Gentlemen, we are being harsh here. Dennis is using Riffle Blanks, from Phil Barducci of the Kettle Creek Fly Shop in Pennsylvania (
click here for his catalog). These are not $19 blanks off eBay . Phil B has sold Riffle blanks (and other rod building supplies) for years. Phil quietly developed his tapers and worked out his source of supply before glass made a comeback. Phil knows what he is selling and he doesn't sell junk.
Why then don't we hear more about Riffle blanks? Mainly because Phil doesn't advertise widely and he only established an internet presence in the last couple of years. I have cast a couple of Riffle based rods. I liked them. They aren't stiff, they aren't soft, they are a nice happy medium. For some reason, there aren't many builders working with Riffles, other than Phil himself, Barry Evans, and now Dennis Stone (if I knew as much about rod building as those three, I'd be selling rods too).
Phil doesn't deserve the sourcing hysteria raised in this thread. Neither does Dennis. If you haven't cast/handled/used a Riffle rod, then you have no reason to disparage it. As I recently stated in a Glass Tech thread, I definitely understand why some builders are very secretive about their rod blank supplier.
Whether we like non-US manufactured products or not is a personal decision. In many ways it is also a political decision made away and apart from the merits of the item in question. We do fishing here, not politics. Please, let us stick to a discussion of the merits of Dennis' new venture into building on glass, and not make unfounded statements about the rod blanks.
Tom