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.
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:
Beautifully built out rod, from tip to butt. The extra effort with the wing check paid off. Very sexy.
RFMcD
Uh,that should read winding check. I have no idea what a wing check is.
RFMcD
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