Reaming the handle and creating some other stuff.

I’ve learned there’s different ways to make a handle fit the diameter and taper of a rod blank. 

You can ream cork rings, glue them directly to the blank and than form the shape you want. But if something goes wrong along the way doing so, you’re in for a lot of mess to take care of. You can also ream the rings so they will fit the blank, glue them to a taper steel rod and form a handle. To much work if you ask me, when you can take an easier way out.

The pictures shows the way it's done. My handles are shaped but don't have reamed holes to fit the blank so that only leaves two options. Ream by hand or use some kind of power source. Already having an electrical drill the only thing needed is some kind of rod reamer rod. Now there’s maybe a old or broken fishing rods lying around somewhere that could come in handy. If this is the case, now is one of those occasions.

If it happens to be of similar taper and size, strip it  and glue a short piece of metal rod in the thick end. Now the reamer blank can spin in in the jaws of the drill. To finish the job, high quality emery cloth ripped in long and narrow strips glued down to the reamer blank with contact cement. There you have it. Just push and lock the drill power button and ream your handle to the spot where it fits your needs. It works great. The sharpness of the reamer will likely fade after awhile and needs new strips of emery cloth. Just clean the reamer blank and do the trick all over again.

You can also use the reamer when choosing cork or cork based product as a part on your reel seat.

Here you have a skeleton from Batson and brown burl cork.  Great for saltwater application when you want to keep a low weight. 

At last all is done and ready to be attach to my fly blanks.

For this build I had to make some new stuff. I been moving to a new place quit recently and there seemed like some old rod building stuff ended up lost along the way. But that's life, so better start making new ones than cry over spilt milk. 
One thing that comes quit handy are some kind of clamp when assembly the handle, reel seat and other components to the fishing rod blank.  

Of course you can buy a ready made clamp from a rod building supplier but it's pretty easy to make one and don't cost much. And it provides the possibility to suite all kind of application and situations. The clamp on the picture are made for this project but can easily be modified to take longer handles by replacing the threaded rod with longer ones. You can also make slots instead of holes in the wood when you need a clamp for gluing cork rings on a non threaded steel rod.
And all you need is shown in the picture. Some piece of wood, threaded rod, wing nuts plus some really basic carpentry skills. 

A new rod finish dryer

I built a finish dryer some years back and it've suit me just fine. But I thought I build a new one that can dry two blanks instead of one as the process of wrapping and finishing a rod blank is quit time consuming. After google around and searching for different solution I made up my mind to choose a motor that runs on 12 V DC instead of 220 V AC. A DC motor can easily be speed adjusted by pulse-width modulation(PWM controller). And DC motors are quit cheap.
So I ordered two motors, a PWM controller and some other stuff from a shop in China and paid about 300 kr (50 dollar)?!! If I 'd bought the stuff I needed where I live I've had to pay tree times the amount of what I gave order from China, if not more.
Anyway, besides electrical components I needed to prove my basic skills in metal and woodwork because that's the material the dryer will be made of. It went pretty smooth, the hardest part was actually to find small wheels that could fit the minimal approach I wanted for my dryer. But he who seeks shall find what he is looking for in the end.


Raw brass plates for mounting the motors to the wood brace.

Brass plates shaped, drilled,polished and attached to the motors.

Motors placed and ready to be tested. The PWR control and the wheels will come in place when I figure out where to place the dryer. The best environment for finishing things are where there's as little dust as possible so maybe I try out the bathroom. We'll see!

Til next time!

Pirate-fishing