Separating The Bs From The Buckwheat

[SteveM]

CDone,

 

Perhaps the way to deal with assembly vs builder is to look @ my personal experience. I assembled my first fiberglass rod in 1969. Bought the parts on Friday and was fishing it Sunday. Total time about 4 hours. Blank, handle, guides & reel seat were premade. I supplied glue, varnish, a Campbell soup box to hold the rod while wrapping, a tea cup to hold the thread, a dictionary as a thread tensioner and some masking tape. Total tooling about $2.00. Instructions were provided on a single sheet of 8.5*11 paper.

I started acquiring the equipment for build cane blanks from scratch in 1978. That took 3 years while I got forms, the dipping tank, binder, sharpening system, workshop built, tempering oven constructed and on and on. Total tooling about $5,000. Then I purchased a lathe and milling machine. Whoops, there goes another $15,000. And then I got the parts needed like cane, cork rings, ferrules, guides, wood inserts, threads, nickel silver round stock for reel seats and on and on. Damn this is getting expensive @ another $5,000.

And then to start. First to chose a taper and translate into a blank. Then to understand what the taper was designed to do. Well, that took about another 28 years so far and it's done yet. And after all of the $'s outlay, I finally got a single bamboo rod that I fished once and bust it over my knee as it was crap. Only took another 10 or so years to have some understanding of tapers so I could get close to what a decent fishing rod is all about. Of course, all the while that the taper learning was going on, I was increasing my skills in construction, experimenting with glues, oven tempering temperatures and the like. To sum up, takes about 50>70 hours to make a cane fishing rod - I can crank out a graphite in about 4>5 hours while watching TV.

 

While I realize that I'm building rods whose construction techniques by in large haven't changed a lot in the past 100 years, I get a kick outta the travels and learning. Further, there are more cane rod builders out there now that there ever was.

 

Putting fancy thread wraps etc on some ones else's idea of a decent fishing pole is similar to painting flames on a 56 Chev. Really makes it go faster.

 

Don

 

Don, I hope these guys aren't making you feel guilty about looking down on those who merely "assemble" flyrods; after all, there's probably some

guy out there who grows his own bamboo & builds rods out of it. He's looking down on you because you're simply a "builder", while he's a "creator"

of flyrods.

BTW, the more I read your recent posts, the more I think that you & Fishead will get along famously on your jet & drift on the Bow.

 

-Steve-

[DonAndersen]

Steve,

 

The intent of the original post was to separate the BS from the buckwheat. Hence the discussion of rod line weights. The comment of who discerns the taper was mine as I think I'm one of the few that make their own tapers. As far as I know, there are no individual builders of graphite rods in Canada and few in the world. When you acquire a graphite rod, you get what the rod designer believes the rod should cast [if he is honest]. The difference between a person who designs his own taper & translates that into a finished product and the person who assembles equipment provided by others is hours of work. There is no question that both require some level of craftsmanship to complete the job.

 

People assemble rods for several reasons:

1] They think they may save money.

2] They want to install more bling than the manufacturer does on a particular rod.

3] They want to "individualize" their equipment through handle shape, thread work, inlays, reel seat construction and the like.

 

 

Rod builders have floundered with what is a builder as well. The guy who builds the blank may not & probably didn't construct the ferrules, guides, mined the steel, smelted the aluminum, skin cork trees that he grew in Portugal , cut his own cane from his plantation in China. BUT, what he did do is take the materials and create a blank with his own taper. He had some idea of what he wanted and how to get there. The installation of the rest of the equipment is somewhat secondary to how the rod will cast.

 

And Steve, I have no idea who Fishead is or you for that matter and to deride someone who has attempted to shed some light on the line weight question kinda ticks me a tad - deleted the rest on second thought.

 

Enjoy your February,

 

Don

[Taco]

[EdB]

Ahhh Taco...you kill me. Getting ready for the show are ya?

[SteveM]

Hey Steve or blah,blah, blah or whatever your name is;

Going thru your small petty, useless life ,poor , stupid and naive is no way to be....Time to upgrade perhaps??

Mr. Anderson has many great helpfull points and you are to thick to get it.

 

Your small opinions mean nothing to me...

 

James, you never cease to amaze me! I mean, you can gather that I'm stupid & naive through my posts on the forum,

but how the hell did you know that I'm poor as well? Oh, wait...it's 'cuz I don't own a $25,000 jetboat, isn't it? Dead

give-away, right there.

Now, you may return to kissing the butt of the man who has "no idea who Fishead is" two days after you sang his praises

& offered him a day of fishing with you...maybe the two of you can discuss the relative merits of a sense of humour. You

may have to Google it. Good luck!

Have a nice day,

Steve

[Taco]

Ahhh Taco...you kill me. Getting ready for the show are ya?

 

Yup, it's almost fun as this...

[DonAndersen]

Life continues,

 

Got to go fishing for 2 of the last 3 days. Caught some too!!! Get to dip varnish 2 rods today and perhaps temper one more, read a decent book, ponder why Trojans come in three flavors [dog found a empty box in the yard so I didn't get a taste test], contemplate whether or not I want my ass kissed or for that matter want to ride in a $25,000 jet boat [i generally only lower myself to ride in $40,000 boats], do some more reading on the Commonsense method of determining rod action/line weight and chose a new piece of cane for some butchering and lastly cook supper.

 

Hey guys - relax - February is about over!!

 

 

catch ya'

 

Don

[SteveM]

Life continues,

 

Got to go fishing for 2 of the last 3 days. Caught some too!!! Get to dip varnish 2 rods today and perhaps temper one more, read a decent book, ponder why Trojans come in three flavors [dog found a empty box in the yard so I didn't get a taste test], contemplate whether or not I want my ass kissed or for that matter want to ride in a $25,000 jet boat [i generally only lower myself to ride in $40,000 boats], do some more reading on the Commonsense method of determining rod action/line weight and chose a new piece of cane for some butchering and lastly cook supper.

 

Hey guys - relax - February is about over!!

catch ya'

 

Don

 

Sounds like a good day, Don; throw in a couple hours fishin', & it's an awesome day.

Since I got to punch 8 hours at work, I need to go for a walk with my kid & my dog

to make this a good day for me.

I swear, when I typed "walk", the dog ran to his leash...honest!

Later,

Steve

[Rainbow]

Don. What do you think about the Common Cents System?

 

Executive summary: Use a bag of pennies to meaure how much it bends and where.

 

Sounds like once you know what type of rod you like, you can use this system to find a similar rod regardless of the manufacturer. Do you think a person could use this system to learn which type of rod loaded with a certain weight line would work for them?

 

Hydropsyche have you ever tried this method. I read the articles after reading your post and then measured the intrinsic power and the action angle of my three rods. My new rod is fast action #7 according to the measurements I got.

I then weighed the first 30 ft of my 4 lines and did I get a surprise.

 Floating line that I thought was a #6 turned out to weighed 220 grains making it a #8 line

 Fast sink line that I thought was a #7 turned out to weighed 200grains making it a #8 line

 Sink Tip line that I thought was a #6 line weighed 180 grains making it a #7 line

 Slow sink that I thought was a # 6 line weighted 90 grains making it a # 3 line

 

I then went out to the park down the street and cast the first three lines with the new rod. I could cast the floating line the best; even being out of shape I could cast it 50 ft with out much trouble. The fast sink was harder to cast that distance and the sink tip I got out about 40 ft.

So it looks like I need a line that weighs about 220 grains for the first 30 ft.

 

My next step was to go to the Internet and look for specs for different brands of fly lines and found that most do not give the weight of their lines only Rio gave weights. Their Outbound WF 6 F/SI weighs 240 grains for the first 37.5 ft

 

Next step will be to find a shop that has this line spooled on a reel a give it a try.

[hydropsyche]

Hi Rainbow. No. I've never experimented with the system as much as you just did. Good on ya.

 

I heard about it from the rodbuilding.org site but back then, it wasn't public (you had to pay for the pamphlet). Now that I see its in the public domain, I though I'd share it with those on this board who have more experience in these matters. I see DonA is currently scrutinizing it.

 

Sounds like it helped you determine the line you need for your new rod. Good stuff. But if you can cast the 220grain 50ft with ease, maybe something with more grains will cast even easier? It is a fast rod and maybe "overloading" is what's right for you (for distance). Keep in mind, the heavier the line, the more splat it has, which is not good for dry flying spooky fish.

[DonAndersen]

Lets move the Commonsense discussion to another thread. This discussion could go on for days for those interested in rod actions/line weight/frequency and how most anglers might be lead down the garden path.

Read the Commonsense methods - got questions.

 

catch ya'

 

 

Don

[dryfly]

adc alerted me to this discussion most of which I ignored. Don, good points about line weights although I've only had one real issue with mismatched line-rod. Anyway, adc told me about Jim's post in which he wrote, "Zephyr...nobody ever bought one."

 

He he. I think I have a blank Zephyr rod. Twenty some years ago my bro purchased an Orvis blank in 5-wt and ASSEMBLED it for me. It weighs not much less than a standard-bred poodle and limp as ..... limp as an overcooked noodle. Like Al, I don't use it much, but it REALLY is sweet to cast. It is a soft open noodly wand. Sweet.

[Rainbow]

Lets move the Commonsense discussion to another thread. This discussion could go on for days for those interested in rod actions/line weight/frequency and how most anglers might be lead down the garden path.

Read the Commonsense methods - got questions.

 

catch ya'

Don

 

Don how do we move it or get it moved.

[DonAndersen]

Rainbow,

 

Think that we just best start a new thread titled Commonsense Fishing Rod method.

 

Wouldn't want to leave out the Fishing Rod from the title - specially as there is a Provincial election going on - some might get confused.

 

Don