Christmas gift for my niece

[Midwest Custom Fly Rods]

Just finished this in time, it's a Christmas gift for my 12 yr old niece. She's use to using my steelhead spin rod so I had to use a blank that was around the same length so she would be use to the length of the rod. Blank is a 10' 7/8wt Tiger eye fly blank. Grips are turned out of brown burl, Copano, Rubberized and I added some purple trim since purple is her favorite color. The reel seat is a cork insert that I wrapped with purple metallic thread and finished over with Threadmaster. Then I coated the hoods with finish and dusted some glitter into the finish while it was drying. Wraps are metallic purple with wide lavender colored trim bands. Also used a set of micro style guides on it.











Steve

[herefishy]

I love it, but then I'm a girl, too. Is there a trick to "dusting" it with glitter? I've often thought maybe I'd do some glitter in my thread wraps, but don't know how.

[Midwest Custom Fly Rods]

It's pretty easy to do. Just do the finish like you normally would and then while it's still wet just take a pinch of glitter and sprinkle it on the wrap while its rotating in the rod dryer that way it covers evenly. Then once it's dry just do a thin top coat to seal it in smooth because you will get a few edges of the glitter sticking up if you don't do a 2nd thin coat. You can get the glitter at places like Micheal's or other type of craft stores. Try to get the finest size glitter you can though.

Steve

[herefishy]

Which brings up another question - what can you do to thin Threadmaster? I usually have to put on two coats to cover "fuzzies" but that second coat just won't come out as "flat" as the first. Guess I need to try using a plastic edge to apply my epoxy, that should get it flat.

[Midwest Custom Fly Rods]

Just heat it to thin it. I use an old "Hot Plate" with about 1" of water in it and I heat the bottle in the hot plate to about 100 degrees before mixing them together. This makes it as thin or even thinner than most "lite" formulas and also makes it less prone to bubbles as well.

Steve

[Hooligan]

Nice work, Steve. I can't let my wife see this (she loves anything purple) or she'll want me to build a like-kind fly rod! That will only lead to the first rod I built (it was for her) and the ensuing bear- encounter story (I'm not going to get into that incident right now!).

Merry Christmas to you and the rest of the FAOL comunity..

John