What I’ve been into

I’ve kinda discovered as I’ve begun down this path of rod building that it doesn’t have to be about new high dollar blanks and high end guides and such. One that I threw together, literally, was a $14 house brand blank from Mudhole. While it turned out good enough for most folks, I know it’s weak spots that I didn’t pay enough attention to.

I also was given a 7’ mh spinning rod that had been abused and guides broken and left in the sun enough that the coating had crazed and peeled around the edges of the crazing. Cork was bug eaten. I looked it over through the mess it had become and didn’t see anything had happened to the blank. Stripped it down and sanded and made a final assessment to find that it was ready for new parts. I had most of a set of guides suitable for the rod, and I needed some heavier thread and some other supplies, so I made a trip to mudhole and got what I needed. Some good folks there if you’ve never been. Got my spacing for the guides and had to make a reamer from another rod to get the cork handle to fit this blank. Other than that, it went together without incident. I got to the coating and decided to try a 2 coat application this time. I don’t like the thinner coats as much as the 1 heavy coat I’ve done before. It came out uneven with some spots thinner than others. I’m not concerned about it as it’s a work rod and the windings came out good. I did my first fade wrap on the bottom, above the lure loop. A little bland but now I know how to improve on that. If I can find the pic I’ll post it. Also fixed four Penn for the guy that gave me the rod/blank. Broken guides and peeling coating that I was able to make look very good. How many of our friends have broken rods in the corner that we might be able to put back into shape again. I had fun doing it too and learned something along the way. Hope this finds y’all happy and healthy. Enjoy your upcoming holidays, ..........Skeet

How about sharing some pictures of your work.

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Keep in mind that I’m still a newbie but try different things now and then. I have no pics of my repairs but will in the future. Most of what I do is basic in the repairs, or at the request of the owner. Basic or not, do it right and make it look as good as possible. I have some mistakes but most folks wouldn’t notice. Part of my learning curve. The two rods in the bottom pic are an UL 6’ in one piece and my 4wt fenwick 7’6”. Those are really my best work so far. I hope to keep the butt windings the same on all my personal rods. Thanks for your interest........Tim

Nice work Tim

Looks good


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Very nice. Like the blue.

A lot of years back, probably late 70’s, there was a rod builder name of Wilhelm von Luscomb in Deland, FL. The name of his shop was Die Werke international. A very long story I’ll shorten as best I can. A lot of what we use today hadn’t been made yet and I think he was on the cutting edge, the beginning of lots of the materials we now use. He might have ripped off the info and called it his own, IDK. He mixed his rod coating resin in 5 gallon quantities to get the parts per million right, so I was told. He dyed his own salt water streamer hair and bucktail because the market stuff would wash out in salt water. He tied flies, very nice ones, and built rods. He showed me the first 12wt tarpon rod I’d ever seen. It was on its way to Western Africa for the 300 pounders that come there to spawn. Every rod he built for anyone had matching butt windings, with 2 of this color and 1 of that and 3 of this and so on, in a pattern of the customers choice. No one else got those colors in that succession, so every customers rods could be identified easily. He had the first G Loomis blanks I ever saw, no complete rods available yet. He built my brother a 7’ g loomis flippin stick that he had for years til a fire took it and everything else in the garage. My point, what I saw when I was in my young 20’s in his shop has set the standard for what I think a rod should be built to. I don’t do near the quality work he did but it is engrained in my head. I wish he was still around, we could all learn something from him, and he would teach all you wanted to learn. I hope y’all find someone like him to stir your creative juices.

Looks great, I do a few myself.

Your going to make me want to build me a fly rod for the spawn this year to learn how to whip the old fly out there. As always good looking rod man.

It’s not that hard, Mr Corley. More fun than you can imagine.

Mostly, your praise on my work carries high value, thank you.

I'm sure once you get a hang of the right flow it gets pretty easy. I have a number of buddy's that fly fish for reds and love the art of it. And you really do seem to build a pretty rod.

Thanks Brent, sorry I didn’t respond sooner. The rod deserved better than entry level and I had a learning curve to go through anyway. There’s a little to know before you dive into a fly rod and I’m not the guy to bring you along but so far. Dry flies, double taper lines, assembling a leader from separate pieces and much, much more that I have zero experience with. Start with a weight forward line as they’re very forgiving to the newbie and a popper bug on the end and you’ll be doing well before you know it. Look up some of lefty krehs videos on casting, he’s taught more people worldwide than anyone else, I’m willing to bet. Enjoy the trip, it’s a fun one and lots easier than golf.