August 2010

The breadth and scope of rod blanks available today boggles the mind of those of us who were practicing this craft back in the 1970’s and 1980’s.  Back then there were only a handful of companies offering rod blanks and the selection was somewhat limited. If you wanted a “7 foot, 4-power,” you might have…

Fellow rod builder Steve Clark operates a nice rod building forum over at www.rodbuildingforum.com. I had received a note to look in on a particular thread there concerning the Common Cents System and did so.  It brought back a few memories of how RodMaker Magazine ended up having the privilege of being the first to…

Back in 1975, two men with the same first name began parallel custom rod component supply businesses. Lloyd Simmons opened Simmons Custom Tackle in Shelbyville, Tennessee. His first employee, hired that same year, was Bob McKamey. Meanwhile, over in Olathe, Kansas, airline pilot Lloyd Bingham launched Bingham Enterprises. I remember buying LCI rod blanks from Lloyd…

There are differing degrees of accountability depending on who you are. For instance, “TunaMan Bob” or “Hook Setter 4Life” can proffer extremely bad advice on a custom rod building forum and get away with it. What are you going to do if their advice turns out bad for you? Sue them? Call them a bad…

It’s always nice to hear from subscribers. Particularly when they write to let me know how RodMaker Magazine has increased their rod building knowledge and provided them with greater enjoyment out on the water. The following photo and letter from RodMaker subscriber Shawn Murphy arrived in today’s mail: Your magazine has been a tremendous help…

Between 40 and 45 custom rod builders either subscribe or renew to RodMaker Magazine each and every day – weekends included. A few will include a note or comment asking what back issue would be best for a new builder to buy. That’s really a tough question for me to answer. Soon we’ll have published…

Dear RodMaker: As a fairly new rod builder I am a little surprised at all the different epoxy thread wrap coatings out there. There seems to be a cottage industry for repackaging standard craft epoxies. Would I be making a mistake buying a two-part epoxy craft coating from my local hobby shop for finishing my…

The Volume 13 #4 issue of RodMaker will mail on Friday of this week. This issue features a rather broad topic spectrum and should appeal to a very diverse group of custom builders. Heavy Duty Saltwater Rod Construction by Capt. Mike Ballard How To Offer Custom Bamboo Rods by Michael Daniels Precision Boring Reel Seat…

Each year the International Custom Rod Building Exposition plays host to roughly 2000+ custom rod builders. They come to participate in the over two dozen continuing education seminars, visit nearly 50 rod building component supply manufacturers and dealers, and to take advantage of the best deals on rod building stuff you can possibly imagine. But…