My other passion. Build custom fly rods.

[HaroldD]

My other passion. Building custom flyrods including grips, feather inlays and weave patterns. I can't wait to build my first pen. I'm waiting for some tools, blanks etc. to come.

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cheers
Harold

 

[gmreeves]

Another rod builder here. Great looking grips and seats! I really like the feather inlays. There are some people that wrap tubes in feathers and then cast them in resin. They make really great pens that I know the fly tier would love. I just bought a lathe so I haven't finished a rod yet with my own reel seat. I have turned cork on an electric drill poor man's lathe. It's good to see some other rod builders here. I'm sure there are more than a few. Here are a couple of my photos.

 

[HaroldD]

Very nice cane. I built myself a cane last year as well. It's an 8' 4wt Leonard taper. I absolutely love fishing with it. I didn't quite go as traditional as you. I used nylon thread rather than silk. My next one I'll use silk. Nice build.

 

[glycerine]

Not a rod builder, but it sure looks interesting. Where's the best place to get info on getting started? Any tutorials I could look at. What type of wood is most often used?
I've done a little fly fishing many years ago. Had a cheap K-Mart rod. Building my own rod sounds fun...

 

[gmreeves]

Thanks HaroldD. I'm currenlty building an 8' 3wt. Leonard. It will be the first Leonard rod that I have made so I can't wait to see how it will fish. Silk isn't any harder than nylon and I don't think is any more traditional. A lot of people used and still use nylon and I have on several. It just takes a little longer to pack tight.

For info on rod building, there are several books and great forums. I like www.rodbuildingforum.com.

 

[glycerine]

Thanks!

 

[DavePowers]

Those look really nice. How long from start to finish does it take?

 

[HaroldD]

Thanks Dave.

I've got about 16 hours actual working time on the average rod. Formatting the weaving patterns and then doing them takes a fair bit of time...for me anyways. Building the grips and reel seats takes about 4 hours to glue them up and turn them. It's all the time inbetween waiting for glues/epoxies etc. to dry. Overall I could build a fly rod a week if I wanted too.

 

[mranum]

Any advice on how I could learn to do this?

 

[HaroldD]

Go too www.rodbuilding.org. It's a forum on building fishing rods of any type. I build only flyrods but this site has everything and anything you want to know about building a rod. And of course, if you ever have any question, you can always PM me.

cheers
Harold

 

[mranum]

Go too www.rodbuilding.org. It's a forum on building fishing rods of any type. I build only flyrods but this site has everything and anything you want to know about building a rod. And of course, if you ever have any question, you can always PM me.

cheers
Harold

Thanks a bunch!