Grouper buster....

jeffzou · Feb-25-2007, 01:11 PM

A pal of mine had this blank sitting in the garage. A Seeker glass ex6455 XH. He said take it and do something with it...the catch was that whoever had it before cut about a foot of the tip of this thing! It's a tree trunk!

Anyway, put some stuff I had in inventory as spare parts on it and put some FUJI gunmetal boat guides on and decided to call it a grouper rod. It ain't all fancy (heck, there was no room to do any fancy thread work at the butt end after the hypalon was installed) but it turned out pretty cool.

Now, I have ended up with two more of the blanks with only about 6 inches cut down on each of them. Gonna build a couple of trollers I guess!

When I put this thing in the static tester I was worried I was gonna hurt myself or something. That's as much bend(load) as I could get on the rod and still tie a knot that held. Heck, the 2x4 frame was flexing convexly as I got it tighter! I was worried I was gonna pull the eye ring out of the 2x4 and have it wack me in the eye - or the line was gonna break (60lb.) and have it snap me!

Jeff

PS: Getting the hang of my new camera as well. You can get a pretty clear shot using 10 megapixels!

Matrix · Feb-25-2007, 01:25 PM

My back hurts even more looking at that. Nice work as usual. Hopefully I will get my wrapping set up going soon and be able to turn out something 10% as good as your work.

Zombie · Feb-25-2007, 02:10 PM

Jeff,
That thing could double as a pool cue,

. Take a couple of pics outside in the sun. You'll be amazed how well the colors in the pics look in direct sunlight with the sun at your back at an angle. I use an 8 meg Olympus and they come out awesome. Yours will probably come out even better with that 10. Doc Ski gave me that tip.

Feb-25-2007, 02:24 PM

looking good, jeff. reminds me of the kind of rod i'd use out here in florida for pulling on big grouper.

jeffzou · Feb-25-2007, 03:36 PM

If we could ever get the sun to shine out here in SOCAL again!

Dropped that rod off this morning up at the Super Swap Meet in Santa Ana. No more pictures of that bad boy hopefully until it's got a big old fat grouper on the business end!

How do you guys like that thread I used. It's an old spool of purple National size "D". That stuff feels like rope, especially after laying on the base wrap of gray which is Gudebrod "A". "D" is so easy to wrap but I just don't think I care for the look of the thread - "A" always gives that "painted" on look.

Guess I'll buy some "A" purple....that damned Madeira is calling! I know I'm gonna end up buying one of those 600 buck packages they sell.

Jeff

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zombie

Jeff,
That thing could double as a pool cue,

. Take a couple of pics outside in the sun. You'll be amazed how well the colors in the pics look in direct sunlight with the sun at your back at an angle. I use an 8 meg Olympus and they come out awesome. Yours will probably come out even better with that 10. Doc Ski gave me that tip.

jeffzou · Feb-25-2007, 03:39 PM

Hey Greg,

We're hoping pal!

Thanks for the nice words!

Jeff

Quote:

Originally Posted by westmeetseast

looking good, jeff. reminds me of the kind of rod i'd use out here in florida for pulling on big grouper.

jeffzou · Feb-25-2007, 03:41 PM

No kidding man! I'm telling you that if you weren't strong and tagged into a quality size fish on this rod you'd end up over the side of the boat!!!!

I toyed with the thought of making a gaff out of it instead of the rod, but rods are more fun.

Thanks for the kind words. What wrapper are you going to end up with or did you already get one?

Jeff

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matrix

My back hurts even more looking at that. Nice work as usual. Hopefully I will get my wrapping set up going soon and be able to turn out something 10% as good as your work.

Matrix · Feb-25-2007, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffzou

No kidding man! I'm telling you that if you weren't strong and tagged into a quality size fish on this rod you'd end up over the side of the boat!!!!

I toyed with the thought of making a gaff out of it instead of the rod, but rods are more fun.

Thanks for the kind words. What wrapper are you going to end up with or did you already get one?

Jeff

I picked up a Rodsmith RW-3L last year at a very good price, sadly it is still in the box. I hope to have my garage set-up finished in a month or so and tackle my first project.