Rainshadow Knife jigging rod RCKJB 508-600 130lb Acid wrapped

[steelfish]

next ones is a knife jigging rod, my amigo wanted a strong short but not so expensive knife custom jigging rod, so, not many options of blanks at least that I know, RS its short and have a nice bend on the 18# drag mark, no I didnt tried a dead lifting test but pulled hard on my chatillon drag scale to find the best place for the guides.
not much to say, RS blank, the stripper is AmTack guide the rest fuji HN guides, rear grips were custom made or better said were shaped by me on the power wrapper, BTW way too time consuming but I liked the way the look.










































after I gave him the rod my friend was jumping as a 4yo kid with a new toy all the his car, that was fun !!

[thorhammer]

Amigo. Spectacular work. You get better every rod. I seem to get worse lol.

[MarkT]

Looks good!

[CooldadE]

I like !

Cool

[oc1]

Handsome Alex.  Shaping with the power wrapper is a good trick.  You must have used coarse sandpaper or something.

[Swami805]

Nice job Alex

[Makule]

What are the benefits of having the guides on the under side of the rod?

[steelfish]

What are the benefits of having the guides on the under side of the rod?

Im not the best to answer this question and also will never push one to get a rod like this until trying one before, your best bet is to google that question, but in short one of the benefits is to avoid the rod to trying to turn side ways when fighting a fish, depending on the rod and technique as jigging, casting, trolling, livebait, etc you can feel more or none of the benefits from using a spiral wrapped rod / acid wrapped.

[steelfish]

Handsome Alex.  Shaping with the power wrapper is a good trick.  You must have used coarse sandpaper or something.

good trick and the only one I could use LOL, I dont have a proper turning Lathe like many but the power wrapper speed helped me a lot.
I used many different grit sizes of sandpaper, I dont recall the sizes but I had to use one of fine grit to give the grip a smooth look and feel.

[jurelometer]

Nice build!  That palming reel seat is my favorite.  What reel is going on it?

BTW, I really like the Fuji lock rings, especially for up-locking reel seats.  Something maybe to consider for future builds....

Open  mesh drywall sandpaper works  really well for quickly shaping foam grips while turning.

Alex is right about there being all sorts of information and opinions out there on spiral guide setups.  I built a similar (but not nearly as nice) vertical jigging rod.   Even though jigging rods  are short, they usually carry quite a bit of bend.  I was able to use one less guide on the top half of the blank, and also didn't have to worry about the line touching the blank when fully loaded by going to a spiral setup.   I am mostly in the "no-thanks"  camp when it comes to spiral guide setups, but  I think these type of rods benefit more than most.

-J

[Gfish]

I got the idea to do a spiral wrap(guides on the underside) from Alex, and did one.
Trolling with it yesterday while it was in a kayak rod holder, worked great. The reel stays where I get good access to it.
Only 1 fish hooked on it, prolly a Barracuda. Hadda stop, crank my spoon in which was on a lighter rig, then grab the hook-up rod. Critter bit the fly ridding above the plug, cut through the line there, so I lost the expensive swim bait, then the fish. One 'cuda and one Needlefish landed on the other rig(baitcaster), lots of bites(~needlefish) and one big 'ol whale close to shore, a good day.

[boon]

What are the benefits of having the guides on the under side of the rod?

Cancels out twisting force on the blank when the rod is under load.

There are two factors to this. When a conventional rod is heavily loaded it wants to turn "inside out" because the forces on each guide wants to pull them closer together not further apart. The second is that on a "normal" blank which is rolled on a mandrel you get a twisting force in the blank when it is bent. Both of these combine to make the rod want to turn upside down when heavily loaded; the effect is larger the more parabolic the rod is, bending through the grip instead of just in the tip.

Beautiful build, on what seems like a fairly old-school blank for jig fishing.

[gstours]

Thanks for your pictures and post Alex,   Very nice work.    Totally custom.   As always keep thinking and sharing your ideas. 
   What size is your stripper guide and who is supplying your guide and reel seat..?
If I may ask.

[steelfish]

Good morning Gary, no secrets here amigo,  the striper guide is size 20H from Amtack, "virtus hight frame" is the model and the rest are fuji HN, I dont have a unique supplier,  I buy from any rodbuilding online store where I find what Im looking for, either getbitoutdoors, mudhole, acidrod, etc, etc