I have a NOS Phillipson KF70 fly rod kit that's made it's way to my bench and I don't know if I know what I have. This is my first Phillipson and quite frankly, I'm intimidated by all the different variants - Scotchply, Eponite, pre/post 3M, metal vs sleeve ferrule, and on and on . . .
To me, selecting a Phillipson is like going to the grocery store to buy Cranberry Juice: there's about a hundred different varieties on the shelf that all look the same - some really good and some not so much - and I usually buy the wrong one. But at the highest level, the best Phillipson advice I've gleaned from this forum is stay short and Scotchplys are generally good. This kit is a 7' 6WT Salmon Scotchply kit with a reinforced sleeve-over ferrule that I think will fish well.
One or two questions for the forum:
The instruction pamphlet that came with the kit provides spacing for 7 guides for this length of rod (I uploaded the full pamphlet to the rod papers thread for ref). That feels a little light to me. I got the standard rule of thumb is length plus one and I'm usually a length plus two kind of guy but I'm curious what factory rod would be comparable to this blank and how many guides was it outfitted with? Specifically, what's typical Phillipson spacing for the first guide from the tip? 5-1/4" from the tip for the first guide (per the pamphlet) just feels like a lot to me.
The kit came with two thread colors: a standard white (maybe a tad bit creamy) and a mustard color marked "317". I initially assumed it to match up to a GB number but it doesn't as far as I can tell. The color is extremely close to Pro Wrap NCP 710 (Beeswax) but I haven't found any pix online that show a salmon blank with this wrap color scheme. Any of you Phillipson fanatics have a rod laying around with this color combo you can post pix of?
The front end of the reinforced ferrule is taper ground and out of the box, it looks like it was finished with a round of tape that's kind of adhered to the epoxy underneath. I'm guessing all I need to do is wrap over it as-is? Is there any additional prep I need to do before wrapping the taper and finishing with spar?
Finally, back to Cranberry juice, what do I actually have here? I did pick this up from EBay for SIG-NIF-A-CANT-LEE less that the auction asking price so regardless of "Phillipson product standing" I'll no doubt enjoy building this out and fishing it, but help me wade through what I could expect with this.
Final observation: at this point I've build out a number of very good quality domestic glass rods and with that in mind, I do think this might be the straightest, most blemish-free blank I've handled. Mr. Phillipson however didnt appear to be a spine guy - i did find it necessary to rotate the factory installed tip top to align with a very definitive spine running down the top section. : )
Thx in advance for your feedback.
//Jeff