Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Tom Pipic's F.H. Paddock Blank Build

Tom Pipic, who is also known as tiptop on the Fiberglass Flyrodders forum, continues to show his excellence in rod building artistry with this build on a 7'10" F.H. Paddock blank


Tom wrote...  "I was inspired by a fifty year old Wanigas bamboo rod owned by a friend of mine which was built on a PH Young Martha Marie blank.  It had all black wraps and hardware and I liked the reel seat, grip shape, and winding check very much.  As it turned out, I decided not to do entirely black windings, it seemed like a shame not to work with the beautiful translucent color of the blank.  I did try to reproduce the shape of the rod from the forward winding check back to the reel seat.  I'd never done a cone shaped check before so I was pretty much flying blind.  I decided to shape the grip to the final shape including the check and then cover the cork with thread.  If I had it to do over again, I'd probably turn a separate cone out of maple or some other material and use that to wind the thread onto.  I had to smooth the cork with epoxy before applying thread to try to insure a smooth result.  I also stepped the cork down about a half a millimeter to allow the final build of the thread and epoxy to be at the same level as the fore-grip.  I think about the only advantage of doing the cone shape the way I did is that the curve of the grip flowed exactly into the curve of the cone -- it would have been hard to achieve that with a separate cone shaped check."



"I've not had the rod out on the water yet, and probably won't until late winter or spring due to nasty weather.  I have done some lawn casting and I like the action a lot.  I prefer it with six weight line but a double taper five weight works well too...just a bit faster with the lighter line.  It's a powerful medium fast rod and I think a double taper six weight wouldn't be a problem for it."


Tom...so very classic yet built on a contemporary fiberglass blank.  A perfect union.  

2 comments:

ratfacedmcdougal said...

Beautifully built out rod, from tip to butt. The extra effort with the wing check paid off. Very sexy.
RFMcD

ratfacedmcdougal said...

Uh,that should read winding check. I have no idea what a wing check is.
RFMcD