The Fiberglass Manifesto: Flat Creek Rods - Tom Morgan Rodsmiths Demo

Recently Ben Casarez of Flat Creek Rods contacted me regarding the T.F.M. Fly Rod Demo Program and asked if he could build an 8' four weight Tom Morgan Rodsmiths eight foot four weight to be an example of his work. I am very excited about this as I don't have any Tom Morgan Rodsmiths builds in the program and this will certainly be a great addition.

Ben plans to use a blued amber agate stripping guide from Joe Arguello, TiCH thin wire snake guides, blued slide band reel seat hardware from Joel Lemke, a Mesquite wood insert, Flor grade cork, and Fuji Ultra Poly thread.

All things point to this being a very excellent build and Ben has sent along step by step photographs which highlight how this build began in his shop. Look for a follow up post soon.

Ben wrote... "I am photographing the steps of the build process for Cameron to post to his blog. I thought I share some of the steps here. This group of photos begins with bluing the ferrule check. Next I selected a piece of Texas Live Oak for the reel insert. This piece is highly figured and will match the blank and thread nicely. I will finish the insert with Tru Oil. I picked through my cork supply and chose the best of the best for this build. This Five Star cork was bored out to fit on a mandrel, glued up, then turned into a cigar shape. After turning the grip I like to use heat seal plastic to protect the grip during the building process. I used a hand reamer to bore the grip so it fits on the blank. The next step is to install a spigot into the butt section to allow for the reel seat. Tom Morgan supplies this graphite spigot with each blank. After some careful measuring, twice, the blank was cut. The grip, spigot, and reel seat are now ready to be glued up."