S Hovanec

Weight is an advantage. Corrosion resistance is the biggest benefit of titanium frames. On a 5oz rod, probably no real difference, but on my 2.85oz and 3.15oz dropshot rods it makes a difference.

If it's just a foregrip removal, that's a piece of cake. Hack it off, trim the seat back some, clean up the blank and place a thread wrap over the blank to hide the uglies from the grip removal.

Another dropshot rod would be a good guess. Maybe a bluegill rod. Not entirely sure.

The guides I've replaced that were grooving are the Berkley SS-304 guides that come on certain Fenwick, Abu and Berkley rods and are/used to be available at Janns If memory serves me, the TiCh Minimas aren't Titanium but are Ti plated stainless. There are Titanium framed guides available too, but they look nothing like the TiCh ones.

I'll fill in the missing specs. Seat hardware: Lemke Insert: Beartooth Woods acrylic pen blank Guides: Snake brand universals in black nickle and Fuji ICMNSG stripper. Hook keep: Kigan XLA in TiCh finish. Winding check: Batson Cork: Cactus cork from Southwest Custom Rods. Thread: Prowrap Burnt Orange NCP and Champagne metallic Finish: ThreadMaster and TM Lite Decal: Decal Connection black over silver.

Yea, it should work. The way i get slivers is I cut a thin slice off the end of the stick, then lay the slice flat on the bench and cut very narrow strips across the slice with the razor blade.

Try this. Carefully slice some slivers of glue off the stick. Pack the tube of the guide with the slivers. Heat the guide til the glue melts and bubbles out. Quickly put the tip on the rod and align. Glue will squeeze out everywhere, don't worry about it, you'll peel it off once it cools. BTW, you need to be holding the guide with pliers unless you have asbestos fingers!

Don't know about any production rods, but I built a 7' SCV that floats horizontal with the reel attached, full spool of line and a Lucky Craft Pointer tied on.

I have one IM. It's OK. They don't offer the action/power I'm interested in. Prefer my SCVs.

I'd love to be able to buy a NRX blank so I could build one right. Then I'd be able to compare it to the other rods I fish.

I use TufLine and PowerPro on all of my DS and tube rods.

Only thing I like Nanofil for is to use as a pull loop when wrapping guides.

I can't help ya there. 95% of my fishing is deep open water.

I think it will work for you. I think it's pretty sensitive, but sensitivity is subjective. Someone will hand me a rod that they think is the cats a $$ and to me it feels like an Ugly Stick! I'm going to be building 2 rods soon, one spinning and one casting, for weightless plastics and light jerkbaits like Slender Pointers. The casting one will be on the inshore SCIV (Belize Blue) 7' MLF and the spinning one will be the inshore SCV (Pearl White) 7' MLF

I pretty much stick to one brand for each category. Rods: almost all are custom St. Croix Reels: all are Shimano Soft baits: most are hand poured by a friend, the rest are Jackall Hard baits:. Smorgasbord of Rapala, Lucky Craft, MegaBass and Duo. Hooks: Owner Weights: my own pours.

I got one of those, kinda. It's built on that blank but it's extended to 7'. Love it so much I'm building myself another! I only use it for dropshot though. Oops. I just read this said Legend Tournament. I have the LX and LE. My wife has the 6'9" MLXF LT.

My work around to that is to drill through the end so you can ream properly and then install a functional yet cosmetically pleasing cap.

Pledge is all I use on my rods.

Yea. There's no real way to discuss reaming and butt plugs and not have it taken out of context! Lol

Please excuse me if I ramble. I hope this makes sense. Reaming and keeping the hole concentric is one of the more difficult tasks, especially if using premade grips. The holes are usually way undersized and need much reaming. I started out using various round files. Then I discovered if I kept using the next larger drill bit in my hand drill, it would stay pretty centered. Then using Batson Dream Reamers, was able to finish it off to fit the blank. Now what I do is bore my cork to fit a mandrel that is just undersized to the blank, glue up on the mandrel, turn the grip and not much reaming is required to fit the blank. Same when I make EVA grips from blocks. The last Winn Grip I used, I cut the solid cap off, reamed the grip, installed it and glued it back on once the grip was on the rod. I also installed one of the rubber butt cap/plugs from Mudhole. You can kinda see the outline of it in the second pic. Before. After.

I'll shoot you an answer when I get home.

I start the day with a 18' leader. It's always off the spool and out of the rod while fishing. Don't understand having it so long that it never leaves the spool.

I know many sing the praises of MHX blanks, I'm not one of them. I built 3 when they were first introduced, a MXF, MHF and MF. You couldn't tell the difference between them without looking at the label. I like the Geeks a lot. Plus, the color selection is a big selling point.

I build the extensions on scrap blanks. Extension before glue-up. Finished Spybait

RodGeeks C4610MXF extended to 7'.