I played around outside then got my Sunpak auto bounce flash and tried it in the Varnish room with a couple rods in the turner. Here is a shot of the second stripper guide on a saltwater rod with a glass rod in the background.
Nothing special, just a nice clean shot. The rod in the background is an 8' 6 piece one, with 7397 wraps on it and half a million trim wraps. Endless those multi piece rods. I took a shot of the front of the grip with one of Joel Lemke's nickel plated winding checks. That is the first coat of varnish. Actually two coats. I do one thin coat to soak the wraps, wait about fifteen minutes then soak it with another full coat. That gives me a good solid transparent wrap, with just tint and very little thread form.
Those are English bronze plated guides from Pacific Bay. They are a nice deep bonze color, pretty much a medium brown. I've done about a half a dozen rods with them so far. I think they are quite attractive in a subtle way. They are a nice complement to one of Joel's spalted maple inserts in his nickel silver downlock:
I think the lens is going to do a nice job for me. The nice thing about it is its ability to isolate things from the background with a nice bokeh.








