First deep sea conventional rod for a friend

[JasonGotaProblem]

My prices have officially gone up. For a while my official position was "just buy the parts I need the practice".

Now I'm demanding lunch or bait as compensation for my time.

This rod was found in the trash with 2 broken guides and a flattened tip. I trimmed down 2" stripped all guides and started from scratch. I couldnt tell what the rod was originally as all markings were worn off. But it sure feels like a heavy bottom fishing setup. It came with an old penn peer 209 attached that I'm gonna try to refurb. Eventually.

I never took any before pics, but i wish I had.

I went with fuji HNOG guides 16-12-8(x6) and a fuji UX tip. I did pacbay blue metallic under wraps and pro wrap sky blue nylon on the guides. This rod is grouper ready. Kinda hard to hand it over after spending like 30 hours on it.

[oldmanjoe]

Very good looking stick ..

[steelfish]

looking good Jason, nice selection of guides

soon you will be demanding money for lunch... in the red lobster !!

[thrasher]

Forget about lunch, that looks more like dinner and dessert at Bern's

[Donnyboat]

What a great job Jason, you will have free bait for some time, even if you fish daily for 3 years, cheers Don.

[thorhammer]

Very sweet! Only comment may be overwrap the tip if it's on with glue an not epoxy. Cranking down on a grouper with locked drag can spin a tip with just tip glue under there. You're grade of finish is definitely improving with each build. I have a box of 209 parts, happy to help out if I have any needed when you get into it.


John

[JasonGotaProblem]

Thanks guys. I gotta admit a deep sea rod is a lot less fun to build than an inshore or a bass rod. Those damn under wraps take forever.  Not just the wrapping but the planning.

I did consider wrapping the tip, but it's attached with JB marine weld, and i sanded the tip rough and cleaned well with acetone before I epoxied. If a fish gets away because that tip fails, they earned their freedom.

And I may take you up on the offer for 209 parts. The handle is very wiggly. I told him the main is probably rounded and not worth the cost of new, given it was found in the trash with no sentimental value. But that may be a game changer.

[thorhammer]

you mean gear sleeve?

[thorhammer]

if it's just the sleeve, new one is 5 bucks at mystic. if all else is good, any Penn is worth five bucks to go fish. Same sleeve as 155, 180, 200, 9 and a bunch of other things.

[Bill B]

Good job on the rod!  Bill

[boon]

Great job. Only my 2c but if you sink 30 hours and a bunch of nice components into a build, it might make sense to spend $50 at the start and put a known good blank underneath it all.

[Cor]

Looks great!
Is it an acid wrap  

[JasonGotaProblem]

Great job. Only my 2c but if you sink 30 hours and a bunch of nice components into a build, it might make sense to spend $50 at the start and put a known good blank underneath it all.

That would be quite logical, which is where you lost me. But in all seriousness he wasn't expecting me to do any of this fanciness. I think he was expecting solid color wraps and no deco work. But every rod I build is an opportunity to refine the marbling technique I'm playing with. And I did some very aggressive bend testing on this thing trying to break it before I agreed to commit any effort to it. And this has about $22 of hardware on it.

Not an acid wrap. I'm not there yet. Maybe not the next one, but maybe the one after next.

[Gfish]

"Portrait of the Young Man as an Artist". Great save. Art is a perfecting practice. How's the levelwinder on the 209?