Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Building a fly rod hand wrapper

For the past few years, I have been thinking about building my own fly rod.  From the reviews that I have read, they seem to be excellent quality for the price.  One guy even compared a $120 MHX kit to his $900 Sage One rod.  I was planning on ordering a kit from here: http://www.mudhole.com/Shop-Our-Catalog/MHX-Fly-Kits

The prices of the kits for a first time builder are very fairly priced.  The commercially available hand wrappers however, seemed a little overly priced for a few pieces of wood stuck together.  So I decided to build my own...

I routed out a piece of ash (any hardwood can be used), and used some 1/4" bolts with the heads ground down to fit in the hole snugly, but you are still able to adjust the arms, and thread guide easily when loosened.  The arms, and thread guide are made out of pine.  I plan on adding some felt to the inside of the V's on the arms to reduce scratching while wrapping.  Tension is kept on the thread spools with a spring behind a washer and  a nut.

I pretty much guessed on dimensions, but what I have here seems like it will work just fine.  I'm sure I will make some adjustments once I build my first rod...