spoonplugger1

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.

Remember to use finish on your wraps, not an epoxy adhesive like you get in the stores, they are completely different compounds, I would rather use varnish or clear nail polish then epoxy adhesive. Varnish is what all the old rods you see used and they are still used being today by many. A small can of Varathane Triple Thick shouldn't be hard to find if you can't get thread wrap epoxy.

There is not now, nor has there ever been a reason to heat the wrap as noted above. Since hopefully this is a one shot deal you can just cut a V in a box to set the rod in and hand wrap the guides on, there is no need to put the thread on tight, just snug, multiple wraps over and over are your strength and stability. Remember to wash your hands well before handling the thread so there is not oils, or residue to fisheye your finish.

Multi-stepped, nothing smooth and comfortable, it's a train wreck IMO.

A Fuji or someone elses skeleton and a carbon sleeve from one of the new seats would be all you need to reproduce a cheap, practical but very uncomfortable copy. Carbon sleeve a Fuji HPS and pack it with eva would give a similar fore piece.

It would sure be uncomfortable.

The CC system was never designed to select blanks, it was designed to compare blanks. No more value than comparing two lengths of wood with a tape measure or comparing two objects by weight with a scale. You can build any blank profile of power and angle with wood, bamboo, glass, carbon, but if you don't have identical materials used the end result in use will always be different in use, I don't think I have ever seen a blank lose 6 inches still have such a steep action angle, usually the decreased length, decreases the droop distance used and significantly makes the AA less shallow when compared to the original blank.

It will make an excellent tomato plant stake, I's strip the guides and use it to repair or extend other blanks.

Tprocks2, it's a reel seat that sucks and is easily the most uncomfortable seat you could ever design.

The quality glass rod builders haven't built noodles in 40+ years. The Lamiglas MB series in E glass, or S glass, the St. Croix SC1 S glass, the Seeker BS and BC series in E glass, or S Glass, Sabre E and S glass.

If you want to go full old school, Schneder's has some of the old offset reel seats/grips kits in his Hot Specials section that were used back in the day of round reels and your spincast reel.

The REC 4 mm have been around a long time, I have them on a CTS spinning travel rod I built 16 years ago, I don't understand how that size guide is still an enigma as they have been around since WW II time period and many in the US have used them, I have since the early 80's. A guide is a guide, they all work the same way, I've used them to 2 mm with good success. Don't go into rod building looking for boundaries because they don't exist till you make them.

Later post said they were going to start making their most popular models first with this material, guess this model fits that bill. They just came out with the second blank in this material, a surf rod blank.

If you do the repair as per Ralph O'Quinn and Mick stated you will have good results, if you do it like Chris suggests, you will have problems, the first visual is Chris used a carbon sleeve, do not do that, it is quaranteed to produce a giant flat spot that will have more power than anything around it, there is a real chance of a stress failure at the ends again. Use glass, the lower modulus will insure the blank bends similar to both of the blank's ends. The larger diameter gives it the strength and durability to span the break reliably. Many times now days people really don't read and understand what is important to do, this is not a time to not read and understand Ralph's article if you really love this rod and want to continue enjoying it. Who is Ralph O'Quinn? The owner of U 40 rod building products and an aerospace engineer who developed the system used to hold the ceramic heat shield tiles on the space shuttle.

Where this originated in Japan they have always had both spinning and casting versions and they use them interchangibly as conditions warrant. This is stuff we were doing in the 80's, early 90's, we just didn't have the new reels, we had to modify reels ourselves. The blanks and components were always here.

It looks like any other rod, I could show any of them and you wouldn't be the wiser, the lighter the build the more you worry about component weight. It has 2 mm running guides, silk wraps and minimal permagloss finish.

A 12 rod is what I have used as a 8 to 12 lb test steelhead rod and it is 12 wt. tarpon fly rod.

The reason the GPS vid doesn't cover static testing is because once you have the reduction guides figured out the rest is the very same guide as the choke guide and the rules apply to all rods no matter the length, reel, power, or species. The info you seek is on the Fuji site under Static Load Testing. Hit the menu top right and look for it. There are a bunch of ways to spiral wrap, some real simple, some much more involved, just read an article on a "new" system that sounded like the 40+ year old one developed by Ralph O'Quinn, the guy took 9 pages to explain what Ralph did in 5 minutes, including a demonstration from bare rod, first time a rodbuilding article tryed to put me to sleep before finishing, way to much bla, bla, bla and back patting for my taste. In the end he named it after himself, the Roberts Wrap fiasco all over again.

Don't know about every seat made, but if you think about it why would you change the threaded portion on reel seats? They are every bit as well thought design as the other parts of the seat, they are a certain pitch and a bit sloppy when not in use on purpose, the pitch (angle) along with the looseness jam the threads when turned tight and than twist and ride up a bit on the threads further jamming the nut. By the way, I have taken a nut off another company's nut before and swapped it on Fuji, or other seats, guess they didn't want to reinvent the wheel either. Some have taken the Aero style seat, turned it upside down and used it on flipping sticks before, others have used the Pac Bay Minima spinning seat upside down for the same type rod.

That wasn't much info really and not the SJR700S specifically, I bought mine for $60 back close to 40 years ago an IM6, high tech back then. There was a trick caster, tournament angler, author of many books and articles everywhere, international bass ambassador, and in the Hall of Fame, by the name of Stan Fagerstrom, it was his all time favorite rod. I've caught LMB, SMB, trout of all sizes and species, panfish, bonefish, crappie (an awesome deepwater crappie rod), walleye, speckled trout, shad, steelhead, pink salmon, and just about anything under 15 lbs. I've extended blanks to 6 1/2 ft with great success. A very neat rod, don't think anyone has ever replicated it. I think it could have been called a BFS rod decades before anyone knew what one was. I built a casting version back in the 80's for a retired gentleman who fished the water hazards on the golf course he lived on in Florida, using the first ultralight casting reel I'm aware of, the Shimano Bantam 100EX, he loved that rod combo.