Introduction: As I sit down to write this article, a look at the archives reveals it's been roughly five years since I began my rod building hobby. While I'm sad to report my skills haven't gotten much better, I can easily say my level of frustration has grown. Goals. Then why do I continue? Guess I'm just a glutton for punishment, but I do get a certain level of gratification fishing a rod I assembled.
With the price of everything going up a custom build makes more sense than ever in my opinion and
Having a point blank build once, I would be willing to try the katana blank maybe.
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible
Being how the new and previous heavy powered rods are different, I wonder if they did the same with the 7'0 and 7'3 medium heavy. My 7'0 medium heavy on the previous iteration fishes more like a medium plus at best. Thanks for the article, I found it quite helpful.
That was a fun read, as another hobbyist rod builder. I just started on my first bass / warm water rod recently, on a $40 closeout blank. Used Alconite guides and a fairly pedestrian American Tackle split grip reel seat, since I figured I'd make a few newbie mistakes along the way.
Like you I noted that Matagi makes some nice winding checks and other trim parts. I have become accustomed to low profile metal winding checks when building fly rods, so using those cheap ugly rubber or vinyl checks just seems wrong.
I was especially intrigued by the description of silk wraps. Have to give those a try sometime.
