A varnish that hardens too quickly, a ring that slips, a grip that isn't properly reamed (re-bored) - these are just a few of the little constraints that can sometimes worry the rodbuilder. Everyone has their own little tricks for dealing with these problems. Here are a few of them:
1 - Reamer in the axis
In order to reamer your grips in the axis, and especially when it's a shim that's particularly brittle, I proceed as follows:
- For grips, I ream with a drill, but I hold my grip loosely so that I can rotate it a quarter-turn regularly and thus change the sanding angle if it's at an angle.
- For the shim, I keep the reamer fixed and turn my part by hand to ensure perfect centering.
2 - Straight sanding a reel seat
When you've shortened the thread of your reel seat, it's possible that your blade has followed the thread and that the cut isn't perfectly perpendicular. To adjust for this, I always keep a quicklock that I screw onto the reel seat to guide my sanding and ensure perfect parallelism.
3 - Painter's tape and gravity
For straight cuts, it's always best to mark out the area to be cut with painter's tape. Even so, it's important that the tape is placed on the right axis... To do this, I place my grip parallel to the ground and leave my tape hanging. Thanks to gravity, I'll be able to roll it up parallel.
4 - A simplified Forhan lock
To reinforce the binding of your rings, you can make a Forhan lock. For those who haven't mastered the art, or who don't want to complicate things, you can simply finish your ligature by making two simple turns behind the ring's leg... This works just as well!
5 - Sharpen your white pencil
White pencils sometimes break and are difficult to sharpen. In reality, all you need to do is unwind the little string, heat the lead with a lighter and then shape it between your fingers.
6 - Removing white pencil marks
While the use of gum is very effective, the marks behind the tunnel rings may not be accessible. In this case, use a piece of damp binding wire and run it over your blank.
7 - Sliding rings
Small tunnel rings are sometimes more difficult to tie with our big fingers. There are 3 tricks you can use to bind your entire ramp in 30 minutes.
- Use the red rubber bands sold on the Rodhouse.com website to attach them to your blank instead of painter's tape.
- Place a piece of elastic behind the ring to act as a stop and prevent it from moving backwards.
- Or run a file over the leg to create a small bead to hold the first turn of binding wire.
8 - Removing varnish properly
To obtain a fluid, bubble-free varnish, apply your mixture to aluminum foil. This will allow it to spread evenly, and you can heat it by passing a lighter flame under the paper. Fluid, bubble-free varnish guaranteed!
9 - Pressurize the bushings
For perfect ring bonding, you can place clothes pegs on your blank while the glue dries. In this way, the pressurized rings will be perfectly positioned.
10 - Pressurize the butt
For perfect gluing of your butt, you can use boards and threaded rods to make a removable wedge that will allow you to pressurize your butt. You can also simply use painter's tape, as we've already seen.
11 - Blocking edging wires
When tying with trim bands, edgings or similar, you can tape the wires on either side of the ring to prevent them from wandering, so you have both hands free to start tying.
