Rod Completion!!!

I finally managed to finish the rod, bought a rod turner of ebay for £25 and this made the epoxy finishing a lot better. Also ordered a decal from Decal Connection in the States, took less than a week to arrive and ws under £3! I was really pleased with the finish of the rod, although I had a few 'fish eyes' on the decal as I must have got a bit of grease on it somehow. Contemplating trying to remove it and the epoxy and redoing the decal again. Dont know if it its possible.

Also bought a nice aluminium bar stock reel for it from China, less than £30 delivered, took about 10 days and have seen the exact reeel on a certain rod makers web site for £130, although it has a logo etched on it. CLF56 on ebay.

Down to the business of actually getting to cast it. Loaded up the reel on a saturday afternoon, and sat the apprehensive in front of the telly, itching like a junkie craving some scag. Mel finally looked over and said go on then.... That was it, got on the tube and within an hour was at last wetting the line on my new rod. Action was nice, although the rod made a bit of noice as due to the resistance of the line through the eyes. I think this may be due to the tiptop having quite a small diameter, will change this as it wont be to hard as I used hot melt glue.

Once the line was wet, it went out nicely, although I had to get used to the lighter line weight and the shorter rod.

After about an hour I christened it with a 2lb rainbow, and gave the rod a kiss!

Have used it about 2 times now and really liking it, can quite reguarlly cast all the line out to the backing. When i get a few quid together will look at getting another kit and making another one.