Mark Blabaum

The grip is made with stabilized and dyed spalted hickory with an elliptical, the reel seat is an acrylic insert.

Purple heart and aluminum, weave and wrap by Dan Makauskaus.

A fly rod blank# F864-4 from Batson. The grip is made with Wenge, Maple and imitation ivory in a web pattern. The reel seat is made with an acrylic pen blank and skeleton seat from American Tackle.

The grip is made with sheets of bulletin board cork, trimmed with walnut. The pattern is repeated on four sides giving it a different look.

The pattern on this grip is a spider web with a black widow wrap. The wood is zebra wood and white oak with a matching zebra wood case.

The grip is made with Big Leaf Maple Burl, Walnut and Che-Chen (sp). The pattern is a variation of the petal pattern.

The grip is an elliptical made from a knife scale insert and spalted hickory. The reel seat is made with an acrylic pen blank.

The blank is a Batson IP840 ultra lite. I used an acrylic pen blank for the reel seat and turned the winding checks from the same material.

The grip is made from a Yoga block used for exercise and dyed black veneer. The reel seat is an acrylic pen blank. The blank is a St. Croix 3S60MLF set up as a jigging stick.

I ran across this old photo and thought I'd post it here. It's several patterns and wood types. It has checkers, ellipticals, chevrons and a spider web. Woods range from Big Leaf Maple Burl, Wenge, Walnut and others.

A Christmas present with a plain burl cork grip. The cherry burl is a stabilized piece from Reelseatblanks.com and has some great figure. The finish on the seat is CA over the stabilized insert.

A photo of a rod that I made for my wife. It's made of Padauk, Wenge and Maple. The problem with this rod is that my wife informed me that she doesn't like to use a spinning rod. I now have learned a valuable lesson on listening to your customer (lol). It was good practice for me to work on the rose wrap.

Doc Ski was nice enough to send me some Koa to play with. I really like the results, the finish is CA (super glue) and the accent wood is bloodwood. The Koa has almost an iridescent look with curly undertones. There is even some beer can trim in honor of Doc on the baitcaster.

I put together a few handles and made a trade for some blanks. The top is made of walnut, cherry, and maple. The insert is ipe with maple wedding bands. Second from the top is walnut with bloodwood trim. Third from top is Wayne's Ipe with maple eliptical and trim. Forth from the top is Bloodwood with Copano cork. The bottom is maple with a bloodwood elliptical and checkers. The insert is what was left over from a spider web blank.

I have a couple of rods going to Samsara Cues to thank them for the use of the spider web pattern. The one on the left is White Oak and Blood Wood. The one on the right is Walnut and Maple. If you want to see the original designs they are on www.samsaracues.com once again Jim and Dave Thanks for the ideas. I almost forgot to thank Billy V as well.