Putter

Close ups of black, silver and light blue marbled butt wrap (all Testors). I mixed a bit of white with the royal blue to get a shade that would come close to the ice blue that I split the guide wraps with.

I got these two done, took a pic of the ferrules on this pair of two piece rods. Finishing up on the Outlaw rod now.

A friend brought this to me this week. Had broken the tip on a pair of factory rods. About two inches broken off on both, the tip now is 4.5 There was 5 1/4" between the tip top and the first guide. Really off center; wonder how much this contributes to the breakage? Can't measure the old tip size exactly but it's less than 4.0, probably 3.5

Got these two diamond wraps done for a couple of die-hard fishermen. Son's was a suprise gift from dad.

After taking some more time with it, I have found that my camera is a very important tool in my rodbuilding. Sony CDMavica MPeg Movie HQX with 6X zoom used in macro; NO flash.

I finished this one in the wee hours this morning. Also started on a couple more swing arm lamp brackets. I decided to start doing some close-ups on the marbeling; it can really be intricate if you want to get into detail. Largest part of butt measured .42" before starting. Shawn-try doing this in Coors!!

Hey, Ray It's all Pac Bay!!! Tradition 7'0" one piece blank. Reel seat, guides, arbors, cork grips, winding check and butt cap were all Pac Bay on this one. They're the only manufacturer jumping in to help our troops(so far); I'm going to support that!! My hat is off to them for their efforts. Thank you, Pac Bay. Putter

Tim's choice of colors; looked pretty nice on the plum-colored Tradition PAC BAY blank. #12 DF PAC BAY guide. My swing arm lighted magnifying lens broke last week and I'd switched to A thread on this rod. I had a real tough time; I would wrap one guide and then walk away for a half hour. Glad this one is done!!

Wow!! What a day!! We didn't fish for 2 1/2 hours!! Local tournament was won with 24#. Kele had that beat with 4 fish! She really put the hurtbag on 'em! Not bad for a city girl from Virginia!

When all was said and done, Kele had her 2nd of 3 very nice walleyes in the boat. This one weighed in at 6 1/2#. Her first one was over 7 1/2!!

Too rough and rainy on water to take pictures on Wednesday; took on Friday in backyard. Looks like they were happy with them!! Kele on right.

When I received the first Pac Bay Tradition blank and saw it's "plum" color (thanks, Stan) I knew I was in trouble. I've always worked with black blanks. Tim wanted a metallic thread in blue (with gold guides and reel seat). I decided to wrap a bunch of blues and a few others and let him choose. You can see by the guide wrap started which color he chose. Sulky wins this time. This is probably a good idea to have scrap colored blanks with narrow bands of different thread colors on to show prospective customers. BTW, out of 8 people I showed this to, 6 of them chose the same as Tim.

Well, terrible thunderstorms kept us off the lake today; hopefully tomorrow we can go. I built this rod earlier and wanted to wait until I had Kristen's done to post. I weaved Kele's name into the center of the diamond wrap. Silver hologram underwrap, light blue metallic and royal blue metallic for the diamonds. Yeah, she likes blue!!!

Had to build both girls a rod. This one'll be a surprise! Their mom and at least one of them have flown out here every year from Virginia to visit and fish walleye for many years now. I'll try to get some pictures of the girls with their new rods on the water next week. Kristen will fly in this Monday. Mom and Kele came in this last Monday. Maybe in February we can fly out to see them and I'll drive down to Charlotte...??? I've never seen an ocean; might be nice... I burned the midnight oil getting this one done. The youngest wanted to watch me build it. She took a pic as I was finishing the silver in the marbeling. Wrapped the guides with Gudebrod Electra royal blue hologram. Sure makes a guy feel good to give these creations to family and friends!!!

Angie had chosen silver framed Pac Bay guides marbled to match the butt. She had me add 4 wraps of purple, 2 spirals over the silver prism tape and then 6 more threads of purple metallic.

Bill, I tried my darnedest; red and purple are really tough to get to like each other. This was my first attempt at a fore grip-less rod. This was about the 7th try with different shades of each; only two that didn't hate each other. Her choices, both secretaries at work today loved it?? I put some of the different prismatic tapes that I use in here, too. She went over what she wanted in this rod to the "N"th degree with me. Which of the guides do you suppose that she chose to go with this rod??

Little things that might help some builders... I like to have heavy paper cards (pink in picture) precut and ready. I like to spread finish on these and mix up epoxy here, too. Tin foil just doesn't get it for me, gets holes too easy and I can't pick it up and hold it closer to the rod. I made some glue applicators (spatulas) from a screen door weatherstrip. Two of them in the picture, works great with Rod Bond or liquid epoxies. When your single edge razor blade gets dull, mark it with a piece of masking tape. Only the sharp ones aren't marked. There are plenty of uses for a dull one. MUCH sharper than single edge blades for cutting thread are the double edged. Break them in half, use to cut threads. When dull, throw away. Where would I be without 1/4" masking tape?? WalMart-clothing material / sewing thread section of store-cheap!! Clear flexible rulers; hard to read the numbers when laid against a dark background. Put some masking tape on the bottom side; very easy to read, now. Leave a bit of room between the edge of the ruler and beginning of tape. Do you use masking tape to position guides for wrapping like I do?? I use my file box (BE SURE to make a card on each and every rod you build so you can duplicate it later-even 10 years later) lid to cut them into strips and stick them on. I used a permanent marker to mark different lengths for the different diameters of the blank. A few more things in here, too.

My wife's rod similar to this was built over a year before this one, finished with Epoxy Coatings Co. "1 Coat" high build. It hasn't faded at all and has been in the sun more than twice as much as this rod???? Notice that the purple braided material hasn't faded, only the purple metallic Gudebrod thread.

Mick-people aren't evil, cameras are. Why does it destroy colors and holograms?

A few waiting for their new homes.

I recently had a purple metallic guide wrap fade bad after 6 fishing trips. Maybe this'll fix the problem. The purple got washed a bit by the flash, it's actually darker than this-like very bottom of wrap; looks nicer. Size 16 guide, rod blank diameter is about .300" in this area. Nice thing, I don't have to wrap the tip-top, just marble!

Maybe I solved the purple metallic thread fading problem?? The blank is only about .300" in this area; not much surface area to marble. Was really hard at the tip guides.

I downloaded the college's logo and made a decal with it. I underwrapped with white NCP and trimmed it with 3 blue, 2 gold & 3 blue on each end.

I tried real hard to get the gold to actually marble. I thought I had it REAL good, but then as it rotated, the gold marbling got wider than it originally was. I'm going to try an even skinnier dental pick than I used on this one the next time I do it.

Fishing on Monday, July 6th, was a blast other than the normal mess of the low water. Bob and I fished for 8 hours and netted 32 walleye and sauger. Nothing real big, but we had a BLAST for our last hurrah on the 4th of July weekend!!