I am making a rod for my fishing pardner who likes to remain anonymous on this website as he is a notorious lurker. I refer to him as the Lone Stranger. I thought I would show every step of the procedure so that those that are considering making a few rods would see just how easy it is.
This is how I build a rod and by no means the only way to build a rod. For me, this process gives the most sensitivity to the rod which is desirable for the avid crappie fisherman.
The first step is to determine exactly what the customer wants as no one wants to pay a fortune for a rod and then not be happy with it. I use the term customer rather loosely as I am retired and this is charity work for the fishing challenged . To determine what the Lone Stranger wanted I let him use several of my rods over numerous fishing trips to find out just what he wanted. We found that he liked a 9' 4 wt fly rod. He also thought that he might cast it at times so I will make it castable, this is done by using standard spinning guides instead of fly rod guides. Even though he wants it castable he wanted a fly reel seat instead of a standard spinning reel seat to alter the balance of the rod. Below you find a pic of the components I will be using.
We have the rod blank
reel seat
graphite arbors for the reel seat
cork for grip
and guides with tip.
Additional post will show each step.