Hooking My Brother

     A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of spending an evening with my older brother while playing video games.  During our many voyages to the man cave for a cold one, his eyes could not be peeled from the assortment of rod building equipment stuffed in one corner of my garage.  Being an avid fisherman himself, he immediately took an interest in the art of rod crafting and exploded with ideas.  He visually designed his custom rod, explaining the wrap style, colors, and thoughts on a wrapped split-grip handle.  I knew that I had to build him one, and moreover, I knew he would  appreciate such a rod.

     After a nice cup of coffee and kiss from the lady, I slipped out into the brisk morning air.  As the old garage door clinked open, the wonderful smell of wood burning from a nearby fireplace filled the room.

After closely examining a few blanks, I decided on a light Viper blank with a fast tip for my brothers rod.  These blanks are made similar to a Shakespeare rod, yet have all the power of the big name brands.  These are pure fiberglass blanks, and come backed with a lifetime warranty.  I have tried to put the company "Guaranteed not to break" slogan to the test, and have successfully bent one of these blanks in a complete circle. 

Once I shaped down the EVA foam into a split-grip style handle, I worked on building the arbor for the reel seat.  This is done by wrapping rod builders tape, "masking tape," around the blank to allow the reel seat to sit snugly against the rod.

  Fitting the reel seat to the arbor was next, followed by gluing the EVA foam handles and grip in place.  This was done using a Flex Coat rod builders epoxy glue that sets up rather fast.  Lining up the reel seat to the spine of the rod took a little time and I ended up changing the reel seat twice, trying to find a good match for the blank.

After letting the epoxy dry on the rod, I chose a metallic teal  winding thread and began wrapping the split-grip and the fore-grip.  The winding of the thread went pretty smooth, after I realized the metallic thread was a bit more fragile than a nylon thread.  After breaking the first wrap about a quarter of the way in, I adjusted the tension on the thread and was able to complete the wrap with no noticeable blemishes.  All in all, I was very happy with the wrap.  I have never wrapped the bottom portion of a split grip, but at the request of my brother and soon to be owner of this rod, more color was in order.

Upon completion of the metallic under-wrap, I decided to spice up the split-grip, and added a generic diamond wrap with a blend of black and silver nylon.  The two colors blend at the top and bottom of the wrap, creating a shiny silver ring inside two black rings.  And while the pictures do the wrap little justice, the contrast of the three colors looks amazing in the sun light.

Edit:  I believe my next blog will be titled "The Art of Proofreading"...  My apologies for the previous grammatical errors and small size of the pictures.  I was anxious to post this morning prior to class, and left myself no time for proofreading.