Well we started the rodbuilding today and it all went very well IMO. We took longer than expected but every guy ended up with a "perfect" job on mounting the reel seat. Everyone is fairly good with the handcrafts. No clutzes getting epoxy in their hair , etc.

Looking forward to next Sat.

:nopics:

:nopics:

Funny, I was going to post the same thing.

-spence

This was nose to the grindstone getting things done. :) To the best of my knowledge there were no pictures taken.

pics are only available to attendees as reference items

It was a good day. I feel pretty confident that i could set a reel seat alone. That was the thing that made me the most nervous. Nice meeting everyone, cant wait to try this stick out when its finished.

I took one picture and will post if Rob doesn't mind (shows his face).

This isn't rod builders anonymous.

I can't say what we used this epoxy for though (Saltheart proprietary secret).

Was a good day, nice meeting everyone too, the reel seat was the one thing I really wanted to see, the hardest step but pretty easy to do after you learn some tricks.
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The epoxy isn't the secret , its how we get it inside the gap between the blank and seat so expertly that is the secret. Until this class only my cat knew and she's not talking. :)

IMO in rodbuilding , the seat mounting is the most difficult thing to undo if you screw it up , thats why I wanted everyone to do it with me present. Guide layout is the "headiest" stuff. Takes a lot of playing around to optimize although getting something "good" is less difficult. Without a doubt , applying the thread finish at the end takes the most craftsmanship and is where many a fine build is turned into a mess. Decorative wraps serve no functional purpose fishing wise so you won't ruin the rod but you can write UGLY all over it if you do that wrong.

These seven guys are all pretty good so I have no doubt they will all successful complete a perfect build.

Number one lesson saturday was....Do it perfect or do it over again! Never settle for just OK!