First coat of varnish on the 6'3" Four Weight

      The first coat of varnish is now dry on the 6'3" Four Weight. Now its time to sand and then repeat the steps as many times as it takes to get a nice but not overdone finish. You can see in the  photos that the brown thread turned very dark brown. The lighting and camera work don't show the true color very well. I will take better pictures when the rod is finished and polished out.

Dip tube shown here. First coat of varnish going on.

Thanks for looking.

Progress

      The 6'3" Four weight is wrapped and has the first Two coats of varnish now. Here is a picture of the wrap color now. The Brown turned a nice chocolate color and it sets off the Orange nicely.

Wraps don't really look all that good at this stage. After Three more coats of varnish and a few dips later they will though.

Finished a few reel seats today and started planing out a 6' Three weight. This rod will have a standard 10/64th ferrule. You can see the strips in the background of the reel seat photo. Also you can see a vintage Hardy Princess fly reel. This dates to right around 1953. It is a rare one. Most of these reels that I have seen are usually bigger than the 3" size and an awful green color.

The reel seats from right to left are Koa, Koa, and Cuban Mahogany. I still have a Spanish Cedar and another Koa to finish up. When the hardware is complete I will post some photos of it.

6' Three weight strips at .050 over final dimensions.

I will also post some pictures of My 7'10" Four weight when wrapping is complete. This will be My own personal rod. You can never have enough fly rods!!!! 

Also I will put up some casting videos to show the action of the rods when completed.

Thanks for looking.

Wrapping one up in fall colors

Here is a 6'3" midge wrapped up in brown and orange. Later it will get varnished. I have not tried this color combo yet. Hope I don't have to rewrap if the colors don't show well together. I will post pictures of the wraps after varnish.

Thanks for looking.