John and his family lost their home to a fire shortly before Christmas 2008.  A out pouring of support came from his friends and Internet family on iFish.  WeSeekHer Rods joined the fray, but offering to donate parts and build a rod to be auctioned off to help the family.  Lamiglas offered to donate the blank to the effort and Rick from Rogue Rods offered to donate all the parts.  I finished building this rod a couple days ago, but the rod generated $425 to help the Barth family.  More pictures are in the gallery.

Well the Jaguar rod has been delivered on time Christmas day.  However some drama played out with the NFL over the team logo.  After requesting permission to use the logo, it was denied because some toy company has rights to make toy fishing poles with NFL logos.  I guess I could have come up with $100,000 to license the rod, but I thought that was a tad excessive.  Sadly the logo was left off the rod..

The Tiger Wrap sure turned out nice - Check out the close up views in the Gallery

Been working on an HS1025 Hot shot rod for a friend.  He is an avid fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars so the rod is in that theme.  Teal Blue wraps trimmed in white, with gold rings for the inserts in the guides.  Will also have a tiger wrap in the same Teal blue with Black.  Hopefully I'll be able to have a decal printed of the team logo, but the legal department at the NFL is being a tad slow about granting permission to use their logo.  So wait and wait some more.  So far all the guides have their primary wraps done.  The guides on the butt section have their trim bands and the Ferrule wrap is done.  I'm using Maderia thread on this project so lots of color preserver is necessary to keep the silicone at bay.  the intent is to use this rod for a myriad of different salmon fishing chores.  Plugs, bait, and wobblers.  I normally wouldn't use such a heavy blanks except for the amount of weight to be used for wobblers.

Last night I finally got to stop working in the dark.  A friend of mine does lighting consulting for energy savings and he came by a spec'd out a fixture for the rod bench.  Last night we got it mounted ont he ceiling above the work area and it was amazing to see again.  The fixture use new T5 florescent tubes and is very energy efficient.  the bulbs have a rating of 5000K for color and 5000 lumens for better than 80 foot candles of light on the bench.  Enough to take pictures without flash.  The light is very white with a color render index of almost 86%.  Sure is nice working with some light.  Tried a few test wraps, including doing a double wrap without finish between the threadlayers.  Maderia sure needs lots of CP.

Spent part of the day trying to secure permission to print the Jacksonville Jaguars team logo for a rod - what a zoo!

Wrapped all the guides on the ST 1086 yesterday and applied one thin coat of diamondite finish to wet the threads.  Decal and stickers are one and drying, later today a couple coats of Thread Master and this rod will be ready to fish in a couple days.

Yesterday I wrapped the ferrule wraps on a Loomis ST 1086 as well as the winding check and decal area.  Wrapped in Gudebrod Medium Green Nylon.  Finished with one coat of Diamonite.  Today I  followed with one coat of Thread Master high build.  Now off to hack a tree to the ground

Well the family is coming to supper today and the guests of honor are taking their bath in sweet apple smoke on the Traeger.  Today I packed up a 5wt travel fly rod to send to Texas in the morning.  Last detail was adding guide alignment dots at the ferrules.  Used Testers gold metallic pigment and mixed that with rod finish.  Applied the dots with a tooth pick.  This rod has a real pretty diamond wrap, gold, red and green metallic threads used

 

Today, a 5wt 4pc fly rod is getting its last serious coat of finish over the decal.  Next steps tonight will be to alignment dots to the ferrules and allow to setup.  Will be waiting on logo decals for rod tube to ship - hope its out the door to Texas next week.  Also two salmon rods started into production, rear grips and butt caps are attached already, reel seat arbor and exposed blank reels seat added, rod bond is setting up.