Reel Repair by Alan Tani

I think I'm gonna take a break from rod building for a few weeks at least.

Never mind the tendonitis in my elbow getting worse, it's just too dang hot in my garage. In addition to all the sweating, epoxy is setting faster than I'm used to making it hard to get smooth finishes.

I'm beyond certain that there's a workaround to all of this and if my livelihood depended on it I'd find a way to improvise. But I'm just a sweaty hobbyist, so I'm taking a break after I finish this last one for a buddy.

Also bug adhesion wasn't a problem in the winter, even with the epoxy staying softer longer.

I got a bunch of reels all coming due for yearly service. In my air conditioned living room. That'll keep me occupied.

Tendonitis...is like tennis elbow, most don't get better by itself.
I've had one side fixed, not painful or difficult for surgeon.  Maybe take it easy for one day, that's it and I have never looked back.

As to Rod building, winter effects the epoxy but never to serious, but perhaps depends on how cold it gets.

Good luck!

Quote from: JasonGotaProblem on May 25, 2022, 11:29:33 AM........In my air conditioned living room. That'll keep me occupied.

I do all my rod building jobs in front of the TV in the living room. 
still working on a mobile station but now with the power wrapper which 80% time is used as manual wrapper.

since all my house is airconditioned from May to September the indoors temps keeps the same and dont affect anything on rodbuilding, is winter cold temps which kind of affect the epoxy behavior

I don't have to deal with those sort of issues, my entire adobe is conditioned between 69 & 71F with 50% humidity year round, so I can service reels or build a rod whenever I feel like it. I generally opt to build rods in the winter when there's a foot of snow on the ground, though.   

yes, summer is for fishing ;-)

I used to do my rod building inside my old condo because I didn't have a garage. It took like a half hour of setup before, and an hour or more cleanup after to avoid the altercation with my smoking hot but kinda OCD neat freak of a wife. So if I wanted to spend 20 minutes replacing a guide, I needed 2+ hours to dedicate to the task. For larger tasks if I didn't have time to finish, I wouldn't bother starting. Reel work didnt suffer that restriction because everything I'm using fits on a tray that i would move out of sight when I stopped work for the night.

But with that said, I finished the one I said would be the last one til fall, and I already have my next 4 projects planned (2 new 2 and 2 were among my first few builds that i wanna improve) and I'm now trying to decide which to start on. So yeah that thing about stopping didn't last. But it sounded good in my head.

Probably gonna try to force myself to service a few reels first though, some are starting to feel overdue.

You just need to Cowboy Up and stake claim to an entire room for your manly needs.    

That bug in your epoxy really sucks.   Building a tent made of visqueen plastic over your drying rack sometimes helps for bugs, dust and the little floatie hairs in the air.

I didnt even make it a month. I'm rebuilding my 11' penn prevail rod for the 2nd time. First round I left the handle alone and did a poor job on the wraps and guide placement (I think it was my 3rd build). this time I'm gonna try a South African style build with reel seat 12" from the base (i used to fish lefty so i think I can relearn to cast lefty). I'd consider going lower but I got long arms my wife would say my stomach is the first to enter a room.

I'm thinking leave the original shrink wrap over EVA grip below the seat with a bit of EVA and casting trigger above the seat, and like 8-9" of shrink wrapped EVA a few feet up for the foregrip. So it's basically an upside down split grip, and I may do some marbling in between.

so, your cuting the reargrip and making it a 10ft rod or the reargrip is already short to be considered SA style?

Quote from: steelfish on June 22, 2022, 07:27:04 PMso, your cuting the reargrip and making it a 10ft rod or the reargrip is already short to be considered SA style?

The rear grip was like 30" long from factory (reel seat was 30" from butt). I removed the reel seat and all but the bottom 12" of the factory lower grip and will be installing the new reel seat right above that. I didn't cut the blank.

got it.

it will look cool.