My first rod rebuild

[Bubba_Bruiser]

Well, I finally finished my first rebuild of a rod, minus the handle, a few weeks ago. I started off with an old 5'6" MH-F Berkley Lightning rod. I stripped the rod down, and several phone calls and text messages to Waffle & Jrob, I finished. I figured I would rather ruin an old $25 rod, than my St. Croix blank I bought for my first build. I made quite a few mistakes, but that's what we learn from I reckon. I learned first of all, don't put a lighter near the blank when trying to remove the tip top guide, because it will twist off, therefore making the rod 5'5" now. But here are a few pictures from the process.

Lesson learned on the tiger wrap; don't pull the line off, back it off by turning the rod by hand and let it fall off.

This is the finished wrap, but I applied too much pressure while I was laying the epoxy. And I think I wrapped it too tight which didn't allow me to burnish it much. But it will do for me on my first one.

[Jrob78]

Congratulations on getting this first redo under your belt! It looks like it turned out nice and by that other post it sounds like it put a fish in the boat. You will feel much more confident now on the real thing. Nice job Bubba!

What base colors did you use on that tiger? It looks like dark green from the pics. I really like those subtle, dark tiger wraps. In the future when you do tiger wraps use almost no tension at all. I tighten my springs just enough so that the nuts don't spin, that way you can get the threads close together and even and still burnish the crap out of them. I wrap the overwrap pretty tight so it will stay perfectly straight.

[Bubba_Bruiser]

I used the lime green and black NCP for the base. It did turn out dark though for some reason. Maybe I should have laid the top layer in green. I am planning on getting a dowel rod and doing a few in different colors and to get some practice down on it. Here are a few more pics from the start up though of the guide wraps. I know the wraps look long for the guides, but I went with a smaller guide than the originals and I straightened up any of the gaps before I finished them. And the blank was scuffed where I removed the old epoxy. But the rod turned out balanced directly under the reel, opposed to 2-3" in front of the reel seat like it used to be.

[mbfishingking]

bubba that looks great. hope the new blank you got turns out great to.

[BigBassin144]

Bubba, looks great for your first try! I kinda of like the dark tiger wrap. What color did you use on top? If I remember correctly, the color of the wrap comes from the top layer.

BB

[Bassboss]

Looks pretty nice Bubba! It should look pretty good on a curado!

[WaffleJaw]

Hell yea Bubba,Your on your way now brother!!...All the thread looks great and packed!,nice work...For your first stab your doing exellent!...Keep it up!...and remember,the rod building monkey has sharper teeth!

[BassinNC]

Looks good man.

[bamabassman]

Well done gary. You'll get better with each rod pal. Much better than i would have done.

[MallenManson]

Looks good, Bubba!

[bassinbob]

Hey Bubba looks very good.

[Cavs1123]

That looks very good bubba!

[carolina-rig-01]

Looks good Curado, great work buddy.