Burl Wood

I've recently started taking stock of turning blocks which are stabilized. I will be putting them up on the site ASAP. Some of the species I will be stocking are Birch Burl, Maple Burl, Black Ash Burl as well as some different types of stabilized horn such as reindeer and moose. I will have bigger sizes for grips and smaller sizes for reel seats

Stabilized wood is the way to go for a grip/ reel seat application. It wont split, crack, warp and its saltwater resistant. It polishes to a high finish without the need for a "top coat" of sealer.

These blocks in the photo are some cross cut birch burl. For those of you who don't turn your own I can supply you with a custom grip or seat made to your specifications
If you have any questions or would like to obtain some of this wood contact me scott@solwaycustomcomponents.com

A Trio!!!

Click on the Photo


Peter Mulbjerg was kind enough to forward me this really great photo of his grips made with our birchbark. These are some truly custom grips. Looking forward to seeing what else he comes up with.

Guide Prep, Grayling and Olympics!!!

I remember when I built my first few rods back in the mid 80's. I had bought Dales Clemens book and remember reading his words about finishing. He said it was a mistake to think about finishing as you were mixing your finish. I start to think about finishing even before the guide is wrapped. If you prep your guides properly it is so much easier to get a nice clean finished product. My tools are a flat file and a sanding board which women use to file their nails. I will say that when I find myself at the drugstore I get some funny looks when I am buying fingernail boards, Sally Hansens nail varnish(for my flies). I don't say anything and keep them guessing!! Ha Ha

When prepping your guide feet try to get a narrow slope with a very fine edge where the thread will start to climb up the foot. The time spent here will save you more headache than you know. This is especially true for someone starting out. I rough them out with a flat file and then take any burrs off with a sanding board.As these days I mostly build fly rods I like to keep the wraps slim looking. A word of caution- go slow file a bit and look. You can always remove but its hard to put the material back. As this is custom work and your looking for a nice fit and finish, time should not really be an issue. You can click on each photo to get a close look

Left- Unprepped

Right-Prepped

Notice the difference in the slope, thickness and radiused. Much easier to work the thread over the prepped guide. After it is wrapped the "tunnels" which are formed on each side of the foot are kept to a min. This reduces the amount of air that can be trapped in this void space. Reduced air equals less chance of getting bubbles in your finish and they are easier to fill up with your thread coating of choice.

Here's the difference. Be careful though don't make them too thin as you will lose to much of the structural strength. Practice makes perfect

I usually taper them this way as well.

I have been going through my fishing photos and saving all my best to a disc. Here is a nice grayling(one of my favorite fish). I looked in my notes and this was taken on a #16 CDC emerger during an olive hatch. This is the European grayling which is a bit different from the Artic Grayling.

Great sport when they are feeding on the surface with gusto!!

GO CANADA!!!!

Hockey tonight against USA. Lets crush them Shatner stealing Mexico touchers. I may be here in the UK. I,m still a puck slapping maple sucker A good medal haul so far this year

Guide Wraps and Easy Trim Bands

Ok been picking away at this wrapping. The first thing I do is hoover(vacuum) my work area. I then take one of those magic dusters and go over the general area to minimize dust. Try to do whatever you can to keep the dust levels low to none. If its dry, which is rare here in Scotland, I will wear a nylon windbreak so there is no dust off of my shirt

I find some type of magnifier really helps to see what the thread is doing. This one has a daylight bulb in it. Overhead is 4 4" tube lights. most of my work area is painted white for maximum brightness. I also have a set of goggle magnifiers which fit to your face. I use this one the most though. Remember if your threadwork looks good magnified it will look even better when its not

I use a neptune thread tensioner. It doesn't use springs for tensioning. It is two magnets in which you put paper washers between to adjust the tension. The more washers the less tension there is. Its really smooth and especially good if wrapping with metallics. It doesnt get pinched between anything so there is no chance of fraying. The washers you see are my "guide wrap setting". I minus a few for ferrule wraps and threadwork such as chevrons, diamonds etc where you want your wrap just slightly tighter.
When a guide is wrapped you should be able to move it back and forth for alignment. If you can't its too tight

I wont bore you with a normal guide wrap procedure. But I will show you how I do all of my trim work whether it be thread or metallics.

Lay a 6" piece of your trim material over the blank. Place a darning needle(in this case), a wooden stick or your finger over the thread. Easy enough you say!!!

Now wrap your thread around your tool of choice. You will need to put one extra wrap of thread for the number of trim turns that you want. In this case I want 3 so I put 4 or its more like 3 1/2 turns and put the end throught the eye. Place your thumb on the loose wraps to they stay in the order you see. Pull the needle throgh and you will end up with a tag on each side. Now in order for it to "lock" on itself you will have to carefully remove one turn and you will see the two threads join in a sortof figure of eight in the middle. Dont pull it tight. Gently slide it up to your main wrap and pack it against the shoulder.

This is just loose before packing. Once it packed just pull each tag in the direction that they are lying (90 degrees to the blank). To lock them position one towards the tip and one towards the butt( parallel with the blank). Trim the tags, place a very small dab of CP or super glue right on the crossover point and bobs your uncle!!.
Oh one other thing. Place the knot or crossover on the side thats not seen by the angler. On a spinning and fly rod thats on the guide foot side, on a baitcasting it would be opposite the guide foot side.

Both trim wraps finished. I like doing it this way because your trim tags will never show under your main wraps especially if your not using CP.

Static Testing

Today I was getting my guide placement sorted on this rod. For the guides I've went with titanium Sic's as I'll possibly be using it in the salt for bass. Stripper is a 16mm DF, then 12 DF and 7mm single foots right out to the tip. For the life of me I could not find my wee surgical rubber bands I usually use to hold on the guides while testing so I can move them back and forth with ease. So went with masking tape after I found myself getting quite frustrated. I know they are in that shop somewhere. Tape will do in a pinch but the rubber bands are much easier to use. I was a little hot under the collar and you can see I just slapped the tape on any old way!!!

Ive got a rod holder bolted to a jig which is fixed to the side of my garage. The rod can be mounted in the holder and a weight attached to the end in order to fully flex the rod. The guides can be placed so the line path follows the arc of the blank. On a nice day like it was today its nice to do this outside. My stripper is place at 31" from the center of the reel. This is the distance I use for all of my fly rods. I can reach without stretching and my stripping hand lands about 2" short of the guide. The first guide from the tip goes at 4 1/2". Thread the line through the stripper and then slide on all the other guides between it and the guide at 4 1/2". They will just bunch up and hang on the line. Now thread it through the first guide and the tip. I just eyeball where I think the guides look good and tape them on. Now attach a weight to the line and put a bend in the rod. Adjust your guides so you get a nice path with no major "flat spots".

Just out of curiosity I compared my guide locations to a spacing chart. A few guides were close but the chart was 100mm out for a couple. This just goes to show this is the best way to find guide placement. Every blank is different so keep the spacing chart in the drawer where it belongs. :>)

Wrapping The Decal Borders

Ive started the wrapping today on this CTS. I took a break from the lathe work and cleaned up all the dust and tools that were laying around.

This is the wraps that will border my custom decal. Its Cobalt Blue regular nylon with white NCP inlay thread. I don't normally wrap with NCP as the wraps look quite "pastelish" if that's even a word!! But in this case its a dark blank and if I use white regular nylon the blue blank will bleed through even though I am going to use Chromaseal Colour Preserver.

Click on the photo and you will see no gaps, overlaps or bumps. I am happy that the thread spacing is uniform and has an overall "clean" look to it. I may tip each end with a metallic but I'm not sure at this point. I just need to cut the tags end with a razor blade and make sure everything is packed properly. The packing and burnishing is very important so that your wraps turn out a nice uniform colour once finished. If there is gaps it you will have darker shades in the wrap

You can see Rodmaker Magazine in the background. It a "how to" on an easy way to do these kind of thread inlays. The right hand page has numerous photos that show you every step. The left is written instruction. It could not be easier and I really cant stress enough how much time some of these articles can save you. There may not be something in every issue that will interest you but when there is it can be very helpful. I offer subscriptions on my site but if you need any additional info contact me scott@solwaycustomcomponents.com

Finished Grip Assembly on CTS 9' 9WT

Today I finished off installing the grip. I decided to change the fighting butt and went with all Box Elder Burl with some trim rings to match the fore grip. I also cut down on the length of the FB to balance it up a bit more. I installed the reel, taped all the guides on and ran the line through it. This gave me the perfect placement for the seat (with this reel anyway).

Over all I'm pretty pleased with it.

Please feel free to make a comment and let me know what you think?

A blue piece of Corian for a cap to match the cobalt blue blank!!!












A shot of the finished Black Ash Burl seat and REC anodized pewter aluminium hardware.





I made a white winding check out of Corian to match the trim rings. I like making my checks as opposed to just using a plain old metal shop bought one. I usually make them out of wood but took a notion and tried something different.

You can see the radius on the winding check. I Polished it down to 6000 Micro Mesh paper.

Turning The Reel Seat

I got a chance tonight to turn the seat for this project. A piece of Black Ash Burl that matches the ends of the grip. A 1"x1" square was first bored out to my mandrel size and mounted between two bushing which get squeezed lightly with a nut on the end.I measured the reel foot and want this spacer a little bit longer than the insert that came with it.This is the beauty of custom building as you can modify anything you like.

Diameters are turned to match measurements of hardware as most of the factory inserts come a bit "sloppy". Just ready to be parted off and finished. A soaking coat of Danish Oil to bring out the grain and then wipe off the excess. Once its dry I'll just buff it with a lint free cloth. Again this wood is stabilized so I don't have to worry about sealing it.

Finished Fore Grip

I took a half an hour break today from preparing this shed load of birch bark and finished turned the fore grip.

First thing to do is to make the O.D concentric with the I.D which I did with a round nose scraper. Your not looking to shape the grip just take enough off so you see no "wobble" when its spinning. If you try to sand it before truing it up your sandpaper will only follow the out of round grip and it will turn out somewhat egg shaped.

The ends were just lightly scraped with a parting tool so they are at right angles to the grip and again there is no wobble. Next shape the grip starting with 60 grit paper to rough it out and work your way down to 600 for a nice "velvety" feel.

One coat of Danish Oil on the ends to bring up the grain. No need to seal this wood as its stabilized and wont crack, split or shrink. This is why stabilized is so good for a fishing grip application.


Notice the foam core on the reel seat end. O.D is concentric. You will never see it once it is inletted for the seat hood. It did a good job of removing the weight and the grip now weighs a total of 39 grams. Not bad considering the grip is burl cork, wood and corian