spoonplugger1

Reminds me of gold leafing with the burnished leaf.

My eyes would stay permanently crossed if I tried that, nice work.

A lot of offshore rods are no longer using epoxy finish. Hear it's a UV curing finish, it has a history of doing what your rod looks like after some time.

With that heavy a rod, you'll not notice any performance difference. I have Fuji SV aluminum oxide guides on a heavy saltwater rod that I used 200 days a year when I lived in Florida, it now is used on oversized sturgeon up to 10 ft. long since I retired in 1991, 80 lb Tufline, up to 3 lbs. of weight, heavy current, zero grooving, or any other type failure.

Any ceramic guide will hold up to braid, it has no abrasive qualities, the dirt and grit you put in the line does that is what grooved your soft no insert tip top. Ceramics will hold up to any line

Yep.

Custom builders were making skeleton seats from Fuji ECS real seats and their clones for a decade, or more before the first production model showed up, we had come to the conclusion that blanks smaller than around 12 mm weren't all that comfortable. What's the diameter of that little bling tube in the new seats again? Of course back than we also had larger diameter, thinner walled blanks, a design more in tune with the Point Blank design of today. We were told the new smaller diameter blanks were more aerodynamic and decreased air resistance dramatically. RIGHT.

Step drill bits keep the hole centered as you go and you just drill from both sides, minor finish with reamer, done.

A gentleman showed me how he uses step drip bits to get the right size hole and finishes with a Forstner bit. I haven't tried it yet, but his was a clean job.

The American Tackle micros I've used have longer feet then Fuji, or Batson/Alps last I compared, don't have any Pac Bays right now to compare, but I see no reason why you would need feet longer than the Am Tack.

I don't use anything to hold them, I just start my wrap like I always do, put the guide foot tip over the top of the wrap and wrap it on maybe 5 turns, then just ease the guide back till it slips under the wrap, than finish the wrap.

For the commercial builders where they have a hundred uses for tape, and buy it by the truckload, it makes sense to certain extent. It is designed to be a temporary use product, not what I put on my rods, they are built to last. I use the arbors you mentioned, or epoxy impregnated drywall mesh tape, they will never fail if installed right.

Alps, Forecast, CRB, Pac Bay, American tackle make smaller guides. CRB down to 1mm with no ceramic ring, Forecast to 2 mm with a ceramic ring. Been using the 2 mm Forecast for close to 10 years, my favorite is the 3 mm Alps guides, superior frame materials and durability. A 2 mm weighs one fourth that of a 4 mm, a 3 mm, half the weight of a four, the 2 mm less than half of the 3 mm. These guides have been around in use all over the world for decades. I've been using 4 mm guides on my rods since the 70's, Gary Loomis used them on his steelhead spinning rods, all the G Loomis STR1141S carried them until Shimano bought the company, now they have a much heavier, less sensitive guide set on that rod. 50 lb. mono goes through a 3 mm easily with lots of room to spare.

I use a paint pen, the same one I write on blanks with, it's white, but I also have gold and black.

Paint goes on in thousandth of an inch, unless you get crazy your dot should be in the neighbor of the thickness of a sheet of paper.

Mine and others testing of pitching sticks show the smaller the guides used the further you can pitch, even going down a half size from 3.5 to 3.0 mm made a huge difference, didn't reduce normal casting one bit.

I've never seen the end cap, if it's built to fit over a tenon (notch) on the Winn grip where any other style butt cap would fit, you just need to remove the end and install a new but cap. The end spins off I assume, you then can put whatever numbered ring you want on the end, maybe a standard buttcap like a comfortable EVA cap will slide right on where the ring goes. I'm sure they don't make it any harder than they had to. I picked EVA as the butt cap because that is what is under the Winn coating.

The thread system on the Fuji type threads are square and don't they don't jam on the metal nut, not surprising since they use the same pattern for all their reel seats. The original jam nut reelseat made by Wiebe decades ago had round threads and the jam nut would **** and lock against the thread as they walked up the side of the round threads. A 40+ year old design used on the higher end G Loomis, Lamiglas, etc. rods of the day Gary Loomis still uses the design on the Edge rods last I handled one.

Don't get to caught up in brand names. A guide is a guide, just like a blank is a blank, picking the right ones for the job is the thing. The big thing with today's spinning guides is their height, this keeps the line off the blank, this allows the the ring size to be reduced, increasing line control, and reducing weight. Thing is this is nothing new guides have been built for it since just after WW II, then they were called "match guides" and still are, Fuji was building guides for it since the early 80's if not before, look in your old Dale Clemens' book, it's the Fuji Fleaweights mentioned there. Pacific Bay never quit building them, and the heights are virtually the same as the Fuji KH, for far less money. The Pac Bay guides are the ones used on the G Loomis rods, back when Gary owned the company.

Depends on your needs, and how often you'll use it. Look in the catalogs, sites and you'll notice the aluminum based, roller stand hand wrappers made by Batson, Pac Bay, and American Tackle all look the same, they are. Parts from one, fit all. Want to bet the driers aren't the same? Say you want a 5 spoon thread carriage, only one I know of is made by Pac Bay, It will fit the base of all the wrappers, including the Alps and my ancient Custom Power Wrapper, and the new CPW also. I built rods for 15 years on an oak V block hand wrapper that took up 3 ft. of space when not in use. All the other stands are just V blocks on a block of wood that can placed anywhere I need them.

GTN, I never thought about your picture just your post above about grip lengths back in the day. For instance the length I like for my salmon/steelhead casting rods is about 14 inches, it puts the end of the grip at the tip of my elbow, a 12 inch grip on a spinning version also puts the grip at the tip of my elbow. If I want to insure maximum grip length without interference with either a casting or spinning rod the same difference in grip length should work I'd think.

20 years ago a casting rod would of had around an 8 inch rear grip, a spinning rod somewhere in the 6 1/2 to 7 inch range. Because you hold the reels differently the actual amount of grip length under your arm is the same.

Not a fan of the balanced butt concept, it's not something new, we went through this in the early 90's, didn't work than, doesn't work now. It just means we have given up on making the most sensitive, lightest rod we can produce. If you're concerned about balance and it's your first priority, then just use a shorter rod. To much of the fishing industry is driven by the new shiny thing, not by cognitive thinking about how do we make a better product. Why do we think buying the highest modulus rod, with the lightest most expensive reel is a good thing if we turn right around and install a bunch of $.25 cent washers to it, do we have any idea how much weight is needed to balance the rod? Remember where your mom, or dad had to sit to play on the teeter totter with you, or you with your kids? Somehow bass angler's have gotten the idea that they get to tired fishing and that adding weight helps. Even though physics shows of that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In other words what you put in motion also takes the same amount of energy to stop, the more something weights the harder it is to accelerate and than stop. They throw their dinky little rods, on dinky reels and dinky baits, when for instance musky and surf anglers are throwing large heavy plugs with long, heavier rods and larger reels and seem to survive the experience even though the surf, or current is pushing and pullijg on them all day.

Okoboji, I disagree respectfully, the people at Lew's had no idea what that rod would be used for, they built it in such a way, that anyone, knowledgeable, or not would pick it off the rack and give it the old shake test, compare it to all the other similar rods, check the price tag and hopefully purchase it. Optimizing the angler's specific use for that rod was not in the top five considerations. Lamiglas makes the kayak specific Paco rods in 6 different powers, everything from trout and smallmouth, to large saltwater species, they all have a short handle so they don't get in the way, because frankly you have no plce to go, or move, so the rod better be friendly. They all have graphite rear grips and large foregrips so you can grab them out of your rod holder, or rocket launcher behind you easily with no interference, they all have a heavy tether loop built into the butt so you can tether your rod to the boat and not lose it when you knock it over the side. There are other kayak special ideas incorporated into the rods, like blanks that don't blowup when you highstick them, pretty much a guaranteed to happen. You pay extra for these build ideas, it takes longer to build them in, but just how many rod/reel combos lost over the side does it take to make up the difference? How many lost fish because you couldn't get the rod out of the rod holder? How much gas burned, or trip money spent just to lose the fish of a lifetime, or have your rod blowup and lose the fish? If it was me, I'd slip a graphite tube, or Texalium grip the right length right over the cork there now install a rubber buttcap like the Paco rod with tether loop and go fishing. Done right for maybe $30 max.

Butt caps come in different lengths and diameters, they also come in different materials. Take a single edge razor blade, or exacto knife and cut the grip at one of the cork seams, if it matches close to what you need, build a tenon, (notch) for the butt cap to set on, or build up a tenon from masking tape. Cut the blank off behind the tendon and install your cap, if your cap is built out of something than can be shaped, the part not needing shaped can be protected with a bit of masking tape and the other side sized as necessary. If it's the butt cap that needs shaped, you can install it on a short piece of steel shaft with a tape arbor on it that the butt cap can slide on to, fire up, your drill and slowly shape and size with sandpaper to fit.