Anyone here customise their rods.

I used to put my own fly and speci rods together myself deriving great satisfaction from doing so, and on occasion customising them to suit my needs.
over the years this has been by inbuilding both long and short quivertips, exchanging ring sliding reel fittings to fuji types, abbreviated butts, squirting expanding foam down a rod butt section attempting to alter the playing action ( dont try it on a Hardy) -- it didnt work btw.
Painting the rod tip white for chubbing at night, and rubbing them down to elliminate "flash".
Whatever I thought that would give me a better chance of catching.
Recantly I purchased a pair of Shakespeare agility 12' feeder rods that Will be used mainly for light to medium weight fish on the Trent. The only downsiďe for me was the thickness of the butts that were 25 mm in diametre and comprised of both cork and duplon , Tho ok in the main I had minor reservations about the butt so, being ridiculously cheap I,ve asked a rod building friend of mine to strip out the duplon, replace it with cork along with (maybe, if the original isnt suitable) a fuji screw down reel fitting.Then , in his lathe reduce the diametre down to 20 mm.
A final spin to get rid of a 6" length of thick varnish protecting the rods logo before finnishing the whole rod with a wire wool rubdown to elliminate any last vestige of shine , particularly the whipping on the runners to give it a final dressing down----- a sort of wheeler dealers in reverse.
Anyone else done things similar in the past or present ??

What do you mean by "flashing"?

P.s I will probably regret asking that?

Lol, It's simply the high gloss finnish on some parts of the rod that could catch the sunlight and potentially spook a fish, particularly in clear shallow water .

I've always had a bit of a diy take on fishing tackle. I often used to find that on a first visit to a water or a swim, I'd find out the float, feeder etc I'd got was only nearly right, and then I'd try and make one that was just right for the second visit.

With rods and poles, I can recall, amongst other things:

Adapting a 6m fibreglass whip with a hollow tip, a primitive elastic system and 3 oz of lead in the butt to balance it like a rod. With a long line and a bit of peacock, I could fish over a canal lock outflow that otherwise dragged your float along to reach the tench and bream in the still water by the far bank reedbeds. We had yet to see a take-apart pole at that time. To land fish, I had to collapse sections down.

Making “dolly” butts – short handles – to give me shorter versions of rods, for fishing under trees, legering close in on deep waters or whatever.

Stripping down my first proper float rod - a glass Sealey Blue Match – and giving it black chrome rings and a sexy black satin finish.

Experimenting with all kinds of springs, rubber hinges and all kinds of cane, glass and carbon in the search for the ultimate stable but sensitive bite indicator. A couple of the springtips are still unbeatable in the right circumstances.

Mixing and matching sections and cut-off's from float rods to make wands, at the time when leger rods were too beefy for real light tackle legering.

Making measurements and guestimates, and taking a hacksaw to the top section of a very expensive float rod, then splicing in a solid carbon tip. It's still my favourite roach rod for light waggler.

There was an attempt at turning an old float rod into a multi-section, stick it in your suitcase for holidays affair. But I don't talk about that one. Some would say you shouldn't do that to a Mach 2 Boron 13'

More lately, I've had rod-builders take off handles with nasty screw real seats and blobs of duplon, and put me proper cork handles and sliding rings on. And I have a rod in a tackle shop at the moment, having the reverse handle re-assignment – swapping useless reel bands for a Fuji seat.

Not everything looked beautiful, but things worked, and nothing ever broke as I wasn't mean with the araldite or the whipping thread.

Not so much nowadays but in the past I've built a few from scratch,done a bit of mix and match trying to create something not available in the shops. Not always successfully though I did have one great succcess that served me well for many years. I've spliced in quiver tips before multi tip rods were widely available and stripped down and re-rung one or two.I do have distinct Binka tendencies when it comes to reel fittings and I've changed those on several rods....getting rid of nasty sliding things or uncomfortable Fuji reel seats and fitting screw down hoods. I once even stripped down and rebuilt an Allcocks Wizard.....which seemed a very good idea at the time. I wouldn't do it again though...proper pita.

I haven't done anything like this for ages though. The range of rods available nowadays and the fittings are generally much better and I rarely feel the need to modify or mess about with rods now....bar stripping off and rubbing down any offensive markings/labels etc which get right up my hooter and which I will not tolerate. I cannot fish with a garishly finished rod or something with a stupid name plastered on the butt. It has to go.

I won't customize my gear, I like to keep things in the best original condition as possible. If I don't think a rod is right for me, I won't buy it in the first place. I'm not perfect though, I make the odd mistake. When I do, the rod gets sold, provided it's worth selling. If not, it gets hoarded.

Very occasionally, I've had the urge to put a winch fitting on an older rod with sliding rings. Unfortunately, I don't trust myself to do a good enough job to be acceptable to me. I'm also not keen on the likely prospect of reducing the value of the rod(s) in question. Many are just not really worth the expense or time. I do have one rod that could be comparatively simple to do. I keep looking at the prospect, measuring up, looking at reel seats, but not actually doing it.

I have had the odd notion of building a rod from scratch. However, I'm dubious that the financial outlay would see me end up with anything better than I already have. Again, I'm also dubious that I'd have the requisite skills for me to end up with something to a standard I'd be entirely happy with.

i have done some diy rod building and refurbishment.
last year i stripped the eyes and lightly sanded the rough carbon finish on a pair of harrison multi carp rods and then rewhipped them as barbel rods. the old corks needed some digging out and then refinishing with some pit paste.
they came out very nice indeed.

nearing completion...




a bit of help from my mate Kevin Clayton to do the final epoxy and sexy stickers too.
CCFR - Clayton Custom Fishing Rods

i also changed the poor quality screw down reel fittings on my korum 2lb barbel rods to some proper screw up fuji reels seats.

I engaged in a truly complex and challenging piece of customisation to my Mach 3 13' float rod, which I use primarily for float fishing. It took a long time of pondering, measuring up, researching - I really wasn't sure if I had the skills for the job. But after really going through the whole project in mind, giving it all the due care required - I finally decided I was ready to take the plunge.

So with some red electrical tape, I attached an extra but ring between the existing but ring and the reel seat.

I think I'd read on here somewhere about someone keeping both items in the sleeve with the rod, mine seems to have become something of a semi-permanent fixture!

Beyond that, I do now make all my own open-ended feeders, after having a particularly trying session on the wye where I just felt I was throwing money in the river. I use a soffit mesh - used in the building trade where a vent needs to be covered to stop anything getting in - as the main feeder body. I cut that to a size and roll it in to a cylinder, which I then staple. Once that cylinder is formed, I then cut a piece of code 4 roof-flashing lead which is just under twice the length of the cylinder... this is then place along the base of cylinder and folded into each end. Before I fold the "front" piece of the lead, I make a loop out of a cable tie (tag cut off) and there it is. I reckon my unit costs on these is 30-something pence, much better than 2-quid odd from the tackle shop!

dave m said:

i have done some diy rod building and refurbishment.
last year i stripped the eyes and lightly sanded the rough carbon finish on a pair of harrison multi carp rods and then rewhipped them as barbel rods. the old corks needed some digging out and then refinishing with some pit paste.
they came out very nice indeed.

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Nice work! Cork's a wonderful material, and it beats foam etc just as peacock quill beats plastic.

Back in the 70s building your own rods was common practice and blanks, and cork for handles and rings and varnishes etc. were found in most decent tackle shops near me.

The last complete rods that I built were using a couple of Jim Gibbinson Clooper Carp rod blanks and I made full length cork handles instead of the abbreviated handles which came with the kits; this was back in the late seventies.

I have re-whipped and re-rung several older rods since then and I’ve fitted donkey top quivers to a rod or two and made a couple of bait throwing sticks from old rod handle sections and I’ve made many different waggler and stick floats and bite indicators and other tackle items over the years.

keith

Dave M, nice work, those new butts are the ones I hope to get on my rods, the finnish too.

Back in the 60’s and 70’s I built many rods from blanks or kits. Mostly bought from Goings tackle shop in Southend on Sea, Simpsons of Turnford or Walkers of Hythe. Buying what you wanted over the counter was expensive if it was available.
Spent many hours during the close seasons putting them together. It was always an extra pleasure catching fish on a rod you had built yourself.

nottskev said:

Nice work! Cork's a wonderful material, and it beats foam etc just as peacock quill beats plastic.

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Although the old.cork was a little shot it was much easier to dig out the soft black bits and refill rather than have to strip.and recork the handles.
In a few places i was sctually touching the blank beneath the cork...

flightliner said:

Dave M, nice work, those new butts are the ones I hope to get on my rods, the finnish too.

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You can just about see how ive reshaped the end of the cork handle so its less square and the ali collar finishes it off nicely.

I will try and put a pik up on here when my rods are done.
Can't wait !:frusty::frusty:

I certainly do customise rods, some built from scratch and others " messed about with". Ultimately rods are a tool to me and I'm not too bothered how they look or what other anglers think.
Reel seats go either way up, higher or lower on the handle, bits have been chopped off the tip and quivers stuck in, I have no shame.
A hardy Wanless cane needed new rings (use it for stalking chub), I don't get all precious about replica rings, bung some lined Fuji's on it, casts even better. Stripped off a cane, steel centred salmon rod and turned into a pike rod - with modern fittings of course. Done unmentionable things to my glass Mk4 s/u !
Heresy the traditionalists shout, but it's only a rod, do whatever you want to suit.

I used to mess about, splicing bits of cheap blanks together, but since the ebay revolution, both the bamboo thicket and the c@rbon collection have grown to the point where that shouldn't be necessary.

My favourite tweaks are to add a keeper ring, sometimes another butt ring, and whippings/paint marks at three-inch intervals (with the foot markers being wider) to give a more accurate and transferable depth reading - "Half a float's length down from the third ring on the tip" will not be the same for other rods or floats, whereas "Seven feet, nine-and-a-bit inches" will (plus or minus the leeway in one's estimation of a "bit").

Oh, and I must get round to putting one-inch markers on my net-handle for photos of decent fish.

A hardy Wanless ! Lol, why not indeed.
The first fly rod I made was a Geoffrey Bucknall job back in the mid seventies.
It was a good rod that I used for many years until carbon came into popular use, that was when the GB job was converted into a quivertip.