Mail me here:

Wednesday 17 February 2010

Rod Repair: Butt Ring replacement

This is just a couple of shots of a recent repair to a broken butt ring on a Maver float rod. 
Very quick and straightforward repair costing around £8 to £10 all in, including the price of the ring. 

The whipping colour match was very good, almost identical, and as you can see, the finish is superb ! Two shots, one with and one without the flash . . . . .. 

 

  


Free Spirit Being Finished

Just a quick post to picture a Free Spirit Hi S on the rod machine after the second coat of finish has been applied. The finish is normally done over 2 or 3 coats depending how high you want the build to be. Normally 2 is enough. If i'm rebuilding a set of three rods i'll usually apply one coat by hand that is then left to dry, just to let it soak in and 'firm the whippings up' to keep them tightly in place. 

With Flex Coat being a lot thicker than say varnish of the days of old, it can go on in much bigger quantities and providing it is turned with the rod whipping machine for about an hour and a half to two hours, comes out perfect every time. Flex Coat is very flexible as the name suggests, is perfectly clear, and remains looking good for years. 

 

And yes i know i need to tidy up !

Handle conversion from sliding fittings to winch

Handle conversions are pretty popular for older rods with the sliding reel fittings they used to use on them years ago. 

Of course now, virtually all rods that come into the UK  have a decent winch fitting already on them which stops the reel from beconing loose during use. This seems even more relevant now with the popularity of commercial carp 'puddles', packed with hard hard fighting F1's and barbel. The last thing you need on a match is the reel to suddenly drop to the floor in the middle of a fight ! 

This job is quite simple and normally costs around £20 to £30 at the most, depending on the time involved. First step is to remove the butt ring (s) so the fitting can be slid down the right way, no point in taking all the cork/duplon off from the rear end of the rod if it doesn't need it. Here the ring has been removed, fitting masked out and slid into place and the ring is ready for finishing off. 

 

  

  

With this type of Fuji fitting, there is no need for a separate duplon grip above the winch as it is built in top the section that screws down to hold the reel in place. There is also a 'keeper ring' on this handle and it just worked out nicely that where the fitting was required to be left just enough room for the keeper ring to still be exposed when the reel is on the rod. 



Here you can see the old sliding reel fittings that came off the rod, which is an old Silstar spinning rod, good few years old (at least 10)  but still going strong and now good for the next 10!

The butt ring simply gets whipped back into place and finished in epoxy resin and the rods good for anything that comes along.  

Any questions? email me at rodbuilder@hotmail.co.uk

Sunday 14 February 2010

Finishing shots

Couple of pictures here just to illustrate the quality of the finish i use, click on the images for a larger pop up picture. 

The finish itself i buy in from the states, it's expensive but it's the best i've ever used, and i've tried a few over the years. 

The first image is a Free Spirit Hi S that was a rebuilb job on a set of three rods, upgrading the 40mm butt rings to 50's and moving all the other rings up a size to suit. 




The second image is a fininshed 50mm butt ring on Centurt NG. 



Thread used is Gudebrods NCP 'D' thread, which is just about the best you can buy .