Any Furled line jigs?

[Kytroutbum]

Santa is going to bring me a Tenkara Rod for Christmas. I do a fairly decent job of furling leaders and was wondering if anyone has a procedure or plans for a Jig to make a tenkara line?

Randall Sale
the Kytroutbum

[JohnScott]

... for furling regular leaders and Tenkara line / leader combinations. Here is my set up, as posted in a thread on the Furling Forum.

"Occasionally some one asks for ideas on furling jigs / boards. Thought a thread devoted to various models would be useful, or at least interesting.

Mine is pretty much cobbled together with stuff from Home Depot. The table is simply a plywood sheet rested on a couple collapsible sawhorses. The wings on the far ( left side in photo ) side let me extend the two boards in my basic jig to 14' and let me furl lines / leaders up to about 12' long for Tenkara rods.



The sliding carriage at the tip end is connected to a tension device and allows for reduction and relaxation of the leader during twisting and furling. On my original jig, a tension devise was the most difficult problem to solve. The carriage was the only solution I came up with. The tension devise is a length of stretch cord and a box end wrench of the appropriate weight. The fish hook on the post facilitates incorporating a tip ring before furling begins.



The posts or pegs are dowells set at spacing 40% of the distance from the butt to the tip on one side and 70% of that distance on the other side. This results in a configuration of 40% butt section, 30% mid section, and 30% tip section. Changing the spacing / configution would require a couple seconds with a drill to relocate the posts anywhere along the board. I chose the 40-30-30 configuration after reading a number of articles on leader construction. There may be better configurations, but this one works for me.



The gear system consists of two driven gears turning hooks for twisting / furling and a driving gear at a 5:1 ratio. Found the gears on an internet site. They were the most expensive component of the jig, but should last for quite a while.



Power by Ryobi as in a low end variable speed reversible drill. Since I use formulas for making leaders rather than using the "reduction" or "pig tailing" approaches, a lower speed drill is necessary so I can count revolutions / twists. Since I power furl rather than let the twisted leader material relax under tension, the reversible feature is essential to my system.



John

[Kytroutbum]

Thanks, I thought for some reason that the techniques were somewhat different than for leaders. I noticed both mono and thread on your jig. Which one do you prefer to use for your tenkara and what size thread or mono do you recommend using?

[JohnScott]

My approach was to build a line / leader combination which was essentially a leader with a tip section comprising about 15% of the starting length ( 14' ), the mid section also comprising about 15% of the total length, and a butt section comprising the remaining 70%.

I used the same 10-8-6 configuration as on my leaders - 10 strands in the butt section, 8 strands in the mid section, and 6 strands in the tip section. So basically the finished line / butt section is about 9' of ten strands and the mid and tip sections are about 2' each, stepping down from 8 to 6 strands. A tip ring was incorporated before the twisting began.

Danville 210 Flymaster Plus tying thread had been my material of choice for about eight years, and that is what I used for the Tenkara line / leader combinations. ( I recently found some 140 Danville which has become my standard for furled thread leaders for dry fly fishing, but I haven't used it yet for a Tenkara line. )

I've not used mono - just happens there is a spool on the desk. I have used 2# Berkley fluoro for some leaders, for nymphing with my conventional fly rods, but don't recall if I made a Tenkara leader out of it at any point.

Overall, the line / leader described has worked well on my TUSA Ayu. Chris has used one and a couple other folks reported back that it proved a satisfactory line / leader for them. But that was a couple years ago, and I am sure there have been a bunch of new products brought forth since then, and more serious attention and testing done to improve the performance of furled lines.

John

[Kytroutbum]

Thanks- I've got a lot of playing for right after Christmas. Randall

[Fly Goddess]

I have sold a bunch of Tenkara lines. I do make mine in two part, but once together, no hinging what so ever. Repeat business tells me they work