"Ken Fortenberry" wrote in message
. ..

A custom built rod will always be *more* expensive
than a factory rod built on the same blank. You *cannot* save
money by building the rod yourself. What you can do is use nicer
components and find the spine and otherwise fine tune the rod
to your tastes but you don't build 'em yourself to save money.
You build 'em yourself for other reasons.

This used not to be true -- when firms like Orvis (US) and
Geoffrey Bucknall (England) sold complete kits for home
assembly of several of their standard rods, priced at 50
to 66 per cent of assembled rod cost. Are these kits
no longer available?

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)