It's a Girl

If you've been following my blog, then you're aware of the horrendous death of my favorite rod and the unexpected replacement of it with a new 2wt rod building kit from my wife. Well, it's been over a week and I finally found the time to finish her. Excitement is already building, I'm taking half the day off tomorrow to fish one of my favorite streams in the park.She's beautiful! A black 6'6" 2 piece 2 wt with silver accents on all the wrappings. I must say, even I am impressed with my first attempt at rod building. Although I was building it on an incredibly narrow budget, it was much easier to do than I thought it would be. Frankly, if I had known how easy it was going to be, I would have been building my own rods for years, and I didn't even have some items a lot of rod builders would consider crucial: a wrapping stand, a rod rotator, etc. The only money spent was on the rod kit ($55) and another $10 on misc. stuff like razorblades and denatured alcohol.

So, how did I do it? The first step was to find the spline of the blanks, I'm not really sure I found it right because of the rod being so small. There was a definitive spline, whether my guides were in the right side is another question. After that, I put on the grip along with the reel seat so I could mark them for mounting later. After these were marked, I then put the blanks together so I could begin marking for my guide placement. Now it was time to actually glue the cork to the blank. MUCH care was taken during this stage to make sure the end of the blank touches the reel seat cap when it's all put together. The base of the rod has to be glued to the reel seat to anchor it.

Since the cork was on, it was time to put the guides on. Initially, I taped them into place so that I could begin wrapping them. So, how did all this work without a rod wrapper? I used a cardboard box with notches cut into it to hold both blanks. To get tension on the wrapping thread, which is critical, I put the thread into a cup, ran it through 2-3 books, and then into the box through a hole in the bottom. Wrapping the guides was pretty easy despite using a box to hold everything. If time and patience is used, tight wraps can be had. I re-did at least 2 or 3 of the bindings because they looked crappy. 2 or 3 more popped loose during other stages of the build. After all the wraps were done, I began putting in the accent wraps.

The accent wraps almost made me crazy! When I would get one done, it would become unraveled while I would be working on another one. I truly thought I was going to loose my mind! After what seemed hours of putting on the accents, I finally finished them. At this point, I had to take a break from the project for a few days to do some other things and save my sanity. Once I had a night that not much was going on, I settled down to do the rod finish.

Without a rod wrapper, this required me to sit around for a couple of hours turning the rod a quarter turn every 5 or so minutes. I put on two moderately thin coats and I found that to be a sufficient buildup for such a small rod. I left the blanks with a matte finish, so I had to be very careful about were the finish went and to wipe it off immediately with denatured alcohol when it got somewhere it wasn't supposed to be. After all the wraps had dried and cured, the last thing that was left was to attach the reel seat. I used some epoxy I had lying around to glue it on with since I opted to put it on last to make the blanks easier to manipulate, and only one packet of rod glue came with the kit that was used days ago.

Once the seat was seated, I attached the seat base by gluing it to the end of the blank to anchor the whole rod. This part of it anchoring is REALLY important, I know this because mine was off just a bit. I eventually had to rig something together with a washer to lock the two pieces together. Lucky for me, it worked. I was actually looking at a small error that almost ruined the whole project, literally at the last stage. I could have died. As stated before, I was lucky enough to have a washer lying around that fit my need perfectly, so all is well.So what would I have done differently? For my next rod, I'll be building a rod wrapper. Now that I understand the concept and have seen them for sale, I think I can build one fairly easily. I would have put more time and effort into the area that I wrote on the rod, about the only thing I'm unhappy with at this point. Kinda looks crappy in my opinion. The final test will be tomorrow when I can get her on the water. I have high hopes for her, she feels very similar to the other 2wt that cost me $125 for the stick. I like that kind of math, I saved something like $60. SWEET!

On an uplifting side note, I think I was able to repair my broken 2 wt. I had said before, some of the rod still fit together reasonably well, so I sanded down the rough edges and wrapped a new joint. It's possible that she might snap while I'm casting her or playing a nice fish, but I think she might get by because it's such a small rod. Plus I figured out a SAFE way to strap my 3ft rod tube to the bike. Super SWEET! So hopefully tomorrows update will have photos of the new rod starring next to some fat trout!