I'm building myself a new Sage TCX 5wt blank and thought I'd put up the process I follow so some of the first time rodbuilders can have some pictures e.t.c. to follow and maybe this might help them along.


First up if your blank comes with dots on it to show you where the backbone or belly of the rod is check them to make sure they are correct, on most flyrods these marks indicate the belly of the blank but not always. The two butt sections of most flyrods are a bit too stiff to check but you can still do this by putting the ferrule section onto a hard surface and put a slight bend into this section of blank whilst turning it and it will kind of rollover and kind of click into place. You will know it when you feel it, especially in the tip sectons. If you are pushing downwards this will be the belly of the blank and all you do is mark the top of the blank with a chinagraph pencil or texta mark a peice of tape you have wrapped around the rod. If you have trouble finding the belly or backbone refer to google, there are plenty of vids for you to follow.


Next measure against the blank and mark where the top of your grip will be when you glue up the handle section. Easily done by just doing a dry assembly of the grip, reelseat and fighting butt if you are using one.
Mark where it ends and the do a light sanding from that mark down to give something for the glue to key too. Then wipe down with metho.


Next using a rat tail file, GENTLY REMOVE material from the grip until it fits nicely down the blank into it's final fitting place. Take this very easy and do alot of dry fitting until it's right. File material from both ends of the grip unless you are using a special cork reamer.



Once it fits properly and your happy with it your ready to start gluing it in.


Next mix 24 hour epoxy and spread over the butt section ready to slide the grip into place. I always twist the grip into place as it gives you a good coverage of glue under the cork and you don't end up with a grip that squeaks when you cast because there's no glue where it should be.



Once the grips in place and I've cleaned out the excess glue from the grip inlet I leave the grip to set up a while so the glue starts to go off. This I find helps when I come to attaching the reelseaet e.t.c.
Next I use masking tape to build up the space between the blank and the reelseat. This creates two arbors. Just roll the tape around the blank until you think you have enough then try the reelseat to see if it will fit snuggly over the tape. If not just remove a bit of tape at a time until it fits.
I make two or three arbors sometimes, depends what sort of rod I'm building.

Next mix a fresh batch of 24 hour epoxy and put a liberal amount over the masking tape arbors, then just like the grips, twist the reelseat on over the arbors. I move the reelseat backwards and forwards while twisting it so as I get as much epoxy in there as I can. Make sure you get glue into the grip inlet so that it all bonds the lot together properly. It helps to have some clean rags , an old tooth brush and some Metho on hand when doing this stage as it helps to wipe it all down and keep everything clean.


Once the reelseats in place and all the excess glue has been cleaned away. Nows the time to glue in your fighting butt exactly as you have done with everything else. My reelseat had a small cover ring for where the butt meets the reelseat, this makes for a nice transition from the reelseat to the fighting butt and finishes it nicely. Before we clamp it all together, check now that the middle of the reel foot clamp hole is in line with the marks you put on the blank to show you where the belly is. Everything should be inline as it's also on this side of the blank you will be binding the guides.

The next step I do is clamp the whole grip assembly together with a clamp I made from 2 peices of 1/4" threaded rod and 2 peices of cutting board and some nuts and wing nuts. As you can see there is a hole in the top peice for the blank to go through and a flat base. You don't have to clamp it really tightly but I do put just enough pressure onto it to make sure it is held securely.Next wipe off every bit of excess glue that's been squezzed out and make sure it's nice and clean because you won't get a chance to do this once the glue dries. I always look at the quality of a job by nice clean glue lines. I always recheck my reelseat again to make sure it has stayed in alignment when I've clamped this all up. If it's moved you can usually just twist it into place again. Then just put it aside for 24 hours to allow it all to dry STANDING IN AN UPRIGHT POSITION so the glue will settle right arond the blank.


Once dry remove it from the clamps and your just about ready to move onto winding check install and the marking out of the guides and binding them on.



Here's the rod with all the guide spacings and belly marks inplace so I have something to line my guides up with when I bind them on. I use small peices of tape to mark where the guides go so that way no marks can easily get rubbed off by mistake. I always measure my guides from the tip to the guide footend as this helps keep everything consistent.



I don't install the winding check until I'm ready to do the trims and bindings on the butt section of the rod.
Over the next few days I'll add to this post on the futher construction of my rod and the binding on and finishing of the guides and trims.
Cheers Darren

Aha rod building for dummies.
Thats brilliant fishnuts.
Clear instructions and clearer photos. Look forward to the next installment mate.
Maybe once your done this post can be stickied for future reference as this is the sorta stuff that will be asked about often. As an aside maybe a post or section could go up where people can show off their rod building/repair skills. Ideas for rod builds even?????

Ps karma point for the tutorial

Lookn good Dazz.

G'day VB,
Maybe the mods could sticky it later, I didn't know if a flyrod build would interest many but at the end of the day it's the same process no matter what rod you are building.
Flea keep watching mate and you can start that rod blank I gave you to build.
Cheers Darren

fishnuts wrote:

As it is spoken, so it shall be done!

One of the most legible, helpful and informative posts I've read in quite some time. Have karma from me also!

Yep all the bits will be here Tuesday then its all go looking forward to having a crack at it .
Thanks for the chance to have a go at this fine art .
Cheers
Kym.fishnuts wrote:

Looks brilliant Fishnuts, you make the whole process look quite easy so far. No doubt it's nerve racking once you start you can't stop! Not advertising pringles here Seriously though buddy, looking great. Brilliant looking blank! Can't wait to see the finished product!!

Ok guys here is some of the tools I use for my setup.

Chinagraph pencil,hobby knife with a fine blade, ruler, file,scissors, burnishing tool and a very simple thread tensioner that I made from some 1/4" threaded rod, small spring and some washers and nuts. The eyelets are what you put the thread through so it gets guided onto the rod nice and straight.

Also here is the rollers that I use and they are just simple small nylon wheels bolted through some aluminium angle and screwed to some wooden blocks that can be moved along some more smaller angle on the rod rack base. I always put masking tape over my reelseat to protect it while I'm rolling up the rod as in the photo.


Binding on the giudes, well the first thing I do is file down the feet of the guides nice and smooth and with a nice taper to them. This helps the thread easily go up the guide foot while you are wrapping. Make sure you don't leave any burrs on them as it will cut through the thread when you burnish it or even while you are wrapping the guide.


Next you look down on top of the rod and in line with the belly marks you put on the tape earlier you stick down the guide with tape to hold it in place while you bind it on. You'll notice that I put the guide foot up against the tape that is marking my guide spacing measurement.


Now I have the guide taped where I want it I measure how far out I want the thread from the foot and also tape down the thread I want to use for the trim on this binding. As this is a flyrod I try and keep everything to a minimum so as not to dampen the blank by having huge bindings and lots of epoxy over them. I have allowed 5mm including the trim on this guide as it is the stripping guide. Just measure from the foot end out and put a small dot with a sharpie pen.


Now I start to turn the rod one rotation and put a nylon pull through under the first turn of thread. This is the loop you put the thread through so you can tie off the trim by pulling it under the over wrapped thread.



Here I have done 4 turns of trim and I'm about to pull the thread back through the nylon loop to finish it off.


Now just continue to wrap the binding thread up the guide foot and if you have filed the foot properly the thread will just ride up nice and easy. If it starts to bunch up and not go up the guide foot just wind a wrap over the top of the foot and move it into place from the top. Keep doing this and packing it down until the thread starts to follow the previous thread wrap easily.


When you get to about 6 or 7 turns from where you want your wrap to finish, put in another mono loop so you can pull through the thread to finish this side of the guide. I measure these thread bindings and try and keep them both equal on each side of the guide. Pull the thread through with the loop.


Once you have pulled the thread through it's time to cut it and finish the wrap. Grab the tag end and pull the thread sideways slightly and slide the hobby knife down along the thread until you touch the blank with the blade. Now just cut the thread against the blank but try not to mark or cut the blank. If your knife is sharp it will give you a clean cut. If you think this is scary then try taking a picture like I did while doing this. One slip and you will have to do it all again but I find this to be the tidiest way of finishing the wrap and not having little fuzzy bits of thread to deal with later. Just go easy and you'll be fine.




Next you use the burnishing tool or the handle of an old knife or something smooth and firm and just rub over the thread. This moves the threads to fill in any gaps that you may have and smooths out any of the lumps left by the pulled through threads underneath the bindings.


Ok that's one side of the guide done, now just do exactly the same on the other guide foot and you have just bound on your first guide.
See, how simple was that.


Single foot guides are easy to bind onto a flyrod as I don't put trims on these and the bindings are made very short. I do bind these a little bit different to other people because I wind 5 locking wraps in front of the guide to finish it off but this is not needed always , it's just a habit with me.


I would like to say that this is how I build a rod, it may be different to how others do it and there are alot of different ways to do it but I haven't had one fail me yet so I hope you can all follow what I'm trying to put across.

Ok so now just go ahead and bind all the guides on and I'll come back and finish this off with applying the butt trims and hook keeper and the dreaded epoxy finish.
Cheers Darren

Top notch posts there Fishnuts. There's info here for everyone, as you say: the principles involved are basically the same when building a fly rod or a normal rod.
Nice, neat threadwork; great photos; concise, simple instructions.... shame I can only hand out a karma point.
Cheers.

Bloody awesome read mate. Have karma.

finished product looks fantastic!

Great tutorial and pictorial Darren.
Goes along way to demystifiying the whole rod building process.
If you've ever thought about giving this a go guys all I can say is DO IT! Sure you can buy good sticks off the rack for less, and I'm sure Darren will agree, but its hard to beat the feeling of catching fish on something you built yourself. They mightnt always look as good as some of the rods put in these and other pages, but its not always about the looks is it?
I know MOTackle have some cheap kits for budding rod builders that start from under $100.00 all thats needed from there is a bit of imagination and whallah!
Agaim well done Darren, I particularly like the idea of the securing binds on the front of the single footers.

Thanks guys,
It's added to the build time taking photos e.t.c. but it's been a bit of fun putting it together. Hopefully I'll have this all finished by the middle of the week.
Coonta I've built rods and tied flies for longer than I care to remember and your right on the money. When you catch a decent fish on something you have crafted yourself it's very rewarding. I put this post together to hopefully help some others achieve this aswell.
Cheers Darren

After a hectic week I'm back on track and the rod is all rolled up and ready for the epoxy job tomorrow morning.

The winding check is just given a light sand and then with just a smidgen of glue it's stuck down on top of the cork grip, then it's just a matter of binding in your trims and then binding on the hook keeper over the top. This is also how you would attach a guide to a trolling rod e.t.c. after you have put all the trims into an underbind for that guide. The underbind acts as a cushion so that the guide feet don't harm the blank when making baitcasting and trolling rods e.t.c. Once the epoxy is put over the thread in front of the winding check it is not going anywhere.


I'm keeping all the trims and bindings on this rod very minimal where I can to cut down on the epoxy and any extra weight. This is the end result for grip section.


This is the ferrule trim done and it's also been kept as small as I can get away with.


So that's it until tomorrow and the epoxy goes on and it will be all done.
Cheers Darren

I'm impressed mate, you are an artist!!

Looking forward to the final shots!

Very nice mate.