The Necessary Tools
The construction of a thoroughly well-made and nicely balanced rod is more a matter of careful work than outfit, but a few suitable tools will greatly facilitate the labor. A good firm workbench, or table, 4 ft. or more in length, will be needed. A regulation bench vise will come in handy, but one of the small iron vises will do very well. A couple of iron planes, one of medium size for rough planing-up work, and a small 4-in. block plane for finishing, will be required. As the cutters of the planes must be kept as sharp as possible to do good work, a small oilstone—preferably one in a wood case with cover to keep out dust—will be needed; a coarse single-cut mill file about 16 in. long; a few sheets of No. 1 and No. 0 sandpaper; a sheet or two of fine emery cloth; a small thin "back" or other saw, and a steel cabinet scraper.
Two Tools for Gauging the Diameter of the Rods, and a Homemade Scraper (Fig. 1, Fig. 2, Fig. 3)
A caliper of some kind is a necessity, and while the best is a micrometer, Fig. 1, registering to a thousandth part of an inch, as well as indicating 8ths, 16ths, 32ds, and 64ths, this tool is somewhat expensive, but a very good caliper may be had in the sliding-arm type, Fig. 2, with the scale graduated to 64ths and taking work up to 2 in. in diameter. Cheaper measuring gauges are to be had in plenty, but as the brass and boxwood scales are provided only with coarse graduations, the better quality of mechanics' tools will give better satisfaction.
(Fig. 4)
The set of grooved planes used by the professional rod makers are rather expensive, although they are most convenient for quickly rounding up the rod to the desired diameter. However, the beginner may dispense with the planes by making the tool illustrated in Fig. 3. To make this handy little tool purchase a steel wood scraper, such as cabinetmakers use, and file a series of grooves along the edges with a round file. File at right angles to the steel, finishing up with a finer file to give a sharp cutting edge. The tool thus made is very handy for scraping the rod after it has been roughly rounded with the plane. Its use will be mentioned later on in the description.
Five-Foot Bait-Casting Rod
The short one-piece bait-casting rod with but one ferrule is the easiest rod to make, and for this reason the beginner will do well to select this popular type for the first attempt. As the total length of the rod is to measure 5 ft., exclusive of the agate tip, the wood should be 1 or 2 in. longer to allow for cutting down to 60 inches.