Damon M.

Derek, I started building my own rods for several reasons, but the main reason was because Im a fairly meticulous person and while the custom rods I had made for me were nice, each one of them had something about them that I would have done differently. I was fortunate enough to have a few friends who built their own rods. I built my first custom rod at a friends house, under his instruction. In any case, I would suggest you invest in an instructional book, either Advanced Custom Rodbuilding by Dale Clemens or the Flexcoat book which I havent read but understand is much more simple. You dont need a lot of fancy equipment to build rods, but a rod lathe will make your life a lot easier. There are a few choices in rod lathes 1. Clemens Custom Tackle makes the best lathe available. Its solid machined aluminum with quality components. I have a 12 ft bed with three rod supports and a 4 spool thread carriage which cost me about 750 bucks. This is a lot of money, but factor in the money you'll save on rods and the fact that you'll own it for life and never have to replace it. 2. Another lathe is the one offered by Pacific Bay, which is also aluminum but of lesser quality. This lathe sells for about 300 dollars give or take. 3. Flex coat makes a wooden wrapping jig that is not motorized which sells for about 70 bucks.
If you're interested in a sabre blank, I would suggest you buy it from Mike Thomas at Cape Cod Tackle. He used to sell a kit which included guides, cork tape, reel seat, etc which was great for starting out. He would probably still put all the stuff together for you if you wanted.
Once you finish wrapping, you'll need to coat the wraps and a drying motor makes that job a lot easier. I would suggest the Flex coat 6 or 18 rpm drying motor with one rod support which will run you about 85 dollars. Without a drying motor, you'll have to go and turn the rod constantly for hours and still run the risk of sags and drips in your finish. I would also suggest you use U-40 Duragloss rod finish rather than flex coat because it is much more user friendly and creates less bubbles.
A great blank for your first effort is the 7 ft sabre medium blank, which sells for less than 30 dollars. Its a great boat rod/schoolie surf rod and if you mess up, you're only out a few bucks rather than screwing up a Ron Arra.
My final advice would be that if you're interested, do it right and get the Clemens rod lathe. You wont regret it and once you get the hang of it, you can sell a few rods to some friends and pay the thing off in no time. Theres a rod builder's guild message board with some great tips and you can post some questions there too.
Check out
www.clemenstackle.com
www.mudhole.com
www.rodguild.com (message board)