How to Make a Fly Fishing Rod

Preparation, Tip and Grip Seating

• 1

  Every fishing rod blank has one direction in which it naturally bends. You want to build your fly rod locating your guides on the inside of the arc created by this natural bend.

  Take the tip section of your fly rod blank. Hold it at a 45-degree angle to the floor with the thick end resting on the floor and the tip end cradled in your hand. With your other hand, gently push down on the middle of the blank. The blank will flex to its natural bend. Mark the inside of the bend with chalk. Repeat this with each piece of your blank.

  Slightly sand the rod tip where the tip-top will mount. Mix up a small portion of the 5-minute epoxy and use it to mount the fly rod tip-top. Make sure your tip-top is properly aligned with the natural bend of the blank.

• 2

  Lay out your reel seat and grip alongside the blank to see where on the blank the grip will be located. Mark this area with masking tape at each end. Rough the area up a little with sand paper.

  Check that the grip slides firmly up the blank into position. If it won't, use a rat-tail file to widen the grip hole a little. But don't over file the hole and cause voids between the grip and blank. When ready, spread 5-minute epoxy over the blank and slide the grip into place. Remove excess epoxy with denatured alcohol.

• 3

  Using the guide spacing chart from your blank provider, mark where each guide will be located. Make sure both feet of each guide taper properly so there isn't a "drop off" to the blank at the end of the guide. File down any feet that do not taper enough.

Guides and Reel Seat

• 4

  Put the stripping eye into place and hold it down with masking tape on one foot. Leave the other foot free; this is the foot you will be wrapping first.

  Pass your thread through the middle of a hefty book so tension will stay on the thread as you rotate the rod to wrap the thread.

  At about 1/8 inch from the foot of the guide, get the thread started by wrapping it over itself. Each successive wrap should completely abut the previous wrap. Once you begin wrapping up over the foot of the guide, trim any tag end of the thread if needed.

  Continue wrapping the thread snugly. When you are about 1/8 inch away from finishing the thread wraps, take a separate piece of thread and make a loop from it. Lay it over the wrapped section with the loop sticking out over the place where the wraps will end.
  Now continue wrapping over this loop "trapping" it under your wraps. When you are finished wrapping, cut the thread leaving a few inches of tag end. Slip the tag end into the loop you created and then pull the loop back under and through the wrapped thread. This will secure the tag end under your wrapping. Trim the tag end with an Xacto knife.

  Burnish the wrapped area to "squish" all the wraps snugly into one another. Continue this wrapping and burnishing process for each foot of each guide and the hook keeper.

  Where the rod sections join each other is called the "ferrule." Do a half-inch wrap at each female ferrule on a sleeve style blank and half-inch wraps on each side of a spigot ferrule style blank. Burnish these wraps.

• 5

  Mix the two-part epoxy rod finish carefully following the manufacturer's directions. Using a small brush, apply a thin coat to every wrapped area on one blank section. Clean up any spills or drips, and clean your brush with lacquer thinner.

  Commercial rod builders would then put the blank in a device to rotate the blank as the epoxy hardens to prevent drips and sagging. You can notch a cardboard box with "vees" at each end to horizontally hold the blank and manually rotate the blank every few minutes until the epoxy is set. Add another thin coat after 12 to 24 hours.

• 6

  Rough up where the reel seat will go. As you did with the grip, make sure the reel seat will fit snugly. If necessary, widen the hole.

  Apply 5-minute epoxy and slide the reel seat on the blank making sure it is properly lined up with your guides.