K&D @ Red Leg And Fly Rod Handle Reamers 28Feb22

Kala & I finally got over to the keen Red Leg Brewery property near us. We enjoyed some nice hazy IPAs and a parmigiano chicken sandwich from Ciao Down. The new RL site is huge and very nice.

As The Rodfather, my building custom fly rods often also means turning custom handles from modified cork rings. This extra day or two really adds to the custom look and feel of Rodfather rods. Once a handle has been turned on the lathe and removed from the mandrel (to which it was secured for the assembly & turning processes), it is ready to mount on the butt section of a fly rod blank. To make it fit perfectly on the blank it is necessary to ream out the center of the handle (initially just a 1/4" hole) until if fits snugly in the right place on the blank. My typical process is to chuck a Forecast Extreme Reamer and "sand" the hole out until a dry fit to the blank butt section is perfect. However sometimes the Extreme Reamer fails; either the sandpaper rips off or even the solid fiberglass rod breaks. If its just the sandpaper I epoxy on a new strip.

I tried alternative reamers made of hollow fiberglass and covered in grit. With these, much, if not all, the grit breaks off during the reaming process. I doubt they will last too long. And even the extra small one will not fit into the standard 1/4" hole without stripping all of the grit off. Hmmm.

While I will get another small Extreme Reamer, I sought a more robust and reliable alternative. This one worked very well... I bought a 14" course bastard rat tail file whose tip was <1/4" in diameter. I hacksawed off the handle (which was a tiny square 2" piece on the end) in order to chuck it cleanly in my drill. The new file-based reamer works well though I most often use it in reverse in the drill as in forward it tends to bite in quickly and become stuck. Reaming tool problems have been mostly solved... I don't completely like the taper on the file. I don't think it will match well to light weight rod butt sections.

Anytime one is reaming out a custom turned handle they need be very aware of heat produced in the process. Let the grip cool often as even at modest heat levels the wood glue (like Titebond III) holding the rings or jigsawn pieces together can begin to fail and your careful work to turn a beautiful cork handle might break. I can always employ the faithful, but failure-possible, Extreme Reamers; probably using just reaming by hand might be safer - but boring and slow.

Freakin' Fabulous @ Fox ~ Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway 27Feb22

Wow. Yoho and I caught Molly Tuttle at Fox Theater in Boulder Sunday. She's touring in support of a new album Crooked Tree due April Fools Day 2022. The tour dates are madness - she's a very hard-working lady. The material seems awesome and on the record she hosts a killer set of collaborators for her new songs, as well as her new band. She and the band Golden Highway (a collective of wickedly skilled bluegrass musicians) were fabulous; arrangements were tight and the sound @ Fox was very good. Showing off her mad skills, writing prowess, powerful voice and spectacular musical range, the new material is mostly a return to bluegrass - and so the band was staffed with all acoustics and very good artists including Bronwyn Keith-Hynes on scorching fiddle, cousin Kyle Tuttle on well-versed and versatile banjo, Molly on lead & guitar, Shelby Means on bass & sweet backing sounds and CO guy Dominick Leslie on mandolin. We were excited to see her in the more apt setting of a theater with a full set spanning an hour and 40 minutes of material. We arrived right on time with close parking "on the hill" in Boulder after a fun weekend and a fine meal with friends (more later on those). The all vaxed patrons of this "over 21" show could have been over 55 really as almost everyone were blue-hairs and everyone was civil, appreciative, and un-masked. Yoho and I sought great positioning for viewing, but mostly sound, and secured a rail right behind the mixing booth.. it even allowed me to scoop the setlist. It worked very well and the mixing guy had us dialed in. Local folk artist Jack Cloonan (not on pre-show billing and might've been picked up at Winter Wondergrass days earlier) opened the show with a strong band including mandolin, bass and bongos accompanying him and his songs and guitar. They were fun and good but we were in for an even bigger treat.

I need to repeat that Golden Highway was good but Molly Tuttle was spectacular and the show was rapid-fire, high energy, bluegrass and alike, through a great playlist all featuring the superstar skills and songs of Molly Tuttle. My fav in the new stuff is The River Knows but so many new songs were very good; we'd heard some dropped before the show but so many we heard tonight are unreleased. Added to the new stuff were great previously published MT songs like "Light Came In," and others - plus she did some popular covers from the pandemic album including "Olympia, WA" and "She's A Rainbow." They did one "weird" song with Cloonan and closed on a new cool single-mic setup for 3 good songs. I'm so glad to have been there and with my oft partner in concert endeavors, Jimbo, was a boon.

So here's the bonus segment of this entry. Molly Tuttle dropped many unreleased originals at our show. Sure they're on her new album but here's her song "Grass Valley" concerning her 10 yr old self becoming a music devotee. I captured her bluegrass/country story completely in lofi. So good.

This great finish to the weekend though started with a fun couple of days with the ladies in Denver. We met up at the sweet Yohanan condo downtown and went to a showing of the Academy nominated short documentaries at SIE (Jim & Mary are now members)... the films were all good and thought provoking, though also sometimes depressing reviews of less opportunity-rich lives (yeah... I perhaps should have said privileged but I fear some anti-CRTs might come after me). Of course we followed that with a great dinner at the French restaurant Le Bilboquet that night. We hit the rooftop spa on Sunday before grabbing tasty breakfast at Ivy on 7th then a walk around Wash Pk on a much weather-improved day. Before the concert, Jim & I met up will T&L @ Jill's in Boulder for a nice dinner and good discussion - where I learned how to self-repair a paint scuff on the Crusher Too from the mightily self-taught-&-skilled Wilks. Gr8 weekend with Gr8 friends capped by a Gr8 concert.

Skiing "The Storm" With Yoho And Alexa & Friends 22Feb22

First off, not only are we displaying palindrome dates from now through end of month but 2/22/22 is the "last" time we'll see an all same digits date ~ so that's cool. Let's talk about "the storm" a bit: a lot was written on the mid-Feb22 happening, and it was a satisfactory 3"-2"-4" kind of sequence, and we liked the improved conditions, but in the northern mtns it was not epic. We arrived on Monday and Jim & I grabbed plenty of runs all over Keystone on Tue... much of the snow was softish. We dined on red beans & rice with Andoullie and had a satisfying hot tub soak under remarkably (and unfortunately) clear skies. This despite my preparing with the right beer selection and paired perfectly with GS Thin Mints.

Jim & I rose Wed to a smidge more snow; we decided to try Breck this day and while this came with a bit more crowding and more wind, it was still good. We made our best runs on Pk 6 and Pk 8, where we crushed some fine snow and lines on Whale's Tail. Surprisingly the first run brought leg cramps, but they subsided. We hit Pure Kitchen on the way home and closed with spa time and tunes on the NestT.

We got a bit more snow early AM on Thu and met Alexa & friends @ the River Run gondy @ Keystone. Lines weren't bad and the snow (after 3 days' cum of 8"-10") was soft. We made good runs through Outbacks trees and bumps and then headed forward. The scare was that in the initial gondola ride I recognized I'd left my phone on the base bench (didn't get a 'connected' sign from my BT helmet) so I had to abandon the team and head down to retrieve my phone; which was luckily still sitting right where I'd left it. Great day with Alexa, Haley, Charles * the parkour kids," and Jim. Thanks all for some nice outings in "the storm."

Building The Rodfather Redfish [drc #14 & #15 9ft 9wt 4pc fast] 14Jan22-19Feb22-03Mar22

In rapt anticipation of early April in Texas, I designed and built another rod; this is drc #14, the Rodfather Redfish. It's a potent 9' 8wt 4pc based on a powerful IM12 Japanese Toray fiber graphite blank. I built a custom "arrowhead with diamond in a box" handle with 1.5" fixed fighting butt for this rod. The fighting butt need is obvious but the arrowheads (I've never seen one on a handle) are indicative of the needed quickness and distance of casts for tailing redfish... shoot like an arrow. I also selected a salt-impervious aluminum & woven graphite uplocking reel seat in titanium coloring and matched that with true salt impervious, ultra-light, titanium guides (eeesh $$$). I employed oversized guides, including 2 stripping guides, to match the quick & powerful casting needed on the bay when using fat casting heads of an 8-9 weight (225-260 grain) SA Amplitude Smooth Redfish Cold floating line. I wrapped out the matte brown rod in sea blue and mated it to a Piscifun Aoka XS 7/8 reel, also in sea blue. The Aoka XS is not expensive but does have a sealed drag system needed for salt water; I chose it as my experience with other Piscifun reels has been solid and it was fairly inexpensive (as the spool is cast aluminum, not machined, as the reel body is) and light (5 oz) for it's size. I know we'll have spectacular Scott Sector rods on the guide boats, and I'll sure try them, but how much cooler will it be to wield my own weapon. It measures out at an strong ERN of 9.9-10 and AA of 68°, so it's a truer fast 9 wt, yet sports just a light 4.65 oz rod weight. The RFRF balances well as a system and I can cast "miles" with it at the park doing recasts and single and double haul casts quickly. I hope the Amplitude floating line picks up as quickly on the bay as it does on snow.

I'll show the build out in chronological sequence. First to arrive were all the "hardware" parts.

And the first task was to build the custom handles. My idea required the normal amount of jigsawing, reassembly, and then turning. The fighting butt end piece is a solid chunk of rubberized cork for sturdiness; I usually make them this way. I had to change blades on my inset cutter to cut the end of the handle for the fixed hood of this slightly larger (.85" diameter) reel seat hood than typical for me. The resultant full wells arrowhead & diamond handles are pretty keen... shoot the fat, fast and far.

I did craft another handle using basically the same idea but as a "negative" of the original - the 2nd one has light arrows and light boxed diamond)... a brother to the original. I call it the Brother Haine handle.

When the blanks came in (they actually took 5-6 weeks to arrive - slow boat and supply chain issues from Asia I guess) I was able to mark the splines, mark distances for guides, and assemble the butt section with arrowhead handle, reel seat, and fixed fighting butt. I was a smidge concerned as the plastic bag they arrived in was marked 5 weight 8#. Measuring thankfully indicated the 8-9 weight as needed. As I wanted to extend the butt section blank piece through the reel seat end and into the fighting butt, I had to drill a hole in the provided end cap of the reel seat. This allowed me to retain a much more finished look at the fighting butt than if I just slammed the cork up against the screw barrel.

I decided to use a smidge larger colorfast nylon for this bigger rod, expecting a bit more stress on the guides. I chose Pro Wrap size D color-fast nylon (in teal & sunset). Working with this larger thread is much easier to handle during wrapping but really soaks up the epoxy. They both are stunning IMO. Here is Rob's sunset wrapping...

For mine I used sea blue teal but did the middle ferule mixed with sunset in deference to it's brother rod. The RFRF rods have two stripping guides and big titanium snakes for salt water and big shots.

The dead-on matching reel, 85 yds of 30# backing line and SA fly line arrived and I spun the backing and line onto the reel in normal fashion. I will wait to have our guides add leader & tippet setup for Operation Cobra Kai; heck, it's included so why not. The reel & line weigh in at 6.6 ozs.

Measuring the RFRF shows it's a very strong 8wt with an ERN of 9.9-10 (so really a 9wt - and therefore a better line is WF9F) and it is righteously fast with a AA of 68°, despite being just intermediate modulus Toray graphite IM12. Total rod weight is just 4.65oz built out. Balance & mating with the Aoka XS with WF8F is fine.