Started making on of the two rods I want to make for next season. Making a conventional schoolie rod on the St Croix 7 foot graphite blank I got at the Mass Bass Show last year. This is a nice blank and I picked it up for $20 at the show. Can't beat that for price.

Tough part is I want to make the same decorative wrap that's on my breakaway 11'9". I know how to make the wrap but don't know how to adjust it for the skinny little St Croix vs the Breakaway thats almost an inch thick. I guess the tricky parts are what makes it fun. I decided to go the whole 9 yards on this one with SiC guides and tip top and the fancy decorative wrap.

Next I'll be doing another Sabre 1089 to replace the one I broke. Canal rods get beat up bad so I'm not sure I want to build that one so fancy but we'll see what kind of mood I'm in when I start it.

Also hope to cast up 300 3 OZ ball jigs this weekend. These will be used mostly with Curltails and few will be tied with bucktail. After that its just a couple hundred 2 OZ in Balls for plastic and in Smilin Bills for bucktailing. Oh yeah , 100 more 5 OZ Smilin Bills.

If I can get the 300 3 OZ balls done this weekend , I'm back on track for getting my off season chores done. Even though its sitting at home making these things , I'm engrossed in thoughts of where and when and how I'll use the stuff , etc , etc. Next best thing to actually being at the water wetting a line.

Saltheart,
Probably the best way to do it the same as the other rod would be to do the butt wrap to scale. It'll be easiest if the buttwrap on the Breakaway is square, like with diamond wraps where diamonds are the same distance apart as the circumference of the blank. That's the easiest to do so if you say that the 7 footer is half the diameter of the Break, you'll be able to draw your scale down by half. Or whatever the percentage is, I KNOW you understand what I'm trying to say :P . You've got 6 threads of one color making a wrap, use three and so on.

What do you use for a rod wrapping jig, eh??

Man you guys must really feed the water with lead, to be pouring up that many jigs to re-stock. The beauty of plastic, don't use much lead except to wrap my hook shanks for sink rate, is I can save the used stuff to melt it down. Hope your playing it safe with all that lead, keep the small children away, lol.

I've got a glut of plastic right now, so I'm pretty set for the new season, assuming it ever get's here aaaaaaaaahhhh. I've been to the Thames twice and was shooting for Sunday, but the weather's looking cold and windy. Might still go, because I'm just about that desparate to fish, lol. The H*ll with the super bowl, tight lines.

I thought the same thing John but its not so easy. Its a quad wrap (8 diamonds around the circumference) The distinctive part of the pattern involves 1 gold thread , 2 black , 1 trimar , 2 black , 1 gold.. Not much to scale back there. There is a section of the wrap that has 6 black but If I mess with that , I lose the stand alone gold Chevron which is also part of the Holographic look.

I adjusted the spacing based on the circumference of the the thinner blank but since its a quad , there's no room for all the thread once the space is reduced.

I tried a Double (4 diamonds around the circumference but that isn't right either.

I posted a question to the board for Al Goldberg. Hope his solution is simple for scaling down the wrap.

Forgot this part. I have a nicely v'ed box for my rod wrapper!! :) Most of the time for decorative wraps the rod blank is resting on my knees. I roll it down my thighs to get it to spin!! :

Anyway , its likely I'll have a Clemens Rod wrapping Lathe before the winter is over. I looked at a Rodsmith to which is nice but its also expensive so I figure why not go all out and get the best. I'm collecting bottles right now. At 5 cent deposit each , I only need 10,000 more to afford the thing.

Regarding the decorative wrap, have you considered using size A thread? On the rod wrapper, the beauty of the Clemens setup is being able to add additional pieces to it latter.
Ultimately you want the power/lathe head with 3 base rails totaling 12', 4 rod supports and either the 4 or 8 thread spool holder. The difference between the rodsmith and the Clemens is kind of like a custom Lami and a factory built Lami.

What size thread is the decorative wraps done with??

Saltheart, want to go in halvsies?? Rotate the wrapper at a liesurely pace? [img=http://www.striped-bass.com/Images/evil.gif]

I'm up in the air right now about the wrapper. Got an email telling me to check out the Renzetti rod wrapper. Suppose to be nice too. If I get one I'll just buy it myself but you are welcome to come up and use it John.
Kind of torn between the rod Smith at $289 and the Clemens/Renzette at more than double that but with added features. Maybe they'll be one at the Worcester show that I can't resist. :)

No problem Saltheart. I was just hoping to reduce my hurt factor as well as yours ;D

I'm thinking the rodsmith/packbay because of price considerations. I figure I can always add more features later, like the self-gyro- stabilized 24 spool roll holder ;P Maybe see you at the show??