[Sandy Nelson]

After a winter of building for other people, i bought myself some new toys




Too expensive for me to market commercially, but should be fun to  build and fish with, nice to see the big guns catching onto the bonny colours. Good comparison R&D for other products

I have found a good source for their blanks though, so if anyone was thinking of investing in a new one, drop me a line a first, to save a hefty wodge of cash. Equally if you fancy a play, then we have to meet up when fishing

Sandy

[Mike Barrio]

Looking forward to having a cast with those Sandy

Cheers
Mike

[Derek Roxborough]

OOh you are awful Sandy,    easgach 1

[Hamish Young]

They appear to be very green indeed, look forward to seeing the completed rods
H

[Rob Brownfield]

Have you seen the Sage Pike...Tree Frog Green with red anodized fittings!!

Looks like an explosion in a paint factory, but strangely works!!

If you could price one of the Pike blanks I would be grateful

[Sandy Nelson]

First one is finished and has been out for a play






Just exactly my cup of tea

Sandy

[Rob Brownfield]

lovely, but you forgot the whippings

I was thinking of trying invisi-whips on a couple of carp rods I am about to finish for myself...could be interesting.

[Sandy Nelson]

lovely, but you forgot the whippings

I was thinking of trying invisi-whips on a couple of carp rods I am about to finish for myself...could be interesting.

Not invisible wraps Rob, if you look its jade green silk tipped with a medium green, you can see the wrap colour against the blank, but the black rings make it look like its invisible sneaky......... from below, ghost wraps, from above, a normal rod! seems to work well with the metallic green blank. You can notice it best on the cork check whipping its actually difficult to catch the effect with a photo.

Sandy

[Liam Stephen]

Looks awesome Sandy, nice job as always!! 

 

[Hamish Young]

Looking good Sandy 

[Rob Brownfield]

Question...how do you do the tipping wraps? Is it the old place a tube on the blank, wrap over 3-5 times, pass the ends through the tunnel the tube makes, remove the tube and pull tight? Basically a nail knot?

[Sandy Nelson]

  sounds awkward

I whip the rings like normal and then go back and add the tippings.
I do the whip just like i do a normal one, except i leave a long starting tag sticking, do 2 turns over the tag, put the loop in and do 2 1/2 turns over the loop and tag and then through the loop and pull it through , then i pull the two tag ends until they meet and is nice and tight against the main whipping, then slice both ends. this gives a 4 turn tipping
This is for a tip section, for a mid section i do 3 and 2 1/2 ( 5 turn tipping)and for a lower section i do 3 and 3 1/2 (6 turn tipping), for a butt section i do 3 and 4 1/2 (7 turn tipping)
 That seems to keep the band looking in proportion with the diameter of the blank.

Hope that makes sense

Sandy

[Rob Brownfield]

Hope that makes sense

It does...and that's the way I would normally do it, sort of. lol.

The method I described badly is this one I just found on youtube. Does not work too well with metallic thread, but works perfectly for thread.

[Grant Montgomery]

Hi Sandy

How are you liking these Mod rods? The 9ft 3weight sounds quite appealing!!

Cheers
Grant

[Sandy Nelson]

I 'm loving the MOD, all 3 are super smooth, crisp, very light and really nice, the 3wt is probably the sweetest of the 3 but something I would only use occasionally  for small flies and light tippets, for that, it will be a fantastic fishing tool. The 4wt is a beautiful dryfly rod but is very similar to the 5wt  , maybe a touch smoother but so similar its hard to justify keeping both, the 5wt has a bit more umph which is handy when the wind blows and a bit more backbone for some of the trophies, so the sacrifice in smoothness is probably worth it for me. Overall there is very little in it between them, but I would say as fishing rods go they are the best I have tried so far.
 

Very expensive from Sage though, there are plenty good rods available that are worth the money, I don't think these would be worth the premium if you paid full retail. If you build one from a blank it works out a lot better value for money and then it would be something I would fully recommend

Cheers

Sandy