As a surprise gift I decided to take a class offered by ODFW to "Build Your Own Fly Rod" with the finished rod being Rocky's birthday gift. (How many fishermen have a rod their wife built for them?) When I was thinking about signing up for the class I told my friend Sharon about it and she wanted to take it as well; so we both signed up. Sharon's rod is for her, however it was going to be a surprise to her husband that she build her own rod.
The class was held in Central Point, Oregon where there also happened to be an alpaca show last weekend. Sharon and her mom drove down together and set up their booth at the show. Sharon's mom, Bonnie, had to work the booth by herself all weekend. After set up on Friday we went shopping at Harry and David in Medford. We had a coupon worth $10 off if we spent $75. Well, we were a little short so we did some more shopping. That's marketing at its finest.
Saturday Sharon and I had to be at our class at 8:00 so we all got up early. Bonnie had to go down to their car for something and discovered a dead battery. Les Schwab was able to make it there and replace the battery with just enough time for us to still make it to our class in time.
The class was held at an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife facility that was filled with mount of animals found in Oregon. They were a lot of fun to look at. Upon arriving at the class we were given our very own coffee cup and a bag full of goodies. One of the "goodies" was an Outdoor Woman magazine with an alpaca on the cover!
Our class started with reaming. The cork handle for the rod has a hole that is way smaller than the rod, so we had to ream the hole out to fit the rod. After determining the spline of the rod (the side the rod naturally bows to) we glued the reel seat together, then we glued the cork and the reel seat to the rod. That part of the rod was placed in a stand to dry for about three hours. During this time we learned how to do wrappings and got started with them. Wrappings are what hold the guides to the rod. We used nylon thread (Sharon used metallic) a little heavier than sewing thread that you wrap very carefully around the rod and the feet of the guides. Since we had ten guides to secure this took the rest of Saturday to complete.
Saturday was the most fun. Reporters from the Mail Tribune came to take photos and interview us for an article in a new magazine called Outdoor Oregon they have coming out in December. The local news station was supposed to drop by, but they didn't make it until Sunday.
Sunday wasn't as exciting; we put the finish on our wrappings first thing in the morning and then we had to turn the rod a quarter turn every 15 minutes for about four hours. We got in a lot of visiting and Roger (one of the instructors) brought a couple of bamboo rods that he made so we could practice casting.
We had a great time and ODFW http://www.dfw.state.or.us/ did a wonderful job organizing the workshop; I highly recommend their classes, they are a bargain. Sharon had her camera and promised to share pictures so I'll post some as soon as I can.
Here are some photos from Sharon's camera:
Sharon's rod is on the right
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