I must be getting old. After all these years on the water I have decided to make my own rods. I am too particular to buy them OTC anymore. I looked into all that is involved and even though I have many years on the water and a college education I find myself lost, on where to begin. I have looked at the Stamina, Barlows, Netcraft cats. and chosing the right blanks, eyes, handles, and rapping is giving me a head ache, lol. Any suggestions? I am a Gator Rod and All Star Rod die hard and will not settle for less. I like fast to X-fast actions with the guts to support the good ones. I prefer,for smallies, 6-7' blanks in M-MH ( 8-17#,1/8-1/2 lure wt. or 1/4-5/8) and for green bass I prefer a 6-7'  MH-H (10-20# or 12-30#, 1/4-1/2 and 1/2-11/2 lure wt.? Any suggestions on where to purchase these types of blanks. Also, I am looking for at least 50 m mod. I know, I am too particular but, I figure if it becomes to much of a pain I will continue to buy Gator and Team All Star OTC, lol. I need to get this out of my system,ha,ha.

                                                Thanks y'all, and good fishing.

shop.mudhole.com very good rod building catalog company.

Hey Jim,

Like earthworm77 said, check out Mudhole.com. You may want to start with a kit, comes with most everything you need and you can get some pretty nice ones. Mudhole sells St. Croix and G-Loomis kits. It's a great way to get your feet wet and learn if you want to continue building rods. Be carefull, it's addicting. LOL

Ronnie

Never done it, but was think about it.  Might want to look into a local class you can take.  They have a local fly show near me there the guy does classes.   I think you buy the blank and he helps/teaches you how to build it.

Like others said shop mudhole or i always use Janns netcraft for most of my supplies.   I also got the DVD called Rod building "How we do it"  by Flexcoat.  Very good video and will get you going and building really good rods.  Building rods is not that hard.  It is simpler than it looks.  That DVD really breaks it down and shows you step by step without all of the really fancy tools or wrappers.  GOOD LUCK!

dhuffnmu,

Building rods is not that hard.  It is simpler than it looks.

Excuse me..... :-?

I have been building for over 15 yrs., and to this day I can still learn something new each day, about building. I takes me 30+ hours of work to complete a rod from gluing cork rings and turning them to fit, to the finale coat of finish over a marbled split grip.

I guess it would be considered easy to one who isn't doing any stress testing for guide spacing, or just following a basic spacing chart, or even one who is just building from kits, or one who has never Forhan lock wrapped a #5 single foot guide. I'll bet the guys that are doing the 10 - 15 hour closed wraps, or the guys doing feather inlays, would definitely not agree with you.

Jim Blair,

earthworm77, and Alpster, have given you some good advice. I would also recommend that you take a look at the sticky post above;      

Newbies with rod building questions.

Got any more questions, don't hesitate to ask, there are plenty of top notch builders here to help you out....

Tight Wraps All!!

Regarding sources for blanks and components, I usually shop Jann's Netcraft and Cabelas.  Sometimes I can get what I want at only one.

Recently bought a Loomis Crankbait blank from Netcraft-was more than $20 less than Cabelas and Loomis direct.  It may be that Netcraft is sometimes a little slow in raising prices to new levels.  I like the titanium frame nanolite guides, and they are pretty reasonable from Jann's.

Service from both is excellent.  Haven't tried Mudhole yet.

For guides, shop ebay, also.  "Handler Custom Fishing Rods" often has premium guide sets removed from rods damaged in shipping for good prices, and he is a reliable person to do business with.  

ebay also sells winding and drying motors.  It is easy to build your own "supports" and add the motors.  Drying motors are a must have, and buy a collet with the motor to make it easy to adapt something to hold the rod to the motor.