ROD BUILDING?

in article , Kevin Vang at
wrote on 10/21/05 12:23 PM:

In article , says...

BTW does anyone have plans for a rod turner? It seems that this is a
necessary piece of equipment.


Find yourself a cardboard box, about 2 ft. wide by 1 ft. deep by
1 ft. tall, give or take. Cut off the top, and the front side,
and then cut V-notches, about two inches deep on each of the sides
for the blank to sit in. Cut one pair of notches for each section
of the blank. Total cost: $0 (assuming you scavenge the box out
of a dumpster, and that you already own a utility knife or sturdy
scissors.)

Instructions for use: Put one section of the rod in the front
pair of notches. Using a thick epoxy varnish like Flex-Coat, load
up a brush, touch it to the wraps, and rotate the blank with your
other hand. When you have coated all the wraps, move it to the back
and start on the next section. For the next beer or so, give each
section a quarter turn every minute. For the next couple of beers,
give each section a quarter turn every 5 minutes or so. Try not
to use the hand you have been using to eat the chips to turn the
blanks.

That said, I built a rod-turning stand with stands that adjust in
sliding dovetails and thread tensioners (which actually are less
functional than using my fingers). It looks kinda classy, but I
don't think it improved the rod-building process any.

Kevin
How long does the Flex-Coat take to dry?

-- Lionel
The more I see of people, the better I like fish.

William Claspy wrote:

I've given rod assembly a thought from time to time. Certainly tool-wise,
I've got what I'd need. But somehow, and I think I'll blame Wayne Knight
for this one, I think I'll wait until I have the cajones to take on a bamboo
rod. At which point the learning curve gets kind of steep. Heck, I've got
the Garrison/Carmichael book sitting right here next to me, and it scares me
every time I read through it. And I'm not easily scared when it comes to
building stuff at a bench.

"Building" a graphite rod doesn't resemble building a bamboo rod in the
way you're considering. For most people "building" a graphite rod is
just assembling a few componants.


BTW Willi, thanks for putting up that web page TR from your and Bruiser's
trip. Made me realize it was three years ago nearly to the day that we took
on the Big Thompson together. I'm thinking about the San Juan this year,
hope we get to share a line if I do!

Cheers,
Bill



The San Juan trip has always been fun. We're just waiting on Jon to set
a date.

Willi

"William Claspy" wrote in message
...
...I've given rod assembly a thought from time to time. Certainly
tool-wise,
I've got what I'd need....

If you're up for a bit of a challenge, try wrapping line guides on a wood
turning lathe.

Wolfgang
who, live center or no, will NOT be doing that a second time.

Wolfgang wrote:

"Conan The Librarian" wrote in message
...

...At the risk of going even further afield -- I wonder if this is another
one of those cases of guys who are process-oriented vs. results oriented.
My hobbies are very much focused on the process.

For most of us, most of the time, it's a sort of hybrid. Very few of us
will bother to grow our own trees for lumber or make our own carbon fiber
sheeting.....or whatever the hell it's called. Nor will many of us buy a
vintage Record plane or a Winston rod and then pay someone to use it for us.


Touche. :-) There's an ongoing disucssion on a woodworking group I
sometimes follow that usually devolves into something along the lines
of, "well if you're not flint-knapping your own tools ...".

But I do think there's a real dichotomy there. For example, if I'm
not mistaken, Steve doesn't tie his own flies, preferring to buy them
rather than take the time to tie them up himself. I love tying flies,
and when I do buy them it's usually to get a "working model" to copy. I
have yet to build a rod, but (like Claspy, that crazy bugger) when/if I
do, I'll probably go the whole nine yards and try to build a bamboo rod.

I enjoy the fact that I have a tangible byproduct of my hobbies, but
I have so much fun partaking of the process that I imagine I'd still do
it even without the tangible evidence. If I was more concerned about
the end result, there are any number of places where I could speed up
the process and even insure that my work is more uniform.

But I've even been known to clamp a board to my bench and take a
handplane to it for no other reason than to see the little wispy
shavings come out of the plane. :-)


Chuck Vance (I've heard rumors that Bill does the same thing, too)

Wolfgang typed:
"William Claspy" wrote in message
...
...I've given rod assembly a thought from time to time. Certainly
tool-wise,
I've got what I'd need....

If you're up for a bit of a challenge, try wrapping line guides on a
wood turning lathe.

Wolfgang
who, live center or no, will NOT be doing that a second time.

I'd pay some of Bill's money to see a movie of the first.
--
TL,
Tim
------------------------
http://css.sbcma.com/timj/

Willi wrote:

Conan The Librarian wrote:


But the disposable income you spend on your *hobby* should be to
make it more enjoyable. Otherwise why would you even pursue it?

Most of it is a necessity. ie cost of getting to a place, food while I'm
there, licenses etc.

That's nice, but basically irrelevant. Everyone does that if they
wish to travel to pursue their hobbies. But hobbies are not necessities.

We've come a long way from original point, which was simply to
point out the irony in Steve's comment that you can get by just as
well with something cheap. If that were the case, I daresay we
wouldn't be fishing with expensive rods and reels, or spending our
money on rotary vises, or any of the other things we choose to do to
in pursuit of our hobbies.

I don't think I enjoy fly fishing any more now that I own a bunch of
gear than I did when I owned one rod. I view my gear from a functional
viewpoint. Unlike alot of people, I don't get much pleasure from just
owning things.

But every bit of gear you own is specifically designed to enhance
your pursuit of your hobby, no? Other than that it's just a matter of
degree.

[snip]

The right tool for the job doesn't have to be complex (or
expensive), but it will make the task easier. That holds true for
woodworking, flyfishing, fly tying, etc., etc.

And in general, I find it funny that we are discussing "getting by
on the cheap" on a group that is populated by a large number of
self-proclaimed gear whores.

That depends on how your view your equipment. A "gear whore" by my
definition is someone that gets pleasure out of just owning the gear,
not from using it. By that definition, I don't think most people here
are "gear whores".

Well, if they want to call themselves that, who am I to disagree?
:-) Leaving aside the issue of gear whoredom for a second -- do you
consider a fly rod to be a tool? Do you use the appropriate tool when
faced with a situation where you have a choice?


Chuck Vance

Conan The Librarian wrote:

But I do think there's a real dichotomy there. For example, if I'm
not mistaken, Steve doesn't tie his own flies, preferring to buy them
rather than take the time to tie them up himself.

You're mistaken.

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

"rw" wrote:
When I bought a Leatherman tool a couple of years ago I showed it to my
daughter, who was about 12 years old at the time. She thought it was
pretty cool and she went all over the house finding things for me to fix,
challenging me to use only the Leatherman. It was a hoot.

So where were you when I needed to replace the water pump in my
daughter's Pontiac Bonneville last week?

Conan The Librarian wrote:

Well, if they want to call themselves that, who am I to disagree?
:-) Leaving aside the issue of gear whoredom for a second -- do you
consider a fly rod to be a tool? Do you use the appropriate tool when
faced with a situation where you have a choice?


Yes, but it is a TOOL. For me it's the function that matters. It doesn't
matter who made it, what it's made of, how much it cost etc. etc. What
matters is how well it WORKS. That's why I don't fish my bamboo rod more
than a couple times a year. It can be fun, now and again, but as a TOOL,
it just isn't as good as graphite.

Willi

rw wrote:

Conan The Librarian wrote:

But I do think there's a real dichotomy there. For example, if I'm
not mistaken, Steve doesn't tie his own flies, preferring to buy them
rather than take the time to tie them up himself.

You're mistaken.

Oooops, sorry.


Chuck Vance (but the point I was making still stands)