulting
profit etc.

This does in effect save money, especially if you use a more expensive blank
and cosmetics, because you spend less cash than you otherwise would on the
end result. Also you can use whatever hardware and cosmetics you desire,
which may be an advantage over a commercial product.

There is no point in calculating your own "labour" costs. That is just as
futile as calculating the "cost" of a trout you caught.

Unless you do it just for the practice, there is little point in using cheap
blanks and hardware. In such a case you will almost always be better off
buying a cheaper finished rod. Many Korean and similar rods are extremely
good value for money, and there is no way you will beat such prices by
finishing such rods yourself. Indeed, it is unlikely that you will even be
able to obtain a blank for a comparable price, let alone the hardware and
cosmetics.

Of course, if saving money is the main objective, irrespective of the
result, then buying cheap stuff may be the only alternative. If you are
indeed obliged to do this, then I rather fear you have picked the wrong
hobby.

TL
MC

Mike Connor wrote:

There is a learning curve to everything, and if you do use special tools,
then the learning curve is greater, as you need to learn how to use the
tools.

Good point.

When I was first considering building my first fly rod I had a stroke of
good fortune. I'd casually mentioned it to a friend, who happened to be
a retired doctor who'd once owned a fly shop as a "hobby" investment. As
often happens with fly shops, it went out of business, so my rich
retired doctor friend has a double garage full of gear. The very next
day, I had every professional-grade rod building tool my heart could
desi a power winder, a hand-winding jig with thread tensioners, a
motor and jig specialized for turning handles, rat tail files of all
different diameters and coarseness, a huge assortment of cork rings,
etc. -- all free of charge.

I had no idea how to use all this stuff, and it came with no
instructions. My first step, of course, was to ask ROFF. :-) I even
posted a link to a photo of the gear. I got at least one excellent
suggestion: use the hand-winding jig for winding the wraps and use the
power winder just to dry the wraps. First, I had to replace all the
pulley o-rings on the power winder. Anyway, to get to my point, it took
me several days just to get to the point where I could use this stuff. I
think I'd have finished sooner with the cardboard-box method.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

Conan The Librarian wrote:

rather than something that makes it enjoyable.

I think people get their enjoyment in different ways, and for the most
part, want to poke fun at those who get their enjoyment differently.

Mike Connor wrote:

[snip]

There is no point in calculating your own "labour" costs. That is just as
futile as calculating the "cost" of a trout you caught.

Actually, you've swerved into the larger point I was trying to make
all along. For someone to attempt to "save" money by assembling their
own fly rod is as silly as saying that they took up fly fishing to save
money on dinner. It's a hobby, and it involves spending discretionary
cash to pursue it. If you really want to catch dinner and save money,
you use nightcrawlers or some such.

Unless you do it just for the practice, there is little point in using cheap
blanks and hardware. In such a case you will almost always be better off
buying a cheaper finished rod. Many Korean and similar rods are extremely
good value for money, and there is no way you will beat such prices by
finishing such rods yourself. Indeed, it is unlikely that you will even be
able to obtain a blank for a comparable price, let alone the hardware and
cosmetics.

Of course, if saving money is the main objective, irrespective of the
result, then buying cheap stuff may be the only alternative. If you are
indeed obliged to do this, then I rather fear you have picked the wrong
hobby.

Exactly.

Chuck Vance

Willi wrote:

Conan The Librarian wrote:

For me it would depend on what was involved in the "trip". If it
involved traveling hundreds of miles and days of fishing, then I might
be hardpressed to call it a "good *fishing* trip" (but it could still
be a "good trip"). If it involves driving for a couple of hours and
then going fishless ... well, let's just say that I've had quite a few
of those, and they were for the most part still good fishing trips to
my way of thinking.

If the weather is pleasant, the water is nice, the scenery is good,
I get a good casting rhythm going and I'm placing the flies where I
want, then it's good trip even if the fish are uncooperative.

That may very well be a good trip but IMO, it wouldn't be a good fishing
trip. To my way of looking at it, fish must be involved to be a good
FISHING trip. The other aspects of the trip might be wonderful and the
trip as a whole may be great, but I don't see how a it can be a good
fishing trip if you don't catch fish.

Belize last Winter is a good example. The fishing was pretty mediocre,
however the trip itself was terrific. Outstanding trip but not a good
fishing trip.

Maybe it's just semantics.

It's all about semantics. :-)

But by the time I factor in the costs of materials, the labor, and
the tools required, it's not going to be saving me any money.

Being self employed, there are many aspects of my business that I can
do. There is too much for me to do myself. So I put a mental price on
how little money I'm willing to work for. If I can hire someone for $7
an hour, I'm not going to do the job myself. Essentially, what that has
turned me into is a handyman. On most projects I do, I probably "earn"
$25 to $50 an hour doing the jobs. (On a furnace repair I did, I made
$350 hour - I was busy and didn't have alot of time, so I had a guy come
out. He gave me an estimate of $700 to repair it. I got the part for
$30 and it took me 2 hours to repair it including going and getting the
part).

The labor is the big cost for most labor intensive jobs. If you discount
your own labor, you can save alot by doing many things yourself. Rod
building and your furniture making are no exceptions (If you compare
your furniture with furniture of equal quality which would need to be
custom made)

You still have to factor in the investment in tools. And for
assembling a rod it sounds like it's minimal. But for furniture making,
it's not. Put another way, you *can* make furniture with nothing but a
hammer and nails, but if it's a hobby for me, I'm gong to make sure I
have the tools necessary to make the process enjoyable.

Chuck Vance (why do I get the feeling that I'm going around in
circles here? :-)

Wolfgang wrote:

"Conan The Librarian" wrote in message
...

...by the time I factor in the costs of materials, the labor, and the
tools required, it's not going to be saving me any money.

Highly variable and, sometimes at least, hard to assess. Some things
require a great deal more capital investment than others. Some things
involve a great deal more time than others. Some things result in
satisfactory results only after much more experience than others. The
monetary value of one's time and labor is a highly subjective determination.
And, judging by what I've personally witnessed (as well as what I've
experienced myself) over a lifetime, I'd say that most people tend to be
absurdly (if not to say obscenely) liberal with regard to the latter.
:)

Well, leaving aside lawyers for the moment ... :-)

I find myself in a funny position in this discussion. I make nice
things almost exclusively using handtools. If I were to factor in labor
costs on the projects I make, I would have to charge outrageous prices
for what I make. But it's not about cost. Never has been, never will be.

The same with flyfishing. When I fished with a spinning rig with an
unweighted (or lightly-weighted) nightcrawler, I could almost guarantee
I would catch fish if there were any in the water I was fishing. It was
a very efficient and economical way to fish. But somewhere along the
way, I decided that I liked the idea of fooling fish with feathers and
fur. It's not nearly so economical nor efficient.

So what? It's my hobby, and that's the way I choose to engage in
it. It's not about saving money, it's about finding what I enjoy best.
If it were about money, I'd be forced to choose a different style of
fishing (and woodworking).

Chuck Vance

Conan The Librarian wrote in news:djl761$3kat$1
@news.swt.edu:

Actually, you've swerved into the larger point I was trying to make
all along. For someone to attempt to "save" money by assembling their
own fly rod is as silly as saying that they took up fly fishing to save
money on dinner. It's a hobby, and it involves spending discretionary
cash to pursue it. If you really want to catch dinner and save money,
you use nightcrawlers or some such.

And why isn't chucking nightcrawlers a hobby to some? Chuck, you're
sounding a tad elitist. You make it sound like only people with
discretionary cash are entitled to pursue a hobby. The guy out there
picking grapes puts in more physical labor than I ever will--perhaps his
on-stream time is more valuable to him than mine is to me.

You can always find people with a hobby looking to cut corners. For
example, there are people involved with robotics, just for ****s and
giggles. A $4,000 4-channel digital oscilloscope would make their lives
easier, and their hobby more enjoyable, but not many hobbyists have those
kind of bucks.

Just cause you don't have much in the way of disposable cash doesn't mean
you don't have the right to pursue a hobby. A flyfisherman can scrape
together $150-$200, and have a perfectly servicable oufit. He might not
have a dime more to spend on it, but he's entitled to have all the fun I
can have. If such a fisherman thinks he can make his $200 go a little
farther by assembling his own rod, more power to him.

Now, when you're talking about rods in the $100 range, you can argue that
you can't do much better in terms of price if you roll your own. That
might be so, but at least you'll know that the reel seat is glued on
correctly.

--
Scott
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