Ok, its no secret that I am not the most gifted rod builder on the planet, but this was ridiculous.
A while back I bought an Amtak fiberglass blank on sale at Mudhole for something like $12. I figured it would be a good rod to practice on and improve my skills. When I got the rod started last August (thats right almost a year ago) I figured I would try to do the best I possibly could so I planned on taking my time and putting some extra effort. So getting started I noticed that the paint finish was not very well done and proceeded to sand the entire rod with 1500 grit wet/dry in an orbital motion. It took a month and a half, but by the time I was done the rod looked like polished anthracite coal. It look pretty hot (in my eyes anyway) I learned later that this finish was almost impossible to maintain as it showed every fingerprint and developed such a static charge that it would draw lint across the table. Next, I figured I had to have one of those cool ferrule rings. I ordered a low profile winding check and spent a few days getting a good fit. Glued it on only to discover the bottom of the tip blank wasn't square. Nice wobble look to it. So now I'm like four months in and I got a polished blank and an out of alignment ferrule ring. Next, I did the wraps on the top blank. A nice olive/dark green that looked good. Problem, the blanks was polished so smooth nothing could grip. A lot of false starts, but finally, finally the wraps were done somewhere around tax season. Afraid the wraps would loosen I put three coats of colorlok on before setting the rod aside to practice some varnish techniques. I was able to get back to the rod in June. Again, trying to do my best I planned on doing half the wraps each coating so I wasn't rushing. Applied the first coat and watch as the colorlok failed on each wrap. How could this be? Well, since the colorlok had time to fully cure and I periodically picked the rod up to flex it around (yes, stupid) I figure I cracked the preservative. Ok, recoat the remaining wraps, apply varnish, looks great. I guess I can live with some bad wraps on a cheap rod. Two more coats, couple dimpling problems, sand them out and recoat. Getting close. Yesterday applying final coat of varnish. Everything looks good. Step away for a moment and then crash. Box stacked near rod falls on rod knocking rig over onto news print. News print fully adhered to wraps as rod turner keeps turning wrapping the rod in last Sunday's paper. Thats it! Roll the top blank up in the adhered newsprint, march it out to the trash and never look back. Spent the afternoon cleaning Black Widows out of the garage.
Start thinking about another project.
Ranting K
A while back I bought an Amtak fiberglass blank on sale at Mudhole for something like $12. I figured it would be a good rod to practice on and improve my skills. When I got the rod started last August (thats right almost a year ago) I figured I would try to do the best I possibly could so I planned on taking my time and putting some extra effort. So getting started I noticed that the paint finish was not very well done and proceeded to sand the entire rod with 1500 grit wet/dry in an orbital motion. It took a month and a half, but by the time I was done the rod looked like polished anthracite coal. It look pretty hot (in my eyes anyway) I learned later that this finish was almost impossible to maintain as it showed every fingerprint and developed such a static charge that it would draw lint across the table. Next, I figured I had to have one of those cool ferrule rings. I ordered a low profile winding check and spent a few days getting a good fit. Glued it on only to discover the bottom of the tip blank wasn't square. Nice wobble look to it. So now I'm like four months in and I got a polished blank and an out of alignment ferrule ring. Next, I did the wraps on the top blank. A nice olive/dark green that looked good. Problem, the blanks was polished so smooth nothing could grip. A lot of false starts, but finally, finally the wraps were done somewhere around tax season. Afraid the wraps would loosen I put three coats of colorlok on before setting the rod aside to practice some varnish techniques. I was able to get back to the rod in June. Again, trying to do my best I planned on doing half the wraps each coating so I wasn't rushing. Applied the first coat and watch as the colorlok failed on each wrap. How could this be? Well, since the colorlok had time to fully cure and I periodically picked the rod up to flex it around (yes, stupid) I figure I cracked the preservative. Ok, recoat the remaining wraps, apply varnish, looks great. I guess I can live with some bad wraps on a cheap rod. Two more coats, couple dimpling problems, sand them out and recoat. Getting close. Yesterday applying final coat of varnish. Everything looks good. Step away for a moment and then crash. Box stacked near rod falls on rod knocking rig over onto news print. News print fully adhered to wraps as rod turner keeps turning wrapping the rod in last Sunday's paper. Thats it! Roll the top blank up in the adhered newsprint, march it out to the trash and never look back. Spent the afternoon cleaning Black Widows out of the garage.
Start thinking about another project.
Ranting K
