Business

I hope everyone is starting to thaw out from winter. It has been a very mild winter here in Missouri and I am looking forward to getting out to fish.

I just wanted everyone to notice the price change on my rods. I haven't raised my prices in almost 2 years. I like the price point I am at because it keeps me with plenty of orders. The main reason I am raising my prices is that supply prices keep going up. One item in general that is becoming a problem is cork. The cork supply that is available is not that good anymore. I guess its a personal fault but I refuse to use cheap cork. In my mind it takes away from the beauty of the bamboo. So what I have to do now is buy large expensive quantities of cork and sort through it for the best stuff. I also tend to use wood spacers on my reel seats that are from hard to find or rare woods. Like anything else in this world the word "rare" usually means "costs more".

Also, I have several big developments in the works right now! I hope to announce them by the end of the spring. I am very excited and will make the information known on here once they come to fruition.

Rod Building Class

I started a rod building class at K & K Flyfisher's yesterday. One of the builders is an excellent wood worker. He built everyone a rod wrapper. I am looking forward to getting rid of my old one and using this one!    

Merry Christmas

Happy Holidays from the Carpenter Bros.!

I hope everyone is having a great holiday. We will be working hard the next few weeks to get the cane ready for our spring and summer orders. One thing that rod builders spend time on is nodes. There are some builders that spend a lot of time on these and are experts with making them very small. There is an importance with these and so much that some builders cut them out then glue the pieces of the cane back together. As a consumer you realize that every thing a builder does to their rods USUALLY is reflected in their prices. Nodeless rods usually cost more because of the the time that goes into cutting all the nodes out.

The medium in which we use to make our rods is not perfect. So we take the cane, which is all different, and try to make it how we want it. I buy my cane from the Bamboo Broker, as do most all other builders. We place an order and take what is given to us, somewhat like the diamond market. I believe Sweetgrass still goes to China and picks out their own cane, but not sure.

To make nodes micro small it takes a lot of time. Again, this would be reflected in the price. I am someone that wants to make rods that are for people to fish. I know I have told this story before, but I owned several Mario Wojnicki rods. I had the 7'7" 4 weight and caught a 9 lb brown on it one day. It scared me that I was going to break it and I would be out the $3200 I spent on the rod. So I sold my rods and began to build. I also want my rods affordable. Sure I would love to sell my rods for $2500 each, but thats not the person I am. Maybe someday through inflation I will be at that price, but I enjoy making affordable rods, if $1400 is affordable.

Attached are some pics of nodes that I am working on now. I have put a penny next to it to give some size perspective. I wish all of the nodes were this size, but with a natural product some will just be a little bigger and there is not much you can do about it and keep the price reasonable. Again I hope everyone has a great Holiday season and I appreciate your business!

Almost Done

Well I started expanding my shop in July and I will be done with it this weekend. That took about 2 months longer than I thought! At some point I will take a couple of pics and put them on the blog.

I started my spring orders today. I am pleasantly surprised that about half of my orders this year are for rods with composite ferrules. I am still at about a year to year and a half on wait time.

You can see my fishing buggy next to the cane.

Colorado Cane Conclave

I just got back from Mike Clark's get together and had a really good time. I got to meet lots of good people that like to fish bamboo. I shared a table row with Brian Morrow of B.D. Morrow rods. He makes excellent looking and casting rods. They remind me very much of what a Colorado bamboo rod should look like. Brian's mom makes my rod bags for me and does an excellent job. I have posted some pics of Brian casting my 8'3" 5 weight with composite ferrules.  I would have to say with about 99.9% certainty, that is one smooooooth casting rod!       http://www.bdmorrow.com

After the show on Sunday I headed up to fish the Frying Pan for two days. This 5 weight was my go to rod for the trip. I had actually made several new rods to try out on my trip, but I liked this one so much I didn't use most of them. Just means I will have some demos for sale at a discounted price. I appreciate the orders I received while out there. My wait time now is just over a year. I am taking the next month off and expanding my shop. My wife is getting tired of my sander and strip cutter on her side of the garage.

I will be heading to Japan this December for a show in Tokyo. I have several good customers over there and will be glad to meet them. I normally don't make rods under 8', but will start a limited production of shorter rods for the Japanese market.

Customer Pic

Here is a customer pic of a Carpenter Bros. 8'3" quad. I might be a little partial because its my rod, but that is one sweet looking picture! I will be using my 8'3" quad out in Colorado next week.

I will be leaving for Mike Clark's get together this Friday. I will have a range of rods with me. I will have several different 3 weights, composite ferruled 5 weight, 8'5" 5 weight and a couple of 4 weights.

Rod Hollowing

Every so often I get the question about hollowing rods and how I do it. I use a Curt Elder Hollowing Mill. Curt came up with this about 7 years ago and sold a few while he was building rods. The one difference between his and mine is I have set depth controls for butt sections and tip sections. Curt's mill had an external adjustment and depth gauge that you set the mill to. I hollow to certain depths for butt sections and a different depth for tip sections.

I am currently working on a prototype of a 8 wt 8'6" rod with composite ferrules. The blank weight is 3.2 oz. However, with extra cork and a bigger reel seat I am not sure where its going to end up. I hope to have a pic by next weekend of the rod. The taper is based off a parabolic style so I am excited to see how it turns out.

I will be attending Mike Clark's get together the first weekend of August. I hope to have several rods for people to cast.