Building The Rodfather Pure Irony (drc #19 RFPI - 7.5' 3pc 3wt raw fiberglass) 01Aug22-16Sep22

The story goes that the Rodfather loves the lightest & fastest fly rods, no matter the situation; that means high modulus carbon fiber. That's the entire quiver, and it's keen and fully custom at this point. So what's a guy to try? Yes, something endearing and iconic, but ironic... something throwback that can flick dries or buggers and land a 4.5# 20" brown on AZ's Canyon Ck and capably fight her home to a small net. Something almost industrial strength that you can throw anywhere @ camp but which is tip savvy like a whisper. The 19th custom built fly rod from the Rodfather is a 7'6" 3pc 3wt raw fiberglass beauty adorned in blue & grey named Pure Irony.

More on the story and specs later but the parts have arrived and the build was begun.

I always begin with a handle and make it unique and indicative of the rod's birth and intended use. Pure Irony deserves such a handle and not mimicking the light weight and narrow nose of the 3wt Lightning Rod, despite it's similar small stream attack purpose. I spun a new 6.5" full wells grip worthy of the PI, but ironic in and of itself. As none have noted, the diamond serves me well; diamonds are there. A lightweight grip to accompany a 3wt is also present but fiberglass blanks are heavier so using fancy cork and a little more glue is fine. The Ironic Handle displays MIM in Morse code ~ many important memories. Kind of ironic 'cause there are none yet. Here's the handle build with my normal amount of cutting with a very fine jigsaw, then dry fitting stuff for visualizing, then gluing it all together in the handle vise, and then turning it on my lathe into to a full wells custom design grip.

I was somewhat surprised that when I measured the Pure Irony per my normal practice that it came out as fast as it did, posting a plenty FAST 71° action angle (this is almost my favorite action). The rod is a strong 3 weight with an ERN of 3.7 so it's a perfect fit with my Lamson Guru II (which is silver/chrome like the hardware) loaded with SA MPX WF3F, which runs hot at about a 3.8 line weight. Nice. However, the balance in hand demanded the heavier Bauer M1, currently "only" loaded with SA Mastery WF3F, which has fewer grains in the head.

Beyond the irony of a fiberglass rod in my hand after 20+ years of perfecting the carbon fiber target cast, "what's ironic?" Check the reel seat observers! I've mated a carbon fiber insert on the aluminum windowed reel seat with a raw fiberglass blank. Plus I like the notion that Pure Irony is PI, which is π, which is transcendental ~ this is just like how one feels transcendent when fishing the RFPI. :)

The $38 Chinese blank itself uses pre-installed ferrule plugs to mate the pieces together. I still wrapped reinforcement around the female ends and even covered up some glue marks on the inside of the male side of the rod section from these spigots. I don't know why most fiberglass blanks work this way, but they do now (I don't recall the plugs from the old days) - must be tensile strength related. When reaming the handle to assemble the butt section it was tricky to make a big hole in the cork center without destroying the handle in the process - fiberglass blanks are much fatter in the butt and care must be taken on this step to avoid heat or torque or vibration from ripping the handle apart.

The wrapping of my chosen single foot guides, the stripping guide, and other adornments on the rod was typical, except that I made a patterned spiral design in pearl & black 3D mylar to adorn the butt section. I chose grey & blue colorfast nylon to both match the carbon reel seat insert as well as jazz up the natural fiberglass material. I used 2 color spirals on the ferrules and multiple colors butted together on the guides. It looks good IMO.

 

Backyard tests were gr8 - the PI throws 35' easily and very accurately with a slightly slower rhythm from me. Unexpectedly the rod weighs just 3.6 oz (I did use single foot guides and a super light reel seat to keep things lighter). As expected it's swing weight is on the heavier side though at 10.5, yielding a normalized swing weight of 3.8 - not unlike the Brookie 3 wt which is a foot longer. I am actually very pleased and I can't wait to toss it on the Big Thompson next week.