spoonplugger1

I'm with Mick, making length over performance or function your first priority is a big mistake.

If you used Rich Forhans recommenfations that have been out for a couple decades you wouldn't ever be far off.

For the guys getting those new fancy blanks, the blanks will come without the certificate and the certificate will be sent separately so it won't be bent or damaged in the tube.

Dropshot rods 7 1/2 ft. long are nothing new, I built my first on the Lamiglas XMG 50 LSJ 901 well over a decade ago and I certainly was not the first. I still have one of those blanks if the rod ever fails. Large diameter thin wall blank, maybe 25% larger in diameter to my RX8+ dropshot rod and lighter in weight.

Utmost Ent. is a stone's throw from Batson/Rainshadow/Alps, great people, great prices, excellent service, shipping at their cost, and timely out the door.

Never said the MBR 843 C was magical, but in some parts of the country the MBR783 and 843 are well known due to their longevity and used by many as a "standard" to measure the power and value of other blank designs and rods. Frankly I have always preferred the MBR 783 C.

Tackle Tour looked at this blank design twice, once as the MB705-1 (HM) and new blank built up by them. Info is right in their rod review archives. It's NFC building the Loomis MB 843. Everyone should have known it would be a while on these blanks, they out and out said so day one, they didn't hide the fact that the material was in short supply and hard to get.

Angler's Workshop has been around forever, bought and moved from Woodland, WA, used to be right alongside the Lamiglas factory and just across the freeway from G Loomis. Moved to Springfield IL, but I still get the same great service. Just ordered there today, they had some stuff the others were out of, good prices and their Fuji reel seats I needed were cheaper than Mudhole and many others.

Like Mick said, epoxy finish is a terrible adhesive, your guide ceramic is many times harder than any blade, or metal point, should be an extremely easy thing to remove.

WC53, You keep talking about more power to do something, I think you are missing the point. BFS is a specific technique, you get out of the realm and description of the technique, and it is no longer BFS. A 5 - 6 lb. trout has never been outside the realm of rods of this power, I have caught many trout and char to 30 inches in Alaska on this power rod, a bass would be no different. Many fly anglers are catching big bass on little flies and little fly rods much lighter than what we are describing here and have done for decades. Sub-0 to 3 wt. rods. Power isn't necessarily needed to get the job done, the very reason for BFS, the challenge. A heavier rod would just be finesse, or heavier and nothing new to talk about. Take a look at the light line world records, 1980's were a time of high-tension light line fishing and the rods were all customs, and all done with less knowledge, materials and variety then found today, this is nothing new, been there done that.

Top reel seats: 1. The new NFC carbon copy of the Castaway old skeleton casting seats. 2. The old Wiebe/Super Sticker 15 deg. offset exposed blank trigger seat. 3. The Fuji ECS and clones. 4. The Fuji NPSD in 20 or 22 mm size with Lew's style reverse taper grips. Comfy. Top Blanks: Lamiglas LP 904 Lamiglas LSJ 901 AllStar BAST 813-T Shikari FS 764-X Seeker BS 706 S Glass Best grips: Lew's reverse taper for spinning Split grip 2 1/2 inch Forhan pattern for casting. Best guides: Spinning: "M" reduction train to micros 2 - 3mm. Casting: 10mm to 3 mm spiral, "N" pattern Double foot sometimes. A few rods 6mm to 3 mm spiral.

Nice rod, have you seen the crap wraps on NRX rods? I would never say my rod looked like some production rod, after all they didn't say their rods looked like a Rich Forhan Revolver Rod when they made their first split grip, no foregrip rods.

What other US blank manufacturers make that blank, same weight, same material? To me, that's an innovator, someone willing to hang his butt out there, always testing, always looking, compared to other bass blanks out there, this is a different animal. Remember what the original dropshot rods were? Nothing like they are today in length, action, material. You could almost make two old rods out of the material used today for one. Different animals. A serious expansion of tackle used, size of tackle and angler expectations over the years. SCV, 15+ years old, NRX, close to 15 years old. GLX, 30 years old.

Everything has that tax; you just don't see it on the sticker. If you buy wholesale, you don't see the tax on your purchases, but you have to collect it from the buyer, just like state sales tax and send it on quarterly if I remember right. Been a while for me and they could have changed things. It was a percentage of the sale up to a certain amount than was a $10 dollar flat fee past that.

Anyone who has not told you that there is now and always will be a place for all materials is a bozo and knows nothing about rod designs, needs, or how to get it done. The concept that only a certain thing will fulfill every need is a fantasy, not the truth. The most important issue though is you cannot buy a E6X or any other Loomis blank, so this discussion is a moot point. Secondly, expecting a rod built in the Pac. NW to be similar to rod built down south considering their waters are so dissimilar makes me scratch my head and wonder. That discussion was in play 50 years ago so you think it wouldn't be a surprise now, back than every glass and carbon rod but the G Loomis rods were short broomsticks by comparison because all the presentations were heavy for bass back then. Why did Loomis seem to be the rod all these years? When the presentations became lighter, who already had that lighter powered rod just setting on the rack? Who spent as much time on ergonomics back then as blank design, so their rods felt "right". My all time favorite fish is the steelhead, G Loomis made my favorite steelhead rod in GL2, GL3, IMX and GLX. Which rod did the vast majority of anglers pick in that rod series? GL3, why? If you wanted to catch and boat those fish reliably over and over the IMX and especially the GLX would be junk in the bottom of the boat, while the GL3 was going strong fish after fish. was this the case with all rods or presentations? No, but it isn't so with any other fish either.

If you just used a 0 deg. guide and a 180 deg. guide it wouldn't make a tinkers bit of difference, the transition guide is just added to keep the line off the blank if you choose to do so. it should be small and as close to the blank as you can get it in any case. I saw a book once that mentioned spiral wraps that was published in 1908, so this concept is nothing new.

Mick, It was done by NFC and published right off. Throws 1/32 oz. great, blank wt. 1.05 oz. ERN 5.70, AA 65 deg.

Like every other rod, you don't want your max weighted lure being at or exceeding the blanks lure rating, you get best results if your lure is closer to the middle, that said if my max was an occasional flyer and my bread and butter was nearer the lower limit, or I using a lot of treble hook baits I would look at the lower limit more carefully in my selection. The 5 or 6 power is your selection I would think. Your style spiral wrap isn't that critical, some of us have built 540 degree spiral rods just to show they also work.

Take your electric drill, chuck a straight rod in it, and stick the other end in a hole you drilled in a piece of 2 X 4 and you have all the lathe you need for grip making, my mentor had this setup made with an old, huge Milwaukie 1/2" drill motor nailed on the exposed stud wall in his shed for decades, this is not something that has to be infrastructure driven with high expense. Back in the "good ol' days" they came up with 64th of an inch. A 5.5 is 5/64th plus 1/128th, or half of 11/128th. Confused yet?

If you were building blanks in a country where bass is the #1 fished species, which species would you design that blank for? This has never been out of Gary Loomis' wheelhouse, just look at Hall of Famer Stan Fagerstrom's favorite rod, the Loomis SJR700 that has been around 40+ years and last I looked still was, mine is an old IM6 and the copy that is in the NFC catalog the SB5100-1. A mag bass blank designed for 4 to 8 lb line, 1/32 - 1/4 oz. lures, but does throw a bit heavier well.

I make them as light as I can, 3 - 4 wraps from the guide tip. There is a certain amount of intrinsic power in a blank. you can use that power and sensitivity to throw your offering further and crisper or flail a bunch of additional guide and wrap weight and decrease your rod's balance, it's your choice, you're building the rod you want after all.

BFS designed blanks are a different animal in design, throwing standard bass blank descriptions at them isn't going to help you. One example of a high performance readily available BFS blank is the NFC X Ray P700. It's fairly new, but I bet there is some info out there if you look.

Bringing your hand up on a spacer like a book, etc. makes writing much easier for me vs trying to write over the blank's top.

Spit grips, real ones, many are way to long and help remove any benefit of their use, can easily be turned (sanded) into shape by sliding them on a drill bit in your hand drill and have at it, if you must have a long one just swap the grip end for end and finish it, the closer your work is to the chuck the less chance of noticeable run out. Many times, people think things are difficult, or impossible because they make them such in their own mind. EVA can also be easily shaped this way though you want to keep your friction heat to a minimum, so you don't soften the foam, keep the abrasive moving. Cork grips are not turned like wood on a lathe, the cork is to soft, they are sanded into shape with shaping stones in the commercial environment.

After looking at both, and looking at 40 years of doing this, I would slightly be most inclined to go with the Get Bit kit, the only reason being the reamer set that can be used manually with the nice screwdriver like grip or chucked in a drill for doing the initial cutting quicker. This is the biggest work saving thing I can think of in hand building and will be there every rod thereafter. Over time I think you'll see there is very little difference in prices among the major suppliers and unless you want to try a bit of everything from everybody on all your builds, you'll find the dealer that carries the products you want to use and treats you right on customer service.