XTR

it is as tough if not tougher than the clear coat on up market blanks , shadow chrome can be achieved by using less gloss on the first base coat .the higher the gloss on the first coat the brighter the chrome is at the end .we did tame the blank down a touch as it was burring your eyes in the sun ,

Jethro this the site with all the info you will need ,iam lucky to work in the trade and get a lot of freebies and demos of the newest additives on the US market ,these can be added to the second or first coat of epoxy when you want some wild effects ,most need sun to hit them and then they jump out at you , the chrome rod is not what most would want but im not like most . Leigh http://www.alsacorp.com/paints.htm

why not ,you have got to have some fun as you cant look at it in the sun , you can do a lot with it as a base for candys or pearl crystals in some pretty wild effects on custom rods .

the rod is chromed this is the best i can get the photos to come out as the blanks to bright ,

all up 4 dust cotes ,so no thicker than normal clear coat iam thing hard about doing it to the spiral iam building , Leigh

Ive be offered enough product to chrome a carbon fishing rod blank , iam tossing up whether to do it or not ,its not a joke its not cheap to buy ,i can get it done as a demo ,will flex with out cracking and have a mirror finish ,any thoughts . Leigh

they are a bit lively out of the box ,if you have good skills there fine ,if you do a mag job on them there is not a reel that will come close in HSS ,you still have full free spool at max drag not like most leaver drags,

its a LX 2 speed 2006 model Leigh

this is where iam at trying to get the curve of the guides to give the smothest run thru the spiral and guides with load in the right place's ,rod has 14kgs of loan hanning on it

Saga asked me about Avets this is the main one i use for HSS off the rocks its been maged to give total control ,

its a rod that is been built to stop what ever takes the bait ,i do use hollow braid so knots dont come into it , the main aim is to stop big fish and be able to be taken on most trips with very little accessoires with the whole lbg kit under 2 kgs as i spin most days off the rocks ,so a under 2 kgs it will not impact on my spin kit as i move around a few ledges with some very good water for big baits , Leigh

iam running a 25 guide as a stripper not off set at 25 dreeges,ive looked at offsets but iam still up in the air with that , the reel is a LX Avet 2 speed with 800 of 60 lbs braid ,this whole set up weighs 970 grams iam about to have play with a few larger guides as Saga suggestered.guides iam using are ICMNSG the other thing iam still looking at is spiral left or right at this time right has more going for ( it any thoughts) regards Leigh

yep its a gusa SW70XXH ,i have a few others as well ,they are very powerful blanks i had play with guide spacing spiral set up today while i killed some time .iam getting it up to run 24 plus kg with max drag of 10 kg as any more on the rocks is asking for trouble , it easly dead lifts 10 kg in test i did to day i have gone for a simple bumper wrap with a 10 tip and 6 no 10s on the bottom of the blank a no 10 or 12 bumper guide at 90 dregges and a 25 striper. i believe Ive got the line to flow to the natural curve of the blank at different stages of compression,the first no 10 guide after the the 90 dregg bumper is set as Switzerland , any thoughts on this are more than welcome as this is my first spiral set up for fishing not distance regards Leigh

Thanks for the offer and your views ,ill find your work shop addresses and make time to come down to see you . the blank is good and straight so any axis is possible ,Ive only played with spirals look for more distance on the competition field opposed to fishing use ,i can see the benefits of having a heavy stand up lbg stick with no rolling in the blank , regards Leigh

hi everyone iam about to build up a new heavy LBG stick,the blank iam building it on has a Dual Helix ply construction ,dose any one have any thoughts on finding a backbone on blanks made this way , the second question is to the ones out there that use spiral wraps how do you think a LBG stick would go made up as spiral wrap ? thanks for any thoughts and feed back Leigh

the older model avet have this clicker the new one are far better ,they would have to the best overheads Ive ever used Leigh

it sounds like you are missing a spacer or two ,you use them to center the spool to over come your problem ,

the test we did were with weights from 50 grams to 150 grams,the hard you hit it the more friction would come in to play thru twisting of the blank , as the line would snake its way thru the spiral giving more friction and less distance ,with a over head and the guides on top of the blank snaking or surging of the line causes less friction as the rod kicks back in recovery after the cast ,with the spiral the line is surging all over the place thru blank recovery .as a result you get this surging speeding up you reel and slowing down the line thru the guides giving you a lot more blow ups on a fast running reel , placement at points where the blank twist were set from one rod to another with the use of guides taped on tight to find a point that distance was increased and friction noise was less ,it never happened ,dont let me put you off spirals as i still think backbone v twist into a blank with more time and work could pay off ,the part iam still thinking and playing with is now on two piece blanks so i can set the butt on one bone and the tip on a different one ,not the opposite but at a point that will give more feel to the 2 or 3 guide up thru the spiral to help in recovery of the tip as this is where the most friction is coming from , any thoughts always welcome ,Leigh

saga as you would know to well there is so much to be achieved by such a compression ,over the years Ive looked at getting the most out of a blank when it comes to distance and the best way is just that have two blanks the same and just keep working on them with placement until you start to go backwards . With this line of testing its best done over time with different hands on as well ,as with distance there is a lot of reasons for better cast so you have to work thru them slowly thru the different conditions . Thru this method Ive been able to get 4 mts rods with stright 8 lbs braid (no leader) with 75 grams of lead past the 237 meters on a distance casting court as this gear is not full blown tournament casting gear its well balanced up market fishing gear , i think you will be on a winner with a spiral comparaison . Leigh

your right distance is lost on bigger rods set up as a spiral ,the torque that is twisting the blank during a cast is not as much , this you would think could help in setting up a big cast, in tests we did to achieve greater distance, casts were down on a blank set up in spiral ,the same blank with standed guide placement along were a good 20% longer , the blanks used were blue marlin 440 /4 1 piece .

for smaller fish up to 10 kgs Avet lx 2 speed and for anything else avet 30 pro exw with 1000 mts of 60 hollow braid

one like this .

to over come this and pick up distance in casting you should have look at the way the line lays when the spool is full, have think about what needs to be done ,is it to much line at the top or bottom or a high or low in the middle ? if you were now to take the line back off and instead of winding the line on how you normally do try packing the spool by hand to over come this ,if you have a low in the middle when it was full wind a high in the middle to start by hand about 40 mts ,now put the spool back on and wind the line on as normally ,it might take one or two attempts to get it right ,it will work and give you a better line lay for braid as well as mono , Leigh

Ill come along, so if you need any help with improving distance with spinning reels or overheads for HSS or getting those baits a bit further i can lend a hand ,as i have some knowledge in this Leigh

When out for a cast today on the grass to see how far thew would go with a bit of wind ,i used a spinning reel a daiwa 3 pice rod and 10 lbs fireline and 56 gams of lead , there was to much wind as it tended to push a belly in the line as the wind was coming not squaire but more across , this is the only good shot i got . regards Leigh