thedude

here she is all cleaned up w/ some wraps and a logo (gotta have that logo:whistle:)

you can also paint the blank with testors model paint (i've read anyway)... either way you will need to use some flex-coat or similar epoxy finish to coat the newyly exposed blank.

Nice! Did you do that yourself on white waterslide or have them made up? I did mine on white waterslide with an inkjet and the ink got all crackly-looking.. i redid them on a laser-jet and they turned out a lot better.

i got the info from http://www.georgescustomrods.com/Articles.htm.... but it appears his site is down. basically, all you do is use a utility knife to cut the cork where you want it removed and peel it off w/ some plyers. Sand down the exposed blank to get rid of all the glue. I did the marbilizing because the blank doesn't look so hot when you're done sanding it without a lot of extra finishing. Then just sand the cork to a rounded edge and voila! You could also paint or wrap the exposed blank. Took me about an hour to do this one so its really not that hard.

lightened up my bionic blade flipping stick.

Thanks guys - here is the parts list if anyone is interested: from www.mcmaster.com 1 5947K35 CHROME PLATED STEEL SHAFT, 1/4" OD, 24" LENGTH 1 EA1010.38 EA10.38 2 9414T6 BLACK-OXIDE STEEL SET SCREW SHAFT COLLAR, 1/4" BORE, 1/2" OUTSIDE DIAMETER, 9/32" WIDTH 8EA 80 0.55 EA4.40 3 5912K41 ALUMINUM MOUNTED BRONZE SLEEVE BEARING, FLANGE MOUNTED, FOR 1/4" SHAFT DIA,1-5/8"L BASE 2 EA207.63 EA15.26 4 6655K13 STEEL BALL THRUST BEARING, CARBON STEEL, FOR 1/4" SHAFT DIAMETER, 9/16" OD 2 EA201.95 EA3.90 You only need 2 of the shaft collars, but i bought a bunch extra so i could use them as clamps to hold cork in place on the lathe. To put it all together - mount the sleeve bearings dead center on 2 identical boards. On the shaft - put a collar about 3-4" from one end and then add a thrust bearing on top of that. Run the shaft through the first sleeve bearing and then on the other side add another thrust bearing and finally the 2nd collar and make sure its tight. So the shaft at the motor (fixed) end should have --------[collar][thrust bearing][sleeve bearing][thrust bearing][collar]---- the 2 collars should sandwich the 2 thrust bearings up tight against the mounted sleeve bearing. Thats it!

put this together last night... bout 30$ worth of parts from McMaster-Carr. 2 stabilized bearing assemblies, 2 more shaft bearings and a couple shaft clamps. The mandrel is 1/4" chrome plated steel shaft (24"). The pillar opposite the motor comes off with 2 nuts and thats how you put the cork rings on the mandrel. I use a weecheer power-carver hooked to my drill press for the motor. here's how it hooks to the press:

put most of the finishing touches on #2. Rainshadow IMB843. Fuji concept alconites and a super-sticker seat. I like the super-sticker comfort wise, but i had to spend some time getting all the cork factory edges to flow into the plastic. I think I will probably go with something different on the next one - and i know its backwards, it was more comfortable that way surprisingly. The logo section turned out real nice too..the pic has a lot of flash in it and makes it look kind of weird IMHO.

guess who just picked up a xms904 rainshadow blank for 17$? its a spinning blank, but i'm going to do it up as a casting rod so thanks for the input. oh yeah...also got 2 original (us built) allstar blanks on the same order.. for a grand total of 65$ shipped!

i found recently that spreading flexcoat (regular) on when its cool and slow and then applying heat (lighter, alc. lamp) makes for a great finish. It lays down real fast and is very easy to level off... plus it cools off quickly and stays put afterwards. Good thing too... Try keeping epoxy warm in Michigan basement in january... it was 3 out a few days ago.

thanks guys. pretty much what i figured. I just finished up a spinning rod i built on an IMB843 rx7 blank... love the way it feels so far... can't wait to use it. Also - i found this on another site - he has great prices for the rainshadow blanks: http://www.customtackle.com/cgi-bin/cts/ctstore.cgi?page=rainshadowim6.html i would call in your order though, had some trouble getting it to go through on the website. Only took 3 days to get here too.

So i'm looking at their blank models and i want an rx7 casting blank - 1 piece 6'6" med/fast or med lt./fast and i don't see a "casting" blank that i like. My question is - is there really much difference between a casting blank and a spinning blank? i don't see why you couldn't put a casting seat on a spinning blank i guess...

that looks like my wife... minus the fish tail anyway....

we travel to indiana for a few days over xmas and stay with my parents to visit and hit all the various family christmas get-togethers. My wife and I do our gift exchange with my parents on christmas eve night after church. This year, my wife noticed a horseshoe set that we got my Dad last year for xmas - it was sitting under the sink in the laundry room un-opened, still in the plastic. While at church we told my grandma this and she said "Well... you should wrap it up and give it to him again." My wife and i locked eyes and instantly knew it had to be done. So when church got out we raced home to beat my parents and i went scrambling through the house to find wrapping paper, tape and scissors for my wife. We found it and the wife did a quick wrap right before my parents walked in the door. On to the gift exchange... my dad opened the set, looked at it, looked at us... looked confused... looked at it again and i finally broke it to him that maybe he should've opened it. My mom and wife were rolling on the floor laughing.... But its not over yet... oh no... 2 more presents from my Mom and he opens a nice leather wallet that she gave him 2 years ago and never used and the other being a nice golf polo, tags still on it that he got for father's day.... best part was we had no idea she was doing this so it was totally unplanned. Merry christmas everybody.

thaks - i figured as much just wondering if anyone had experience doing it. heres the logo just in case

Can any of these decal makers take .jpg/.png/.gif design and print the decals from there? Reason i ask is that i've designed a logo and its white... my ink jet printer obviously won't print white and the design - while relatively simple - wouldn't be recreateable by the printer.