Wish me luck folks, I finally got up the nerve to start my H&H IM6 3wt. The real seat is in the basement drying at this very moment.
Even though I double and triple checked to make sure I have done everything correctly I am still half petrified that I have made a mistake. Got the spline wrong, mixed the epoxy wrong, didn’t get the real seat lined up perfectly…
But I guess I got what I got now.
Just an aside…
If this stays this much fun, I am afraid I am going to be as addicted as Jack Hise… can I tell my wife it’s his fault?
PastorEd;
Yes you may. I’ll take the blame.
I know your feeling of doing something wrong on the first one!!
A tip for aligining the guides. I have a 4 foot shop light over my bench. It reflects off the blank in a nice straight line. After the first guide I use to to line up the next guide.
P.S. My Christmas gifts went over great!!
I ordered my first blank and supplies a few days ago. Can’t wait to start on it. Just wish the mail could move faster.
“Just when I’ve caught a nice trout and feeling very proud of my fly fishing ability, my feet fly out from under me and there I sit, wet, flustered and properly humiliated by the Fly Fishing gods.”
Jimmy Moore, “Taken Down a Notch or Two”
Thanks Jack!
I doubt if my wife will buy it either, but it never hurts to try. I am already counting up the rods that I could build.
I put on the handle and the tip top at noon, and have spent the evening putting the guides on with elastic string. Sure wish I had a shop light to help. I can see where that would really make a difference.
Pastor Ed;
I may be too late with this. I do my guides one at a time using Al Campbell’s spacing chart. I have found that I always knock the other guides out of alignment while wraping! But then I have a hard time chewing gum and walking too!
Pastor Ed, blame me. As a small town editor I get blamed for everything anyway. Now I’m caught up on my swaps I’m headed to finish up three rods I have in the cans. Today, though, it’s ice fishing with a bunch of homemade ice flies. Just had to try 'em. JGW
Update:
I finished wrapping the guides this evening. So tommorow evening it is epoxy time. Thanks to everyone whose been so encouraging on and off the board.
And yes, Jack and JGW, I think that I will have lots to blaim you for in the near future. This is just way too much fun.
I can see a new rod for my dad, one for my 3 year old son. Oh maybe one of those cute little 1 or 2 weights everyone has been having so much fun with. A nice 9 or 10 weight for pike.
Pastor Ed, I had two guys in today talking about building their dream cedar strip canoes. They each want to build one, and I’m sort of the local “expert” having built 11 of them with two in various stages of completion in the garage. As they left and I went back to work I realized that this rod wrapping is just as much fun and certainly less labor intensive. Have to admit how satisfying it feels, though, to be canoeing in a canoe I built, casting with a rod I wrapped, catching fish with flies I tied. Pretty cool. JGW
Buzz, no I am building the 7’9" 3wt. this time. I am hoping the next rod will be a 9’ 4wt.
JGW. Building canoes does indeed sound cool. I barely have enough time to do the things I do, spend time with my boy and get a little fishing in, but I would love to do that some time.
By the way… I spent quite a bit of time in your part of the country when I was in Seminary in the Twin Cities, and I do beleive that as a small town editor you are going to be held responsible for at least 3/4 of the problems in town, maybe more if you are a Lutheran.
PastorEd;
How goes the Epoxy session? It’s starting to get exciting isn’t it? Bet you have a hard time sleeping tonight wondering if you got the mix right!!
I have built the H&H 2 wgt. Forecast. Awsome!!
You are soooo right Jack.
Everything looks great so far, I “THINK” I got the mix right, but … I guess tomorrow will tell.
Now if the weather will just hold for a couple of days so I can take it out and lawn cast it!
Finished!
It isn’t perfect. Not by a long shot. In some places it looks down right home assembled. But then again… it looks pretty darn good to me… and after a bit of lawn casting I get the feeling that this is soon going to be my favorite rod.
Do you suppose anyone would call mental health if they saw me "fishing"in the irrigation ditch?
You know, I started the same way. My first 2 rods were a spinning rod and a 6 weight fly rod. Neither were a work of art worthy of showing anyone in my opinion, but I even took the time and put a decorative diamond wrap on the fly rod. In the meantime, I’ve built rods for my 3 kids, a couple for the wife and several for friends at cost not to mention several more for myself. I look back on those 2 rods and I see every flaw, every little thing that I’ve learned to do better in the meantime. But you know what, no one else has ever even noticed (except to admire that crummy little diamond wrap). And for some strange reason, I enjoy fishing those 2 more than any of my other rods.
So cast them in the ditch, the bathtub, or any other water you can find. That’s one of the main reasons we build these things in the first place. Now you have first hand experience understanding our illness. Isn’t it great?
By the way congratulatons on your first build.
[This message has been edited by ol’ blue (edited 11 January 2006).]
Nicely put, Ol Blue. We will see every flaw in our rods, especially since we are probably looking at them with magnifiers or at least reading glasses. Most people will never notice and the fly line, fly, and the fish definitely won’t, they will cast and catch fish just fine.
Yea Blue, it is grand… had all this fun, and now I have a new fishin’ rod to boot. There are plenty of imperfections, a couple that even a cursory look will find. But it’s my rod now. I know how it works, have spent some quality time with it. How could it not be special? The fact that it is already the best casting rod I own, and I have only lawn cast it for 10 mins. may be mearly the product of my affection for it, but I sure can’t wait to give it a proper baptism.
And to answer Jacks question, as I noted in a now locked post on sound off, I was gifted with a 9’ 4wt, which will be my next build as soon as I get an order of componants from H&H. Hopefully I learned enough from my mistakes on #1 that #2 will be much better, and by the time I get to number 6 or 7 I ought to be pretty good.
