Short Rod Question

Equipment Rod Building: Cane and Graphite
1

A comment was posted on a thread about building a short rod from a longer multi-piece blank. Does anyone have any specific recommendations?

For example: To get a 6 foot 5wt, start with a 9’ “x” weight 7 piece rod. Specific blank recommendations from experience would be most appreciated.

Thanks.

2

Hello,
I’ve known of folks dropping the but section from multi-piece rods to make a shorter rod. The only way I can think of to figure out the line weight accurately would be to use the Common Cents System. If you haven’t heard of this system before, it is a way to determine a rods line weight and action. It really does work, as I’ve tested some of my rods using this system.
Here are some links for info on this system.
http://www.common-cents.info/
http://www.superbob.org/CC.htm

The second link is to the page with actual rod test data. I have used this for reference many time. There are tests on Dan Craft blanks there with the butt section dropped to make a shorter rod. Hope this helps you out a bit.

Jeremy

3

I have seen two different versions of this:

  1. To build a shorter rod the line weight stays the same as long as you remove the butt section not the tip. It is simply a matter of purchasing say a 5 piece rod and building the top four pieces.

  2. Even better yet purchase to identical 5 piece blanks say 9’ 5wt and use the 4th section of the second blank to place a second handle & reel seat. This produces a 6 piece outfit that can be assembled full length or shorter version. Guide spacing gets tricky but can be accomplished - I have done it a few times. The trick would be to obtain the fourth section without the purchase price of the second blank. :slight_smile:

4

Here are some options:

St. Croix 2F805-4 - 8ft. 4 piece 5wt
Lamiglas PFT108 4/5 - 9ft. 3 piece 4/5 wt
PacBay H7B8054 - 8ft. 4 piece 5wt *
Rainshadow HH8054B - 8ft 4 piece 5wt * Actually IF8054
Forecast BB8054B - 8ft 4 piece 5wt *
American Tackle AMF8053 - 9ft. 3 piece 5 wt *
American Tackle AMF8634 - 8.5ft. 4 piece 5 wt *
Tiger Eye GF/P4-80-4/5 - 8ft. 4 piece 5wt **
PacBay BL-TRF805-4* - 8ft 4piece 5wt **

The St Croix and Lamiglass are the most expensive. The ones marked * are
off the Hook & Hackle web site an the model #'s may be theirs. Those marked ** are off Schnieder rods. For best combination of qualty and price , I would go with either the PacBay, Rainshadow or Tiger Eye blanks. The PacBay BL-TRF805-4 is on sale at Schnieder. This is a very nice discontinued blank.