Hey guys, just spotted this forum, right up my alley this! I used to work with Kojak and I used to pick his brains on ideas, since he was the MAN. Recently I have put my A into G and got some blanks sorted. My first attempt was to reguide a Kilwell rocky 2 jellytip from OH to spin with some better guides. I got my hands on some fuji hardloys and basically went hell for leather, and I soon learnt that rod building is a total be-yartch.
But never the less I managed to complete the goal. A bit rough I know , I know, but hey it was my first attempt with 100% follow-your-nose sort of approach. It wasn't till later that I found out how the back bone within a blank works hahaha. But the jellytips were designed to work both ways so thats all good.
Was happy with that to kick off the building bug.
Now I have 5 kilwell blanks to build in order of to-be-built:
1) ZWS85XJ - Kilwell Livefibre Texalium 1 pce 8'6. It is a 15-24kg rod but I plan to mod it down to about 7'8 to make it more of a 24kg rod suiltible for LBG kingies. It is in go-fish atm having grip and seat put in and I will finish it with the wraps and guides, which will be a basic style fuji hardloy heavy duty boat guide. Cost me $80
2) ZWS70MJ -Kilwell livefibre blank 7' with the red paint (same as kilwell built livefibres). It is usually rated at about 6-8kg or so. I plan to do the complete build now that the guy at go fish has told me how to fit up the seats and grips ect. It will have fuji BMNAG alconites on it. Cost me $54
3)ZWS70LJ - Kilwell livefibre blank 7'. Exactly the same as above but has a line class of about 10kg. Again will have fuji BMNAG alconites. $54
4) LTEX860 - Kilwell tex limetip 2pce 8'6. It's the old lime tip rocky blank that they used to build. Will have CMNAG (chrome) fuji alconites, 10-15kg class. $70 - I think it was the last one though???
5) I will not be building this blank as I ordered the wrong one. It is a kilwell ZXS70MJ. texalium livefibre. It is built for wilsons in auz who rate it a 10kg rod, but I would rate the thing as a 15-24kg heavy/fast action. I am going to send it back but if anyone wants it they can have it for $70 as this is what it cost me.
Kilwell are great to deal with so anyone wanting to buy blanks NZ made and good quality look them up on the web and ask to speak to Neville. They have hundreds of blanks for all kinds of rods. Can't go wrong as they all come with a warranty, that is until you start cutting them down in any way.
So I will post pics on how its going.
I have some questions for now though. What sort of glue is used to glue up the grips and reel seats???
And I have heard that to get the reel seat to fit snug you just pack out the blank with masking tape? Is this good practice or is there other methods?
Cheers guys, I think this forum has potential to do well.