Made up a winding check for the 6' 2/3 weight. Turned the check from aluminum bronze. Blued it and and fitted it on the rod.

The wraps are now ready for varnish. Not much else going on with the holiday coming up. Will be getting to the 7' 4 weight next. Maybe even finish My personal 7'10" 4 weight.

Thanks for looking.

Casting the 6'3" Four Weight

    Here is a 6'3" Four Weight. It is the latest rod that I finished. The rod is based on a PHY Midge. This is a very nice small stream rod. I use it often and it will do just about anything you need it to within reason. Just a great snappy little Four Weight and My favorite rod in this size for small stream fishing.

Below is casting video We made up. I had no clue how to make a casting video or post it (took forever to figure out how to get it on here). My daughter had to help Me put this together and post it. Take it for what it is. Just a way to try and show the action of the rod. I build fly rods and make pasta. Not good with YouTube and blogs. I'm learning though. The line may be hard to see at some angles. It was a little windy with gusts now and then also.

I am casting this rod with a SA DT4. It also casted a TT4 very nicely. I have a short tight brush style leader on the line. Not really ideal for a casting demo. When watching the casting video make it full screen and in HD. It looks a little better and is easier to see.

Thanks for looking and please feel free to comment or ask questions.

Thanks,
Anthony

Starting another rod

     Today I started a new rod for an order I received. This will be the second rod I have built to leave the U.S. It is just awesome to be able to send a product that I have made by hand to another angler in another part of the world. I hope it will catch many fish and serve the new owner well.

I picked out the cane for this rod today. It will be a 7' Four weight. The same rod that went off to Italy. It will be wrapped in the same colors with the identical reel seat timber.

Here are some photos of the beginning of the build.

Removing the dams inside the cane before flaming.

Picture of the cane after flaming.

Strips are split and ready for the next steps in the process.

I also turned the 4 1/2" grip for the 6' 2/3 weight today. It is now ready to wrap. This rod will have a winding check. It will make a better transition from the cork to the cane. The diameter of the cane at the cork is under .250. Predrilled cork rings have a bore of .250.

Here is a shot of the 6'3" Four weight and the 6' Two/Three weight. The Four is almost dry enough to rub out the varnish.

Thanks for taking time to look.

Rod #421511 6'3" #4 Last coat of varnish , Rod

Here is rod #421511 a 6'3" Four weight. It has its last coat of varnish now and is waiting to completely dry before polishing.

Pictures are not great, I will post better photos after polishing out the rod. I really like the color of the cane on this rod. Nice and dark.

Here is rod #421514. A 6' 2/3 Weight. We'll see for sure after casting. It has he ferrules mounted and cork is ready to turn. Looks like a nice brook trout small stream rod. 10/64th Standard ferrule.

Thanks for visiting.

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.

Two ready to wrap

    Finished up the glueing and clean up of two blanks now.  They are ready to wrap. A 6'3" 4 weight Midge and the 7'10" 3/4 weight. Two more are ready to final plane.

Removing the final remnants of glue.

I have picked out some timber for the next few rods. Koa, Cuban Mahogany, Spanish Cedar, and Koa again. I'll make final decisions after turning them.

Cork glued up for the grips. Ready to turn.

Grips after turning.

Ferrules mounted and ready for clean up and blueing.

Ferrules blued and now ready to wrap. I am thinking these are going to be wrapped in Dk. Brown vintage Gudebrod nylon tipped with orange gossamer and maybe some black thrown in also.

Thanks for looking.

Building Blanks

     So I have been building blanks and prepping strips for a couple weeks now without getting much else done. Built one prototype that I like for My own use. Scrapped a blank because I didn't like the taper. Going back to the tried and true version. I have a midge ready to glue now. That is the taper that I changed and didn't like. Have two other sets of strips that are roughed and heat treated for 6' rods.

Doesn't look like much now but, there are a few rods and reel seats in this pile.

Prepping strips for tapering is the toughest and most time consuming part of the whole process of building cane rods. It will determine your end result (great, good or bad) depending on how well you do it.

What goes into prepping strips? Here are a few steps.

Find a culm that suits the rods you are building. Make sure there are no blemishes in the part of the culm you are going to use. It is a heartbreaker when you sand a glued blank and find a water mark or nick that you didn't see. If you try and use a culm that has dips and varying thicknesses it will be nothing but wasted time. You just can not use every culm.

Culms selected nodes staggered. I use blonde culms even for flamed rods when I can.

File the outer node ring.

Flame low and slow. Trying to make an even color along the whole culm. This takes a while.

Split into as many even strips as possible.

I try to get 16 to 20 strips when splitting a culm

Press nodes after sanding a relief area behind them. Get out all the doglegs and twists while straightening the sticks. This can take hours.

True up all the strips to get even edges.

Anything that is not straight and flat at this point will ruin your whole day later on. It will cause uneven angles, glue lines and chewed up strips in the beveler.

Now its time to run the strips through the beveler. The ends must be sharpened to a pencil point so you don't wreck the strips while feeding them. Here is where you find out how well you straightened and flattened your strips. If they are off you will have headaches. I bevel the strip to .050 over final dimension.

Ready to rough out the straightened strips.

Next is heat treating. Oven temps must be even. Cooking times vary depending on the cane. Nothing written in stone here. You have to sit and watch the whole time making sure temps are on point and nothing is getting too hot.

If you have ever wandered why a bamboo rod is expensive look at the time put into it.

I will continue with the process in another post.

As always thanks.

New Reel Seat Timber

     Nothing better than getting packages in the mail. Just got a box full of Koa wood for reel seats today. Straight from Hawaii. Also, I have a nice piece of Mahogany, some Sugi Pine, Kamani, Pheasant Wood and a nice big board of Spanish Cedar.

These are all available for reel seat timber. I can also do other types of wood upon request. Although Spanish Cedar and Koa are My favorites.

Lots of nice Koa here.

The 1/4" rings for My Spring Creek 3/4 weight rod have been glued and are ready to turn now. Have not gotten to it yet. Been busy building two other blanks. One is ready to glue. Will get to that tomorrow. The other is roughed and heat treated. Ready for final taper.

As always thanks for looking.

Ready to become a grip.

Off to Italy (at least the rod is anyway)

Recently I have had the opportunity and privilege to send a rod over to Italy. This is the first rod that I have sent to another country. The rod is on its way and should be arriving soon. Thanks Andrea. I hope the new rod serves you well and catches many trout.

I have been working on a 7' 10" hollow scalloped 4 weight. This rod is a taper that I have been messing with over the last couple of years. Ferrules were fitted and glued today. Also made some 1/4" cork rings to glue up for the grip. This is rod number 12 for the year and it will be My own personal spring creek rod.

More rods on the way.

Some Rod Building Photos

      Glued up a 2/1 Prototype Rod last night. This is he third version of this rod. It will be a 7'10" Four weight with extra short size 13 ferrule. The butt section was hollow scalloped down to .075. Not quite as far as you can go, but should help with the weight. Next version will be hollowed just a little more to see the difference. This rod should still come in at around 3.4oz.

Ready for roughing is My version of a Midge. This blank will be done within the week. If interested in a great small stream rod, let me know.

Also made some ferrules out of nickel silver tube this week. They are for a copy of a very rare Heddon I used to own. 

Rod #421510 - 2/1 based on a Payne 98 - SOLD - Thanks Andrea

      Here is the latest finished rod. It is based on a Payne 98. Great 7' for a #4 line.

Shop made reel seat hardware

Spanish Cedar timber for reel seat

Hariki 12/64th extra short step down ferrule

Snake Brand guides

Rec stripper

Wrapped in black vintage Gudebrod thread tipped in Orange Gossamer silk

Custom matching rod bag

Includes Black tube

Three day inspection for return.

Full refund as long as rod is in as new condition 

Rod #421509 Dickerson 7012 - SOLD

Here are some photos of the latest rod out the door. It is sold. This rod taper was based on a Dickerson 7012. Very nice casting rod.

Next rod out is My version of a Payne 98. Just needs polished up.