Hello
Know the suspense is mounting, I'm pressed for time today.
I'll load these pictures then just answer your questions.
Tight lines and lots of pictured loops
Andy M
I have a little time this morning so I will fill in some of the blanks pun intended.
In these first few pictures you will see the "niner" blank after 2 coats of clear polyurethane was applied by dip method, after dressing the blanks are first blown off with compressed air out doors of course then wiped down with denatured alcohol before they are dipped, during the wipe down the blanks are closely inspected for any imperfections etc any issues are addressed such as raised fiber or such.
The reason for this naturally is you want to keep your dip tubes clean! so it's very important to make sure the blanks are clean before you dip them or you will contaminate your material.
I like the dip method because it fully soaks the blank fibers and seals and bonds them.
That doesn't really happen fully with finger tip, brush or spray applications.
The dip finish is the most uniform also the best looking!
The turkey baster or dribble method works equally well but you waste allot of expensive material.
If you only plan to do a blank or two it's a very good method.
When the first coat is still tacky I dip the blank for the second coat that eliminates sanding between coats.
If the blank has small drips or imperfections in the first coat I'll let it cure for 2 days address the blips dress lightly with scotch bright then dip the blank again.
The sections are placed in my drying cabinet for 2 days after the second coat.
It's basically a converted old gun cabinet with a 60 watt light bulb at the base for heat and a thermometer, next to it sits a dehumidifier that controls the humidity for the shop.
The blanks weight naked was 2. 5 oz. With the 2 coats of poly it's about 2. 8 oz.
The St Croix butt section was down right ugly when naked.
With brown being the most popular blanks color I decided to paint the blank.
When ever you paint a blank you add weight, hopefully? when finished the rod will come in around 4. 5 oz.
There's lots of ways to paint a blank I like air brush best I like automotive paint the best.
That was not in this rods budget. $$$
the goal here is after all to help the home builders whom by they way I have the deepest respect for as I am from kitchen table roots myself.! I had this can of paint on the shelf I used it to paint the air registers in the house last year so it's brown and suited for plastic so why not right?
I scuffed up the clear coat a little with scotch bright wiped them down with a dry cloth blew them off and hung them from the porch floor joice's on nails with spring clamps.
I sprayed them following normal rattle can procedures allowed the first coat to tack and applied a second coat.
Okay now I'm sure you folks have picked up on the fact the the diameter of the butt section is considerably less than that of the tip at the ferrule. I selected the sr croix butt section for just that reason, the point of this segment after all is to alter the original rod action from a 9' fast action 9 weight into a 9' + or - 6 weight slow action semi parabolic nymph rod.
To achieve this the St Croix was the best choice based on prior knowledge of how best to make this happen.
By doing this the blank will be forced to flex deeper into the butt that will create a hinge or lever effect. "parabolic"
I could have joined the sections with a tip over butt union, that however would have defeated the goal.
A spigot ferrule would have been possible.
I see way to often metal ferrules being switched out for spigots that's great but not always called for.
The logical choice was the original garcia brass chrome plated ferrule.
If I had a step down or aluminum ferrule of the proper size I would have used them but this project is going to use up the original hardware or stuff that's hanging around the shop not really suitable for my custom rods. "done on the cheap" but done right.
Besides this is a re-purpose kind of project anyways.
Alright I'm sure these pictures are quite self explanatory, at this point I know that I have to join these two sections but I'm not certain if I have the rod action I'm going after, I know this is going to be the ferrule used but I may want to trim the butt section back some at the ferrule.
The only way to find out is to join them, get the reel seat and grip on , tape on some guides and play with it.
So for now I used fiberglass thread to build up the blank at the ferrule.
I plugged the end with foam rubber tube used for tying flies to keep the epoxy from getting inside the blank and epoxied on the female ferrule.
The same for the male.
Now I have heard people talk about using hot glue and ferrule cement but I find that epoxied ferrules come off with about the same amount of heat and clean up easier.
The female ferrule is temporarily set in these pictures.
If the blank doesn't need to be trimmed I'll remove the ferrule anyhow remove the thread and make a fiberglass shim and reset the ferrule.
We will get back to this later.
When reusing metal ferrules as you can see they clean up nice I actually like the brass look and when they tarnish they look better in my opinion.
Always clean the id.
Here I'm sizing the 2 piece butt extension the first internal piece is extended up to the approximate area of what I call the sweet spot where the rod balances, this will add a little punch
To the butt, sort of the same effect you feel with swelled butt cane rods, the second piece is reinforcement for the reel seat those diminished diameter butt extensions are good if you are trying to reduce the od for a wood insert but with the aluminum seats I like the added insurance.
The reel seat is an old garcia seat I pulled off a rod a number of years ago, at a later date I was going to use it on a spinning rod so I cut out the butt hood, I didn't us it and it's been sitting around for about 12 years, so this is a good fit for it, I added a rubber butt cap to close the whole and give the rod some bounce ha ha.
On the scale with paint and ferrules we are now around 3. 8 oz
I started this project when I had a little spare time in between other projects, over the last couple of days I've been fortunate to get more work in, so this will need to go on hold, I'll pick up where I left off when time permits, I'll be glad to answer your questions etc but the actual work needs to be put aside.
The blanks are all prepped next will be mocking them up, tweaking the action. Determining guide size and placement and so on.
Tight lines and the fun is on hold for now loops
Andy M