clemens rod wrapping lathe

Unless your a commercial builder, my question is why waste the money? I build for my own personal use and for some fiends, so 6 rods a year might be about it. I have an artical posted on my Fishing Page about building rods on a budget and I still use the same basic equipment to build my rods. The most expensive items I have are the 3 ball bearing rod supports I got from Clemens, at about $100 per pair. I think the drying motor I got out of Cabelas years ago for around $15 and it still works great. I use my variable speed drill for reeming out the cork and spinning the rod when sanding the handles. I made my own thread jig that holds about 4 spools, again no real cost involved. I had a metal shop build me 4 tapered (small to large) 12 inch long rasp type files that fit in my variable drill for reeming out the cork. All in all, very little money invested and the finished product is as good as anything that could be built on a $800 setup. Heres a picture of some of my thread work <img src="http://www.rgsiroisco.com/buttwrap.jpg" border="0"><img src="http://www.rgsiroisco.com/buttwrap1.jpg" border="0">

Think of all the blanks and supplies you could put that $800 towards. Well that's MHO anyway, tight lines.