Monday, December 24, 2012

Merry Christmas

I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! The Carpenter Bros. will turn 6 yrs. old on their birthday in one week. This is a big time around our house. They have randomly asked to go fishing with me. They periodically ask to help me in my workshop. The most frequent request I get is to watch TV in the workshop while I work on rods. I have a lot to be thankful for this year!

Tomorrow I will be giving my father-in-law a new rod. He previously used the second rod that I ever made. However, after breaking it three times and losing one of the tips there wasn't much I could do anymore. I will say this rod is a lot stronger and thicker than his first rod. So this rod in the pics will go to him. Its not quite finished, but I can bring it home after tomorrow and put the finishing touches to it. I normally don't do wraps throughout the rod, but he saw a Bradford rod I sold about a month ago and he really liked it. The last pic is of the Carpenter Bros.













Sunday, December 16, 2012

Nodes and Flaming

Today I worked on an order for a rod that was lightly flamed. When you look at the culms of bamboo you will see light and dark spots. When you sand off the enamel of the bamboo most of the real differences will come off. This will give the rod a more balanced color. This rod should end up as a light caramel color. This bamboo is currently at 6' long. I will cut it down to around 55" in order to line up the nodes correctly. 

There are two sets of culms in this picture. The one on the right will only have two sets of nodes on the finished sections. I will use this pair for tips. Since tips take most of the bending with the rod, I prefer to use the stronger pieces for that. When you are talking about a rod that is 8'4" long and only have two sets of nodes in the tip section that is pretty good. 

The second pair of culms (on the left) has more nodes and will be used for the butt sections. Since the butt sections have more material I prefer to use the pieces with the most nodes for these. I will be able to get two completed rods out of these four culms if all goes as planned. 

Right after Christmas I will be heading up to the Taylor River in Colorado to do some winter fishing. I have fished here quite a bit in the summer and this will be the first in the winter. It should be interesting. 




Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Two New Rods (Update)

I have been working hard in the shop lately. I have had a good month with orders and can safely say I now have at least an 8 month wait. Remember if you have ever thought about ordering a rod the time is now. I will be raising my prices come Jan. 1.

In the pics you will see the two rods I first spoke about on Thanksgiving. One is a 8' 2 weight and the other is a hollow built spey rod. The 2 weight is turning out to be a great little rod. The weight is going to be right around 2.8 oz. The new grip shape is very comfortable. Its funny because I had never done that shape before, but it just took that shape from glueing the rings on. I like it so much that I am sure that I will do more like that.

The spey rod is coming along nicely. You can see that I have a great looking reel seat in mind for this rod. Also, the black rings that I will use as end caps on the grip. In the pic as well you can see one of the Carbon Fiber ferrules that I am going to use. This rod will be somewhat of a prototype, since I have never built one before. I hope to make a couple more this spring when I get my winter orders completed. I would like to get them out in the hands of spey fisherman so they can give them a going through and see what needs to be changed. If your interested give me a shout!