Tuna Rod Build Start to Finish

[BYRD]

Great Thread Shoe!!! Looking forward to seeing the finished project. I have made a few rods for inshore fishing but never the big stuff like you are doing. Thanks for taking the time to post the steps. Standing by for the next part!

[fightingcouch]

thanks for the info. Rods look like there coming out great, keep us posted.
greatly appreciated.

[gut fish ?]

shoefish looks good, heres a couple more tip's #1 lightly sand blank #2 boil sum water on stove once boiling turn off stove. Submerge Eva grip in water without distorting grip for 5 to 10 minuets will stretch more easily over blank just my two cents.

[captkev1]

Dan, give me a shout, wondering if the guides came in, let me know if we got to grind them down in the shop or something.

[chumtini]

Great write up shoe. Can you add a little about the components, why you selected them, cost, etc? Looking good! standing-by for the rest of the story.

[shoefish]

Good idea Chum, and I'll combine it with Dunn's request to have the part numbers included as well.

When Kevin and I were talking about putting these rods together, we were setting out to make some rods that could be used for chunking or trolling. We wanted them to be stand up rods that were capable of taking a giant class fish, while not completely taking the fun out of a 60# football or a shark from time to time. We wanted rods that we had the option of fishing 30s, 50s, or even 80s. Light graphite tips were not needed as these wouldn't be used to toss live bait or be used for pitch baiting the occasional marlin in the canyons- rather we wanted to have rugged, no nonsense tuna sticks capable of putting the hurt on fish of virtually any size.

The components we chose were:

Pac Bay Tuna short blank XST56XXHSB ($20): this is a straight fiberglass short blank (48") with a lot of power, that when paired with the bent butt, is the perfect short stick for extended fights with big fish.

Pac Bay aluminum butt AB2SC ($60): this is a short aluminum bent butt. There are many kinds (aftco, american tackle, etc) and they are all the same, but this one is the least expensive. Because there is no real differences, we went with these.

Aftco Wind On Roller Guides W066 ($65): these guides will allow us to use loop to loop wind ons, or to make long wind ons with wind on swivels for trolling with extra long leaders for shy fish while not needing to have a person dedicated to leadering the fish.

Aftco Big Foot Tip Top SHD ($20): this is the matching tip top to the roller guides.

EVA pre-formed Foregrips F14- 14" ($6): foregrips can be made of everything from wood to cork to eva to leather, and beyond. Because of how it holds up and for comfort reasons we chose to use these grips.

Those are the basic components that are needed. From there it's deciding what thread size, color, style to use, choosing the epoxy for the ferrule and grip, and the epoxy that you will use to coat the thread wrap.

I use flex cote lite for the wraps. There are others out there, but I haven't been motivated to use anything else as I started with this and haven't had a problem.

Tomorrow I'll be mocking up the guides and starting to get the abalone ready to mount for the butt wrap.

Until next time, I hope that everyone has a happy, healthy memorial day weekend.

Shoe

[clt_capt]

Are you planning to use Abalone as underwraps for the guides, or just for the butt wrap? Just curious, because I'm trying to decide what to do for a planer rod I'm about to build.

[shoefish]

I plan on using it for the butt wrap, and then a very thin strip under the guides- maybe a 1/4" strip. To me less is more with with abalone.

[clt_capt]

Originally Posted by shoefish

I plan on using it for the butt wrap, and then a very thin strip under the guides- maybe a 1/4" strip. To me less is more with with abalone.

That's kinda what I'm thinking - but I think I will use Metallic thread between the guides - sorta gives the same look, but a lot easier to work with...

[shoefish]

Originally Posted by clt_capt

That's kinda what I'm thinking - but I think I will use Metallic thread between the guides - sorta gives the same look, but a lot easier to work with...

I might end up doing that too- this is the first time I've worked with it, and boy is it fragile. I have a feeling that there is a steep learning curve, so it may get easier, but for now I don't know how I'll get it to wrap around small diameters without breaking into a ton of pieces and looking awful.