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Post 04 Oct 2013, 06:44 • #51 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 03/16/08
Posts: 3540
Location: Upstate-NY
It was my understanding that Peak rolled his own blanks, having access to the Garcia-Conolon factory and equipment.

Am I mistaken?


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Post 04 Oct 2013, 07:56 • #52 
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Joined: 01/10/06
Posts: 7811
Location: Holly Springs, NC
corlay wrote:
It was my understanding that Peak rolled his own blanks, having access to the Garcia-Conolon factory and equipment.

Am I mistaken?
You are correct. Supposedly Peak had a deal with Conolon where he could use their blank fabrication equipment and would help them with rod design. I don't know if Peak had his own equipment after the Conolon shop closed. Peak was selling graphite rods toward the end of his career, but again I don't know how he fabricated or acquired the blanks.

This discussion has branched into some very interesting directions:
Spruce Creek wrote:
Its hard to give an accurate description of rod tapers.
Absolutely. Mike made the rods, yet it is still difficult for him to describe the difference. How can we describe 'feel' in words? It's really, really tough. Several 'systems' have been proposed (CCS is a recent one), but none are sufficient to fully describe the action of a fly rod in easily understood terms. Forming a judgment about any builder's fly rod is a difficult task, unless we can handle it ourselves.

chform wrote:
IMHO there are three levels of this occupation - Builder/Maker/Designer. Perhaps the most appropriate description for Mr. Harms is "Rod designer and builder".
In our woefully out of date Wiki, I tried to make such a distinction. A limited number of shops can design and produce their own glass rod blanks; Steffen, McFarland, Lamiglas, Scott, South Fork, T&T, and the like. Some shops don't actually do their own fabrication, but specify all the technical details for production; Larry Kenney and Mario Wojnicki come to mind. Other shops work with a production shop to get the blanks they want with their own feel, such as this particular project. Still others work with the blanks available on the market. Sometimes the distinctions are very blurry.

6footrod wrote:
... as good an "investment" as a fishing rod can be taking into account the enjoyment factor of owning a nice glass rod.
A bit of a selective quote I realize, but it gets to the heart of value. A fly rod may not compete with a good mutual fund as an investment, but you can enjoy the rod much more. As always, your comfort with the cost of the investment will vary.

Tom


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Post 05 Oct 2013, 19:50 • #53 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 09/05/07
Posts: 2153
Location: West Virginia
Whrlpool wrote: "If they are good fishing rods--many by custom builders who don't understand the material or its best fly fishing applications are not. .."

Whrlpool, I just cannot read a statement like that without asking if you would elaborate on what you understand to be the best fishing applications of fiberglass and where you believe these custom builders have gone wrong. Your definitive comment suggest that you know.

Whrlpool also wrote: " It is very hard to speculatively identify the few exceptions. It would be much easier to identify the many custom makes around these days that will lose almost all of their value and be the equivalent of today's $25 flea market find."

To say that "many custom makes around these days will lose almost all of their value and be the equivalent of today's $25 flea market find" is not only absurd in my opinion, but also an insult to anybody making glass rods today, quite a few of whom are on this forum. FWIW, I have bought and sold a lot of glass rods, new and old, and rarely have lost money on any of them and sometimes on collectible rods have much more than quadrupled my investment. As far as new rods are concerned, one of Matt Leiderman's rods built on a T&T Heirloom blank recently sold for $125 more than Matt's original asking price. Perhaps I chose wisely, was plain lucky or my experience is a complete anomaly, but I have never seen any of my "custom make" rods ever turn into $25 flea market rods and I sincerely doubt if they will in the future. Quite frankly, I love glass fly rods for their own sake and am not interested in making money on them but your comment begs rebuttal.

Whrlpool, although it seems contradictory to your often proclaimed lack of interest in modern rod offerings, your comments further suggest that you have cast and critiqued most of the new rods by modern builders. I can only assume that you would include in that group, a selection of proprietary tapers by Mark Steffen, Tom Morgan, Mario Wojnicki, Mike McFarland, Kerry Burkheimer, Yasuyuki Kabuto, Kazutomo Ijuin, Dwight Lyons, Masatoshi Okui, Ishizaka Koichi, Dave Lewis, Larry Kenney, Fred Paddock, Christian Horgren, Shane Gray, James Green and (my apology to anyone I've left out who have designed their own blanks). .. help me here. .. I'm running out of custom builder names. Personally, I doubt that any of those folks "don't understand the material or its best fishing applications".


Last edited by Duff on 06 Oct 2013, 13:17, edited 1 time in total.

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Post 05 Oct 2013, 21:44 • #54 
Master Guide
Joined: 04/25/07
Posts: 547
Location: US-PA
Tom Great post! This entire direction has gotten little why? Mike rolls blanks for Bill Harms he custom builds them and us guys buys them?


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Post 06 Oct 2013, 03:20 • #55 
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Joined: 04/20/07
Posts: 8920
Location: US-ME
Duff, you enjoy buying and selling rods, sampling the best and sometimes some not so good. If they were so good, they wouldn't be sold within a year or two with barely a stain on the cork. I am selective in what I buy for my fishing--very, very little--and I don't sell.
The buy-sell-trade parade is great for those who enjoy it, and I like watching it. I'm just saying it is highly speculative and risky as an investment. You have to have a rod a lot of years and fish it dozens and dozens of times for its real value to shake out.

We just don't know right now. We do know in this case a high end builder in collaboration with a manufacturer has entered the market. That is good.

Surely you're not asking me to name the overpriced clunkers of the fiberglass world? People who bought them are vested and it will take them years to realize and accept that the rod is a disappointment. Identifying it now would just stiffen their resolve to like it and make it work for them, thus depriving them the benefit of chalking that up to experience and finding something better. And they will continue to accept the idea that their skill is inadequate for the extraordinary qualities of the rod and other such bunk.

It wouldn't be nice to the makers, either, but I've seen and handled enough new 'glass to be underwhelmed. The jury is still out on trends such as pale/white blanks, too, that look beautiful under proper indoor lighting. Whether they are a comfortable outdoor color for the user will take time to know. Maybe they will be good for night fishing for big brown trout if they have enough guts to land the fish. Maybe they won't weather and yellow like most composites in pale colors do. We just don't know. Somebody has to take the risk and find out, just not me.

To me, the basic desirable characteristics of a fly rod haven't changed much. In the modern market, Steffen would be an example of products with enduring, proven design traits, elegantly simple and fit for the task. And we do know that traditional aesthetics--earth tones--develop character and age gracefully. They look even better in natural conditions and outdoor light than they do in a studio. Even these, one can't know what they will be worth 20 and 30 years from now.

The general proposition might be easier to accept if thought of in terms of the graphite fly rod market. There is no need to handle and cast every latest and greatest rod to be perfectly happy without it, nor to buy every costly graphite latest and greatest with a new ad campaign or a variant built by an excellent custom builder. Nor would you expect most of these to retain value.

Same for fiberglass, especially in a reinvention stage, where some poor ones have to be produced and short term fads followed in the process of shaking out the best applications of the material, not withstanding that they have been pretty much known since the late 1970s.


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Post 06 Oct 2013, 05:19 • #56 
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Joined: 02/06/07
Posts: 1437
Location: US-VT
whrlpool wrote:
Duff, you enjoy buying and selling rods, sampling the best and sometimes some not so good. If they were so good, they wouldn't be sold within a year or two with barely a stain on the cork. I am selective in what I buy for my fishing--very, very little--and I don't sell.
The buy-sell-trade parade is great for those who enjoy it, and I like watching it. I'm just saying it is highly speculative and risky as an investment. You have to have a rod a lot of years and fish it dozens and dozens of times for its real value to shake out.
We just don't know right now. We do know in this case a high end builder in collaboration with a manufacturer has entered the market. That is good.
Surely you're not asking me to name the overpriced clunkers of the fiberglass world? People who bought them are vested and it will take them years to realize and accept that the rod is a disappointment. Identifying it now would just stiffen their resolve to like it and make it work for them, thus depriving them the benefit of chalking that up to experience and finding something better. And they will continue to accept the idea that their skill is inadequate for the extraordinary qualities of the rod and other such bunk.

It wouldn't be nice to the makers, either, but I've seen and handled enough new 'glass to be underwhelmed. The jury is still out on trends such as pale/white blanks, too, that look beautiful under proper indoor lighting. Whether they are a comfortable outdoor color for the user will take time to know. Maybe they will be good for night fishing for big brown trout if they have enough guts to land the fish. Maybe they won't weather and yellow like most composites in pale colors do. We just don't know. Somebody has to take the risk and find out, just not me.

To me, the basic desirable characteristics of a fly rod haven't changed much. In the modern market, Steffen would be an example of products with enduring, proven design traits, elegantly simple and fit for the task. And we do know that traditional aesthetics--earth tones--develop character and age gracefully. They look even better in natural conditions and outdoor light than they do in a studio. Even these, one can't know what they will be worth 20 and 30 years from now.

You completely avoided answering Duff's questions and used a lot space in doing so.


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Post 06 Oct 2013, 06:20 • #57 
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Joined: 04/20/07
Posts: 8920
Location: US-ME
You can PM me if you want me to name all the junk you have bought and sold to someone else over the years. I explained why I don't want to name it.

I figure Duff is an exceptionally discerning buyer who nevertheless knows what rods he has been disappointed in but doesn't make a point of naming each one. So I hope he understands why I don't want to name ones I'm skeptical about.

And again, I hope the Bill Harms/McFarland collaboration proves to be the exception.


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Post 06 Oct 2013, 06:54 • #58 
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Joined: 12/03/07
Posts: 1152
Location: Shenandoah Valley of Virginia
Whirlpool, Your skepticism and disdain for new rods by today's top builders is obvious. Agree with Rich's succinct post. I think Duff is right on the mark here.


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Post 06 Oct 2013, 12:03 • #59 
Master Guide
Joined: 07/24/07
Posts: 354
Location: Claresholm, Ab. Ca.
One more observation ... without the "modern day" builders/designers/innovators pushing the envelope, successful or not, we'd all be still be fishin' greenheart and mahogany rods.

Interestin' thread!


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Post 06 Oct 2013, 12:16 • #60 
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Joined: 07/17/06
Posts: 5599
Location: South Carolina
Duff wrote:
Whrlpool, although it seems contradictory to your often proclaimed lack of interest in modern rod offerings, your comments further suggest that you have cast and critiqued most of the new rods by modern builders. I can only assume that you would include in that group, a selection of proprietary tapers by Mark Steffen, Tom Morgan, Mario Wojnicki, Mike McFarland, Kerry Burkheimer, Yasuyuki Kabuto, Kazutomo Ijuin, Dwight Lyons, Masatoshi Okui, Ishizaka Koichi, Dave Lewis, Larry Kenney, Fred Paddock, Christian Horgren and (my apology to anyone I've left out who have designed their own blanks). .. help me here. .. I'm running out of custom builder names. Personally, I doubt that any of those folks "don't understand the material or its best fishing applications".

Duff ... I would also suggest adding Shane Gray of Graywolf Rods to that list as well. Shane has several different series of glass rods, in both E-Glass and S-Glass, that he's has designed and are proprietary to his shop. Several of his Signature S-Glass I've purchased and are some of the nicest contemporary glass that I've fished.

James Green should also make the list as well as I know he's worked on quite a few of his own designs that are very much liked.

I am going to try and line up a Q&A with Bill Harms on his fiberglass fly rod offerings for a future TFM post and ask him to tell the story regarding why he's decided to do a glass line up, the tapers and the feel in action of the fly rods that he was looking forward in his blanks, and more background on the process of building these fly rods as well.

I think Bill Harms might have gotten smitten with glass earlier this year when he built up a 10' 7/8 weight Graywolf Rods Signature S-Glass switch project. More in this TFM post ...

http://thefiberglassmanifesto.blogspot.. .. 10-78.html


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Post 06 Oct 2013, 12:19 • #61 
Master Guide
Joined: 11/05/07
Posts: 590
Location: ID/MT
I had forgotten he did the glass switch rod. I played with that a bit in person, and it was very nice.


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Post 10 Oct 2013, 13:01 • #62 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 10/09/09
Posts: 2796
Location: US-NM
This sounds like my type of rod being a little softer than Mikes regular rods and I could always use another 6'6". ... aurelio


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Post 10 Oct 2013, 20:04 • #63 
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Joined: 09/05/07
Posts: 2153
Location: West Virginia
Aurelio, although I only waggled it, that 6'6" #4 felt like it was right up your alley and would probably be great on the Rio Costilla. Hopefully Bob Selb will bring some of Bill's glass rods to the CFFCM Arts of the Angler show in Danbury, CT next month. I really look forward to casting them and taking a few photos.


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Post 11 Oct 2013, 07:49 • #64 
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Joined: 10/09/09
Posts: 2796
Location: US-NM
If you get the chance to try one please let me know how it cast's thank's ... aurelio


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Post 12 Oct 2013, 07:10 • #65 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 02/06/07
Posts: 1437
Location: US-VT
whrlpool wrote:
You can PM me if you want me to name all the junk you have bought and sold to someone else over the years. I explained why I don't want to name it.

I figure Duff is an exceptionally discerning buyer who nevertheless knows what rods he has been disappointed in but doesn't make a point of naming each one. So I hope he understands why I don't want to name ones I'm skeptical about.


Whrlpool,

I use the PM function to communicate with friends.

Here is a list of of rods that I have bought and sold recently. Please identify the "junk". Not only am I interested in the assessment, so are many other forum regulars.

T&T Special Dry Fly 8ft 4/5
Winston IM6 6wt
Winston IM6 5wt
Diamondglass 8'6" three piece 4wt(original model)
Loomis GLX 9ft 4 piece 5wt
Scott G 9ft 4 piece 5wt
Scott G 844 5 piece(sold to Duff for his trip to Alaska)
Steffen 8.5 5/6
Scott G2 7'7" 3wt
Steffen 3/4 3 piece Gypsy built(the rod that I sold Rodney Bo and got him hooked on glass)
Scott HP 888
Scott G 854
Scott F2 7'7" 4wt
Scott F2 7ft 3wt


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Post 12 Oct 2013, 11:00 • #66 
Administrator
Joined: 01/10/06
Posts: 7811
Location: Holly Springs, NC
Rich,

You rigged the question - you're not exactly a rookie buyer with undeveloped tastes. That is a very discerning group of rods.

While this thread developed some interesting side conversations, it has diverged to the point where new threads should be started. Originally, way back, this was about an established cane rod builder bringing new blanks and new finish methods to the market. I for one would be pleased if the topic returned to Bill's new rod line.

Tom


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Post 12 Oct 2013, 11:21 • #67 
Guide
Joined: 01/27/12
Posts: 210
Location: US-PA
I stopped by Bob Selb's shop yesterday and he has sold all the Harm's glass rods he had in stock save one 6 1/2'er (my favourite). Very light in the hand, superb action, top notch cosmetics. Just saying, no financial interest.


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Post 12 Oct 2013, 11:38 • #68 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 10/09/09
Posts: 2796
Location: US-NM
Your killing me ... aurelio


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Post 12 Oct 2013, 11:55 • #69 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 11/24/06
Posts: 1507
Location: Beautiful View, WA
6foot, could you please elaborate on what the superb action was like? What was the taper, how quick, what does it compare to, etc? Thanks!


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Post 12 Oct 2013, 15:24 • #70 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 08/14/06
Posts: 1227
Location: Panther City, Texas
I contacted Bil by email, looking for the 7'8 5 weight. In his reply he said "everything goes out the door as I build, so it’s pretty hard to maintain an inventory". I'm not surprised, both Harms and McFarland have solid reputations for designing excellent fly rods. Hopefully I'm first on the waiting list.


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Post 12 Oct 2013, 16:04 • #71 
Administrator
Joined: 07/17/06
Posts: 5599
Location: South Carolina
Excited to see a couple FFR members with possible orders in. Looking forward to their reports in the coming weeks/months.

I spoke to Bill Harms last week and he is willing to do an interview for TFM and is also working on better photos of his builds as well. I'll let everyone know when that posts.


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Post 12 Oct 2013, 19:51 • #72 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 02/06/07
Posts: 1437
Location: US-VT
frogmorton wrote:
I contacted Bil by email, looking for the 7'8 5 weight. In his reply he said "everything goes out the door as I build, so it’s pretty hard to maintain an inventory". I'm not surprised, both Harms and McFarland have solid reputations for designing excellent fly rods. Hopefully I'm first on the waiting list.

Frog,

I know you have handed many modern glass 5wts from many of the high end builders, if and when you get a hold of this 5wt, please let us know how it feels relative to other McFarland, Kenney, Steffen etc. tapers that you have experience with. Thanks.

Rich


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Post 13 Oct 2013, 05:58 • #73 
Guide
Joined: 01/27/12
Posts: 210
Location: US-PA
Lugan wrote:
6foot, could you please elaborate on what the superb action was like? What was the taper, how quick, what does it compare to, etc? Thanks!

As I remember it, it was like a true medium action, progressive, something very nice to have in a short glass rod, not the least bit to fast or to slow. The glass wall of the blank is sanded smooth and seems very thin, almost transparent, the burnt yellow colour is very attractive. As I said, very light in the hand. Only thing that I wasn't crazy about was the size of the grip (5" or 5 1/2"). Although not large by any standard , I prefer a 4 1/2" grip of slightly thinner proportions on small rods, but that's my personal preference. Most fishers would find the grip perfect. I dropped off a couple bamboo rods for Bob to sell, when they do I may see if Bill will do a 6' #3 with a tiny grip.


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Post 13 Oct 2013, 12:48 • #74 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 08/14/06
Posts: 1227
Location: Panther City, Texas
tabornatives wrote:
Frog,

I know you have handed many modern glass 5wts from many of the high end builders, if and when you get a hold of this 5wt, please let us know how it feels relative to other McFarland, Kenney, Steffen etc. tapers that you have experience with. Thanks.

Rich

Sure will Rich, if and when. I'm looking forward to Duff and Gearboy's reports from Danbury next month. Those two have handled a passel of glass 5 wts., vintage and modern; more than I could ever hope to.


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Post 13 Oct 2013, 22:34 • #75 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 11/24/06
Posts: 1507
Location: Beautiful View, WA
6footrod wrote:
I prefer a 4 1/2" grip of slightly thinner proportions on small rods, but that's my personal preference.

Ah yes, I owned a Scott F 601 you custom built with such a tiny grip. I really liked that grip, and I have XL hands. It works well on short rods.


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