5 Helpful Rod Building Tips
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- Опубліковано 25 лип 2024
- This video has 5 helpful rod building tips I thought I would share with everyone. If you like this style of video with several different tips, let me know in the comments below and I may look at doing more videos like this in the future.
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☘️ Happy Saint Patrick’s day! ☘️ And happy birthday to your daughter 🎉
Thank you. Loving the new wrapper from you.
Thank you and I’m glad you like it!
I too use the double edge razors over the single edge. I find the double edge razor blades to be superior over the single edge. They are considerably sharper. I cut the double edge razors in two with heavy duty scissors. I’ll take masking tape and double wrap the back edge where I made the cut. The tape makes the cut blades easy and safer to pick up and use.
good information thank you
Very helpful video as always!
Thank you!
unravel the string before you overlap it. brush out the unravel end until it looks like a lions tail. it will lay flat and not look as bumpy when more strings is over it.❤
Hi, could you tell me the diameter of the spring steel on your current wrapper. I really like it vs the CRB I gave to my grandson. Love your vids.
.039” music wire is what I use
I'm VERY new to this whole DIY-rod thing; I'm presently building my first rod.
I have some experience with use of West Systems epoxy for various oddball projects like bedding rifles, hacking together a fish finder mount for a float tube, building small model rockets, repairs on various devices. You expressed concern in your video about color preserver possibly allowing the guide foot to wiggle. I know that, were a guide foot to be coated in color preserver or release agent, stuck into a puddle of West Systems epoxy without any thread covering, and the epoxy were allowed to fully cure around the foot, the mechanical lock of the epoxy around the foot would be VERY solid, and the foot of the guide wouldn't be wiggling within the epoxy socket for a very, very long time. Adhesion / stickiness isn't one of epoxy's strengths; it's the mechanical bond, the way epoxy will fill and lock into tiny grooves, roughness, and crevices, that we take advantage of when using epoxy to bond things together.
When it comes to rod wraps, a thin epoxy will saturate threads, weaves, whatever, forming a tough matrix that converts all the individually flexible components into a rigid whole. Assuming there's nothing that will interfere with the epoxy's ability to set, and nothing to block the epoxy from being absorbed into the thread, and enough epoxy is present to fill both the thread and the spaces between. The resulting whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We see this in fiberglass composites and carbon fiber composites too. But prevent the epoxy from infiltrating the thread, and the strength of the resulting structure will be significantly lower. I understand the point you're making; use of color preserver means the thread isn't strongly bound, can still warp / twists / deflect, which seems like it would allow the guide foot to move, maybe even pop free.
But...
I'm seeing conflicting information around the internet on this subject. And, based on my experience with West Systems epoxy, I suspect that use of color preserver won't have any meaningful impact on the potential of a guide pulling free from or wiggling within its wraps, provided enough epoxy is used for sufficient rigidity all the way around the blank and threads, the guide foot is sufficiently *keyed*, and the wraps are pretty darn tight. Thing is, I have zero experience with the resins used in thread finish, so I have no idea how rigid these epoxies get when fully cured. I get the impression they're supposed to be more flexible than general-purpose epoxies so the finish will bend with the rod without fracturing / cracking. Is the purportedly increased flexibility of thread finish sufficient to allow a guide to stretch its pocket and thereby escape? I don't have real-world experience with rod building; am I way off base, full of spit? What do you think?
I've also seen this piece of "wisdom" repeated many times: the strength of a wrap is in the thread, not the finish. And to this I say, NOT ALWAYS! I've been playing around with wrapping some small, single-foot hook keepers (American Tackle deluxe HKD small single-foot hook keeper HKDC-S, not to be confused with the larger double-foot version, or the small double-foot S2 version), so I'll know what I'm doing before I try attaching them to my valuable rods. And I discovered that, in the absence of epoxy to make the wraps rigid, the hook keepers would easily move around under the wraps no matter how tightly wound. The thread couldn't provide enough friction to hold the keeper in place. The turns, having no rigidity and not being locked to each other, could shift. The tiny factory keys did nothing to help this. The threads very tightly held the keeper against the blank but couldn't prevent the keeper from skewing this way and that with application of only minor pressure / force from my finger. I did some experimentation, trying to figure out how to maximize retention performance of the wrap. Max possible tension? Strange arrangements to try to tightly brace the back of the keeper against twisting and pivoting? Nothing worked. I pondered a while, then tried the following combo:
1. I added two deeper keys to the foot, one to each side.
2. I placed a single, small dab of CA glue onto the blank underneath the foot.
3. I tightly wrapped the foot in place, with a couple locking wraps at the end.
It worked. The keeper was ROCK SOLID this time. And no, it wasn't because the CA glue made a super-strong bond between the keeper and the rod; testing beforehand revealed that the bond between CA glue and the rod is quite week; CA glue doesn't bond to graphite blanks all that well. My theory is that the CA glue formed a close-fitting foundation / adapter between the under-surface of the foot and the rod. Thread very tightly compressed everything together. Now, when the foot tries to pivot, it must fight significantly more against thread tension than before, because pivoting requires the entire foot to elevate. Whereas in earlier attempts, the poor fit between the rod and the foot required only a tiny bit of elevation for the pivot / twist motion to occur, so only a tiny bit of the total thread tension was resisting the pivot / twist motion. I think the new, deeper keys help with preventing the keeper from trying to slide out from under the wraps too, though thread locks helped a lot in that area. Whatever the true reason for rock-solid success, the results were replicated when the hook keeper was transferred to another rod.
So yeah - the strength of the wrap is in the thread, but only if the foot is sufficiently wide, and / or the fit between the foot and the blank is sufficiently precise. Failing that, I think a stout epoxy will overcome shortcomings in fitment and geometry. But is thread finish epoxy sufficiently stout? Your thoughts and discussion will be much appreciated. Thanks.
Just a side note: I believe a nylon-epoxy composite isn't an ideal composite for strength, because nylon stretches more than epoxy does. This means the nylon threads can't contribute their full tensile strength to the overall strength of the composite. Shouldn't matter for rod wraps though, so long as the blank's ability to bend doesn't exceed the ability of the epoxy to stretch to accommodate. But still: in the case of nylon thread wraps saturated with epoxy, is the thread actually contributing much to the overall strength of the wrap? Would a solid epoxy "wrap" work just as well?
Rod building epoxy is most similar to casting resin epoxy, very low viscosity and good self leveling properties. The majority of the strength on a wrap is indeed in the thread wrap itself, that is why the old way of doing things (covering the wraps in varnish) is still able to be used today. Varnish has no real strength but has worked as a thread finish since way before I was even born and I have a lot of grey hair haha! There isn’t much epoxy on an actual guide wrap. I like mine to just barely cover the thread. It is a protective coating for the wrap so the thread doesn’t get damaged. Most of the load on the guide is vertical when fighting a fish but some side loading is still possible when steering a fish. If you are building an extreme duty rod, not using color preserver and allowing the epoxy to fill in the tunnels between the guide foot and the thread may give you a little help against side loading forces and it is probably worth doing the wraps that way. For me personally, it doesn’t make any difference whatsoever. I’ve been using rods I built using color preserver for years and haven’t had a single wrap failure. Large game saltwater rods were built that lasted for years using varnish as a thread wrap finish. That said I would concede that epoxy filling the tunnels would likely be of some benefit in an extreme duty application. I use locking wraps sometimes, especially on micro guides. You actually want to be able to move your guide a little before you apply your finish so that you can make minor alignment adjustments.
I use polyester thread because it has some advantages over nylon. It also doesn’t stretch as much as nylon thread which I personally like, while others don’t like that particular property as they are wrapping. The main reason I prefer polyester over nylon is the technique used to dye the thread is less likely to fade and polyester holds up to uv rays much better than nylon. It also doesn’t expand and contract with moisture as much as nylon. Some people have problems with nylon wraps when using water based color preserver and sometimes complain about wraps becoming loose after CP is applied. I’ve not had any issues like that when using polyester thread.
And almost all of the strength is in the thread. The epoxy is there to protect the thread from moving and being damaged. My epoxy is extremely thin, barely covering the thread. It has very little strength by itself.
@@TheFishingHobby Thanks for your observations, thoughts and info; I appreciate it!
Your channel has an impressive amount of info, tips, and unique ideas.
Do rod blanks need a finish? like outside of the threads, is a finish necessary/common?
Most blanks have a factory finish. This one in the video did at one time, but I removed it. It was painted and varnished and it was in bad shape so I scraped it down to a raw blank. I just rubbed it down with epoxy to shine it up a little. Some blanks are sold as “raw” blanks with no factory finish. They can be built and used like that, but you need to be careful with them. A deep scratch could damage the integrity of the rod and cause a break point. A precatalized urethane blank finish is very thin, hard and flexible and provides some protection. It would take 3 or 4 epoxy rub on finish coats to get a similar protective coating.
The whole epoxy thing on a rod as a protectant is a little weird to me. If I am rebuilding a rod, I will apply some PermaGloss to the whole blank. That works great and doesnt affect the blank in terms of action because it is very thin.
It’s not any lighter or thinner than rubbing on epoxy and wiping it off like I show in this video. Epoxy casting resin (which is the same type of epoxy as you would use as thread finish) is about the same density as precatalized urethane.I normally use CPExtra that is basically the same thing as PermaGloss. They are both precatalized urethane finishes. A Urethane finish is more scratch resistant which is more ideal in this particular application, but we normally trust the scratch resistance of epoxy to protect our thread guide wraps which is about the most important part of a rod build. It is more difficult to build up an extremely thin layer of epoxy, but it can be done. It takes about 4 rub on/wipe off coats of epoxy to achieve a layer thickness similar to what you get with a single application of a precatalized urethane. 4 coats of epoxy requires a lot of drying time between coats, so it isn’t a fast process.
Here would be a breakdown of pros and cons of an epoxy finish in my opinion…
Pros:
- Better adhesive properties than urethane when subsequent epoxy needs to bond to your blank finish (guide wrap epoxy/grip and reel seat epoxy)
- Cheap and easier to store for extended periods of time (precatalized Urethane has a short shelf life once you open the container for the first time and more than likely will thicken to the point of being unusable before you can make use of an entire bottle)
- most people don’t have adverse effects from epoxy, precatalized urethane finish fumes are toxic and you should really use a respirator if you can’t work with it outside. Using it near a window with a box fan to pull fumes out of a room to vent outside will help.
- ease of application without a need to use a rod dryer…wipe on/wipe off/hang vertically to dry.
- easier to touch up areas as needed
Cons:
- Less durable/scratch resistant
- Requires multiple coats and a lot of drying time between coats to build to a similar depth as urethane gives you in only one coat
- Longer drying time than urethane
If I were rebuilding a rod for a customer, I’d choose urethane every time because time is money. There is a lot of waiting between coats of wipe on/wipe off epoxy finish to be done. If time isn’t a factor you will get a very similar result with 3 or 4 coats of thread finish epoxy rubbed on and then wiped off like I show in the video. Similar layer thickness, similar shine and similar level of protection. A rub on wipe off epoxy finish is more durable than a varnish finish (which is still used on factory built rods more than most people realize), a little less durable than urethane. It is a good option but the slowest to do because of the drying time required.
@@TheFishingHobby Wow! Talk about a well thought out reply. Thanks for the info!
No problem! I’m sure there are other pros and cons and slipped my mind, but those are the big ones that came to mind first. The biggest thing by far is the time cost. Because epoxy curing is a chemical process and not an evaporative process, the thinner layers do not dry/cure any faster than thicker layers…still takes about 4 hours of dry/cure time between coats. If you do 3 or 4 rub on /wipe off coats, that is very time consuming. If I’m rebuilding a rod or two a year for myself, no problem. If I’m getting paid to do rebuilds I’m using Urethane without question. It dries super quick and only needs a single coat. If you need a second coat you can put it on in minutes instead of hours later. Time cost is a huge factor for a job, not so much for people who build as a hobby 👍
First
😮 you are quick!