Northwest Fishing Reports

Has anyone ever tried building fly rods? I got a book and I plan on building them. Im not sure if I want to try to make enough to like sell them at a local festival or not. My dad had made a few and they seems pretty good...he used loomis blanks. From the sounds of it they are a bit cheaper to make than to buy.

Before having a wife and kids when I could spend my money on what was important to me I built two from blanks. Both worked fine (I lost them in a house fire) the hardest part for me was getting the proper speed to spin the blank to attached the thread on the guides. I did not buy the specialized spinning machine which could have been my problem. Cabela's has a seperate building catolog that sells reels seats guides ect and fairly cheap prices

I have found that for a good spinning machine for wrapping guides that a old sewing machine motor and foot pedal are cheap and easy to come by,and easley modified.For good priced blanks Ebay is a good source so is JS fly fishing and rod building I dont know the web address off the top of my head but you can always google it.If you dont want buy and expensive wraaping machine,or do the sewing modifacation,you can always take a empty jar and put your wrapping thread in it.Then run the thread in between the pages of phone book and if you need more tension put more books on it.Then take a cardboard box find the size you need to lay your blank across then cut a "V" shape on both sides so your blank sits inside the "V" tou cut and your ready to wrap the guides.If you have any Q's on the subject feel free to drop me a message and maybe I'll be able to answer them for ya.TIGHT LINES EVERYONE

I have build 4 rod's now and I love it. You dont realy need a fancy spinning macine whene wraping your poles. You dont even need one for the coating my dad used to just put the thread under a couple encyclopedia's and spin the rod himself.

Go check out Rodbuilding.org,you will find all the info you need and then some.Building a rod is not hard,a few tools,a blank and you are off...........Good Luck,Alan

ruthven78,
Give it a try. I think you'll find that it's easier than feared. I built a flyrod for a neighbor girl last year, and wrote an article about the steps I took. You can find it in the "Tackle Box Tales" link on our home page. Here is the link;
http://www.washingtonlakes.com/ReadArti ... =15&id=216
PM me if you like and we can talk some more.

If you don't consider the cost of your time, making a high quality fly rod is less expensive.

If you want something that you will never give away, or sell, than making one can be the answer. I have three, made from everything from the top of the line Fiberglass during the early 70's, to High Modulus Graphite, and even though I now use a Winston Boron, I could not give my hand made rods to anyone except my closest friends; they just ment to much to me.

You know, now that the kids have all moved away, I need to build me another rod, or two, or three. I sure hope my wife doesn't read this.