Getting into rod building

[PBBrandon]

I’ve spent a lot of money over the years buying rods off the shelf and online, and want to give building one a try. I see NFC has some pretty killer sales on their X-ray blanks, and I have a broken Daiwa rebellion I can take the Fuji SiC guides off of. What tools/knowledge would I need to get started?

 

I have my eye on the MB 724-1 X-ray LMX blank for weightless T-rigs and 1/4oz jigs for smallmouth.

[MickD]

Flexcoat.com and Mudhole.com have a lot of tutorials, getting a good book will help, too.  Taking a class (Mudhole offers them) would be ideal.  If going X-ray you might want to consider the mirror finish for your first rod, wrapping over the ridges of X-rays gives me trouble and  I much prefer a smooth blank to work on.  It's pretty easy to build a hand wrapping rig, you can tension the thread through pages of a book or get a real tensioner to mount on your wrapping rig.  I recommend you get your materials from a real rod building supply shop and not the hardware store-materials designed especially for rod building will eliminate some surprises and failures. (Thread/wrap epoxy/color preservative/epoxy adhesive)

[KCFinesse]

@MickD is right on the money. I think my first hand wrapper was a cardboard box with notches cut into it.

 

The MB724 is a good blank- super sensitive- but I've also had a lot of issues with nfc blanks breaking on me. My mb724 lasted me two seasons of senko duty. Also- As a heads up, nfc 'super' sales are also really common.

 

The biggest piece of advice I've ever received on rod building, is that if you don't like it, redo it now. Redoing things is easy, corrective action after the fact is much more difficult and clunky.

 

Good luck and have fun!!!

 

-Jared 

 

 

[corey90]

Take a look at lamiglas si 843 blank before buying the NFC blank 

 

[MickD]

It is my opinion that the American Tackle Bushido series and the Rainshadow Revelation series blanks are about at the sweet spot of price vs performance.  You can spend a lot more, but won't get much more.  For a first build I would recommend a relatively inexpensive blank, maybe a CRB by Mudhole or something like that.   They are good blanks, and the rod will fish well.  If you screw it up you won't be out so much money.

[detroit1]

Rod building 2 forums down.  Mods are slippin'  haha

[Logan S]

I got the standard startup kit from mudhole and I'm still using pretty much everything it came with tool wise...I don't see myself changing anything drastically in the future either, it will take you far beyond the 'startup' stage.  

 

Take the advice from others and build a couple inexpensive blanks first... I wish I did, but instead decided to build on a "nice" blank first and while the rod was more or less fine and functional, I ended up not liking the quality of my first attempt once I had a few more builds under my belt.  I ended up stripping it and redoing it later.  

 

CRB color blanks are cheap and easy to build on and you can throw them and some basic CRB components in along with a start up kit.  After my first build I did a couple CRB blanks as rods for my kids, they still weren't great quality but perfect for the kids to beat up and they don't know the difference.  

 

I watched a bunch of Mudhole videos (especially the MH Live Shows) on YouTube as my training and used the how-to book that came with the kit as reference....Worked out pretty well.

 

I also agree that an XRay would make a tough first blank because of the ridges.  They aren't THAT difficult, but for a whole bunch of reasons already discussed it's more productive to start on something cheaper and easier.

[spoonplugger1]

Not all X rays have the pronounced ridges, that has been true a couple years now since the perfected the special mirror finish buffing process, they can't sand that material and warranty the blank.