Lining a spey rod that i built.

[djberg]

so the story goes, after building or hybridizing my first single hand rod a 9' 8wt 4 pc scientific anglers with a broken tip section with a tip section form a 9'6" 8wt 2 pc st criox avid tip section that was broken on the bottom part of the tip section. making a 10'5" frankienstien, fishing it and realizing it was a fun rod and was not that hard to do i decided i wanted to build a rod.

got on ebay, and found a very cheap build kit for $65 shipped. so i hit buy it now, and started really watching and researching rod building. also in this time frame found the common cents system and started playing around with that as well. so the listing stated 7.5 wt/ 60 deg action angle. of which for the price i would make it do just incase i screwed it up.

upon arrival first thing i did was scale it to see how far the rod was off of what it was listed as, and a pleasant surprise of the blank with only the tip top glued on and spined, it measured 9.5wt and a 67 deg action angle. so ok the rod is stronger and faster than i was expecting to get.

built rod photos

DSC_1622 by dj.berg, on Flickr


DSC_1614 by dj.berg, on Flickr


DSC_1613 by dj.berg, on Flickr


DSC_1628 by dj.berg, on Flickr


DSC_1627 by dj.berg, on Flickr


DSC_1603-2 by dj.berg, on Flickr



so i built it up, measured again and it was still about the same, the only thing was, the wraps were not epoxied yet. so i called mr steve godshal described what i had, and completely omitted the non epoxied threads. he guessed a 450gr head would be a great start. so while i really wanted to buy a line from him, i decided that i still needed a reel for it as well. so up to the oak orchard i went after meeting nick on spey pages.

bought an echo ion, running line, and a 450gr rage(thanks emanual for the awesome service), and away i went to go learn to double hand...

having a heck of a time figuring out casting the rod on lake water, and seeming that the rod was to heavy for the line. so back into my super high tech rod measuring device only to find that things changed again after epoxying the threads(maybe a coat or two too many) and it's final measurement was 11.25/68 deg.

well now i have traded the 450gr for a 510gr, also acquired a 500gr rio skagit, and just this week a rio outbound 510gr(cant wait to get it on the water to see if the longer head changes the casting ordeal).

but my real question is is there an easy way to line a rod since there are allot of double hand guys who think the common cents system is not applicable to double hand rods?

[jeffraz]

I have a tactical head that Nick recommended years ago. It is very versatile. Perhaps it would work on that beautiful stick.

[djberg]

Willing to give anything a shot. Got that rio outbound on some still water but I was still above the water but that s3 line was iteresting to keep in a castable location on the water. Pretty much ended up doing a roll cast to get it on top after stripping it in, then directly into a double handed over head cast. A few false casts really built up momentum and that thing would launch! But as for a snap t yeah that was not happenin...

[B.Ingersoll]

you will save yourself a lot of time and money if you go to the OOFS, when nick is there, with the rod and try some lines.

the shop may be two hour drive, plan some other stuff - still worth it.

[djberg]

yeah i need to take a non family trip up there, maybe even stop at the water body too. seems as of lately the only time i get up toward buffalo is when the mrs needs to go to the dr and i have the kids with me, tried that once, and it was pretty hectic, but at least nick was tolerant of them.

the other idea i've been kicking around, but need a scale for would be taking my cortland mid belly 720gr and knocking it down bit by bit until it started to feel right.