Vintage Daiwa Surf Spin rod needs Tuned

[Decker]

So, I went surf fishing in Jersey this weekend.  The fall striper run is just beginning.  I chunked bunker on a conventional setup, but to no avail.  Had better luck later on blackfish (tautog) but no keeper.  The only keeper of the day was a rod I bought at a yard sale.  Yard sales on the Jersey coast almost always have fishing tackle  

I've been looking for a spin surf rod with a medium action.  I was out of the game for about 30 years, and there wasn't quite as much graphite around back then.  I had a Kunnan graphite 9-footer (maybe a steelhead rod) that I loved for throwing .75-1.5 oz bucktails a mile.  Nowadays, most of the cheaper (sub- $150) rods seem too stiff to me.  I like a rod that bends down further, to power the cast.  I know there is a Star Paraflex, Penn Carnage Surf, and a Tsunami Elite surf that might be good rods for this purpose, but I haven't had that much cash.  

So back to the Jersey coast... found this 9 foot Daiwa rod that has the kind of action I like and bought it for $10.   Put my Penn 650SS on it and went back to the beach to throw lures.  I liked the way it casted, and got some good distance, but a few problems became evident:

• It has a stainless steel reel seat that doesn't hold very well and seems to weigh a lot.  I had to muscle the rings down a few times to stop the reel from wobbling.
• The rod is WAY out of balance.  The top of the rod outweighs the bottom, which makes holding the rod a lot of work.
• Also, the butt is too short for distance casting.

The spirit of "anything can be modified or fixed" is alive and well on this site, so I have to ask...   Can I make this into my go-to surf plugging rod with some modifications?  The extent of my rod-building to this point has been to replace some broken guides.  Some "seat & butt surgery" on this might make a worthwhile project.  Here is what I'm thinking:

• Can I replace the stainless reel seat with something better and lighter.  How would I remove the existing seat?
• This rod needs a butt extension.  I saw a guy on youtube do butt extensions by inserting a cut section of another rod into the blank and gluing it, etc.  Seemed to work pretty well.
• What about fine-tuning the balance.  I know Steve (OC1) puts weights in his rod butts... Is there a modern way of doing this, and making it adjustable?

Could I do all this relatively cheaply?  I'm not looking for a new hobby, so maybe paying an experienced rod builder is a better option.  

Thanks in advance for your comments. Will post some pics later.

/Joe

[thorhammer]

Absolutely can be done; I love  $10 special for just these types of projects.  CAREFULLY remove the metal seat with dremel cutoff wheel, longitudinally. You can then insert screwdriver and twist to pop it off.  Daiwa probably has cardboard or possibly tape under the seat for arbor which will give you a little forgiveness with dremel.  Obviously you will need to remove existing grips; I use an old knife and then sand blank smooth. When I extend a butt, I like Gorilla Glue as it expands to fill void if your tapers aren't exactly the same. Try if possible to get the end of the shunt under the reel seat location for strength; if not, wrap the section with rod thread and epoxy. It will be covered by your new grip of choice anyway. Once the shunt is in, I sand the joint down and apply some epoxy to fair up the joint. Not maybe as critical if under the seat but if you use straight heat shrink for instance, it will show a lump. Hope this helps. really not difficult. Hardest thing will be finding shunt.


John

[Decker]

John, thanks, I knew you'd be one of the first to bite on this thread    

How do you approach balancing the rod?  Probably it is best done with the reel mounted?

What do you think about paracord for the grip?

/Joe

P.S. I'll have to figure out the reel seat as well, but will cross that bridge when I come to it 

[thorhammer]

para cord is great but maybe heavy if you do all the way down. I'd spit grip it and leave blank exposed. yes, you will need to balance with reel on; I'm not sure how you might add weight but in my experience if you're just adding a foot or so on the back end you will mount reel seat where you want it, and the balance will largely take care of itself. Note, if you find an old rod for the shunt you may get lucky and find it has a seat you like. Just cut the  blank above and below it and ream or drill out the the seat if needed. people frequentlty give me broken rods or bottom halves only; I salvage the seats and guides for just such purposes.

[philaroman]

if you you only want balance & longer butt -- not longer rod, overall -- just put the new graphite seat higher on the blank

[Decker]

I do want more overall length.  About eight inches seems to be just right.

When I extend a butt, I like Gorilla Glue as it expands to fill void if your tapers aren't exactly the same. Try if possible to get the end of the shunt under the reel seat location for strength; if not, wrap the section with rod thread and epoxy. It will be covered by your new grip of choice anyway. Once the shunt is in, I sand the joint down and apply some epoxy to fair up the joint. Not maybe as critical if under the seat but if you use straight heat shrink for instance, it will show a lump. Hope this helps. really not difficult. Hardest thing will be finding shunt.

John, the Daiwa rod is tubular glass, and is pretty thick in diameter.  For the shunt, I have a much thinner solid glass rod that might be good.  The butt section of the donor rod should be narrow enough to fit the existing butt of the Daiwa well.  Hopefully the extra density of the solid glass shunt will also help with balance.

I'd like to understand what you said about getting the shunt under the reel seat.  The existing rod has about an 16-18" butt, so if it is important to get the shunt under the seat, then I should probably cut the rod just below the seat, correct?   On the other hand, if I leave the existing rod uncut, there would be a lot of overlap between the two blanks.  And if I go this route, how much overlap is good?  The intended use of the rod is surf plugging, so I can't imagine that the butt needs to be super-strong, since I wouldn't be fighting fish from the butt, just using it for powerful casting.  Come to think of it, this is going to affect the action of the rod, so maybe a shunt with 8 inches exposed, and 8 inches inside the other blank?  For now I don't care about bumps.

Probably I should try to replace the seat at the same time.  Can graphite reel seats be recycled?

[thorhammer]

check pm, easier to talk this out

[Jim Fujitani]

I actually did this about 40+ years ago, when I was in college.  I used to tie my own flies and wrap and repair rods for myself,  relatives, and friends.  Extending the butt was easy because I was not concerned with a heavy tip half.

I feel the important thing about extending the butt is to make sure that you have an even fit of the "shunt" within the bottom of the remaining blank. The best thing would be to work with two blanks that are close to being the same model.  Otherwise, the "shunt" from the donor blank will have to be built up with cork, fiberglass tape, or thin tuna cord, before epoxying the extension.  Relying on the epoxy to fill the void is chancing on not having to redo the whole thing later if the section breaks loose.  Another option is to find an old ferruled reel seat butt, like a Varmac, and build up the bottom handle as you like it.   

You mentioned that you feel the rod is top heavy, but you want to take weight off, switch out the reel seat to something lighter, and balance the rod.  It will be difficult to next to impossible to do all three.  The controlling factor is the top-heaviness (is that a new word?) of the rod.  You can't balance the rod yet make it lighter because you can't remove weight from the top half.

And in terms of balancing, always try to balance with the reel on the reel seat, with line on the reel.

Good luck!

[Decker]

I feel the important thing about extending the butt is to make sure that you have an even fit of the "shunt" within the bottom of the remaining blank. The best thing would be to work with two blanks that are close to being the same model.  Otherwise, the "shunt" from the donor blank will have to be built up with cork, fiberglass tape, or thin tuna cord, before epoxying the extension.  Relying on the epoxy to fill the void is chancing on not having to redo the whole thing later if the section breaks loose.  Another option is to find an old ferruled reel seat butt, like a Varmac, and build up the bottom handle as you like it.  

You mentioned that you feel the rod is top heavy, but you want to take weight off, switch out the reel seat to something lighter, and balance the rod.  It will be difficult to next to impossible to do all three.  The controlling factor is the top-heaviness (is that a new word?) of the rod.  You can't balance the rod yet make it lighter because you can't remove weight from the top half.

Thanks for the input, Jim.   Regarding making the rod lighter and balancing at the same time...  My perception is that the lack of balance makes the rod feel heavier, because I am working to hold up the rod tip.   The butt extension should fix that, putting more leverage in the butt and making it feel lighter.   The metal seat doesn't work very well, and since it is close to the intended balance point, I don't think it would affect the balance much.  However, replacing it with a graphite seat would reduce weight.  Worst case would be that the shunt makes the butt too heavy  I'll be careful about the fitting too, planning to use Gorilla glue at this point.

I have almost no rod building experience, but with an with an active and very visual imagination, I'll push forward    Thankfully, Thorhammer has plenty of experience and has volunteered to walk me through the process  

[thorhammer]

Hey Joe, BTW you can certainly repurpose a graphite seat. just ream out whatever is in there to fit your build.

[oc1]

I would leave the stainless reel seat.  It could be better quality that what you would replace it with but the threads may need some polishing to get it tighten down easily.  If there is a balance problem then the metal reel seat could help with that a little too.

Extend the butt with aluminum tubing or EMT electrical conduit slid over the existing blank.  Aluminum is light, corrosion resistant and expensive while EMT is heavy, more prone to rust if the plating is scratched off, but dirt cheap.  It will give you the length you want and simultaneously help bring the balance point back toward the reel seat.

If you want the rod to balance, just set it on a fulcrum at the desired balance point.  I like it to balance right under the spool but some people prefer it to balance at the fore grip.  It depends on how you hold the rod while fishing and how you hold the rod is influenced by reel characteristics.  After resting the rod on a fulcrum start tying lead weights to the butt until both the tip and butt are floating.  Then, find some sinkers that will almost fit inside the aluminum or EMT tube.  Tape them to make them larger.  Hammer or file them to make them smaller until they fit.  Then secure with glue or pins.  Sheet roofing lead is easier to work with but harder to find than fishing sinkers.

If you freak out at the amount of lead that is required then decide on a compromise between balance point and total weight.  I think you will find that a balanced rod has more total weight but feels lighter, is more sensitive and is less fatiguing for the arms, wrists and hands.  The total weight of the rod and reel is supported by large muscles in your arm and back.  The tip imbalance weight must be supported by small muscles in your arm, wrist and hand.

Anything you can to do lighten the rod tip will help with balance and fatigue.  A one gram increase in weight at the tip eight feet away from the balance point requires four grams of counter balance at the butt two feet away from the balance point.  That is why fly rods have those tiny little wire guides.  That is also why graphite is so much better than fiberglass and why fiberglass is so much better than bamboo.

-steve

[Decker]

Very interesting, Steve.   I can see that having weight in the butt would give inertia to the casting motion, and the extension would add leverage.  And the rod's medium action gives a deep but strong arc, which is why I bought it.  Fishing NJ beaches sometimes requires long casts.  It's a cheap experiment, so why not?

P.S. With aluminum tubing maybe I could build a sand spike right into the rod  Come to think of it, that's a good way to put hole in my waders LOL.  BUT if a big one were to swim close by, I could spear it.

[happyhooker]

Re: the aluminum tubing to extend a rod:  I think if you Google "fishing rod extension" or some similar wording, there is a pretty good article available about a guy who does that quite regularly when building his rods.  I ran across an old Shakespeare salmon/steelhead rod, 8ft., that I picked up at Goodwill for $2 because it was missing one guide & it has such a tube extension; thinking about converting it into a long distance spinning casting rod (has a handle/grip like a spinning rod, but small guides like a baitcaster--I think that's the way they build 'em) by replacing some of the bottom guides with a Fuji NGC-type setup (spinning guides).

Frank

[thorhammer]

Many production rods in the 80's had aluminum butts under EVA, and I used to use old ski pole sections in smaller blanks when I started messing with this stuff 25 years ago. The question is weight and strength, plus un-anodized aluminum will corrode, as you know, in salt environment. if I went aluminum I would paint it then heat shrink over for corrosion resistance and grip. Butting aluminum up to a SS seat then wrapping sine cord over it to hold salt water creates a nice battery; you can use a zinc sacrificial anode to balance the rod lol . I did the ski pole trick on a 10' rod once and it served ok, painted and wrapped with cork tape. 

[Decker]

Many production rods in the 80's had aluminum butts under EVA, and I used to use old ski pole sections in smaller blanks when I started messing with this stuff 25 years ago. The question is weight and strength, plus un-anodized aluminum will corrode, as you know, in salt environment. if I went aluminum I would paint it then heat shrink over for corrosion resistance and grip. Butting aluminum up to a SS seat then wrapping sine cord over it to hold salt water creates a nice battery; you can use a zinc sacrificial anode to balance the rod lol . I did the ski pole trick on a 10' rod once and it served ok, painted and wrapped with cork tape. 

With the built-in battery I could give it a glowing LED tip!  LOL 

Appreciate the advice.  If I use aluminum, I won't butt it up to the reel seat, and will seal the surface very well.