Surf Rod restoration

[Neil Stratford]

With the blustery winds of late , decided to take on another restoration project.

I was lucky enough to pick up a 13 ft  Butterworth Powergraph in pretty good nick off Facebook for the princely sum of $10.

Stripped it back to the bare blank and shortened it to 11’8”, and changed it from a short Alvey configuration to a longer rear grip spin  stick . All the guides were in good order ,except the tip ,so it was a pretty cheap project , only having to purchase a new graphite reel seat , a tip guide and a piece of Hyperlon for a fore grip.Only took a couple of days to do it , and it’s still windy , looks like a few fishable days coming next week !

[AUS-BNE-FISHO]

Looks like a great rod Neil. 

[kmcrosby78]

Great work Neil, nice outcome for a cheap price

[Huxstang]

Great work Neil.  Is it hard to change the butt config?  I have a Live Fibre Trophy surf rod in low mount that I would love to change to a spin config, but assumed removing the reel seat was quite difficult?

[Andrew_P]

Nice Neil that will master a beast or three!

[Andrew_P]

1 hour ago, Huxstang said:

Great work Neil.  Is it hard to change the butt config?  I have a Live Fibre Trophy surf rod in low mount that I would love to change to a spin config, but assumed removing the reel seat was quite difficult?

Depends which way you do it Hux. You could extend the butt by removing the butt cap and addding a length of similar sized blank/ally rod up the tube, thus making the reel seat further from the butt. Or you could dremel the reel seat off and replace it higher on the blank (adjusting the grip placement too). Not a huge job and you could do it yourself for around $50 (new reel seat is $30ish). If your rod has a wire stripping guide for an alvey I would replace that with a 40mm high frame guide to prevent line slap from a spinnning reel. 
 

moral of the story is: might be worth keeping the trophy as is and finding a spinning rod with a mid mount reel seat and normal first guide. Lots of Wilson 6144 mid mounts around the second hand markets perfect for spinning

[Neil Stratford]

You could do as Andrew suggested , In my case I wanted a tailor spin rod about 11  1/2 ft , so I simply cut the 13 ft rod down just above the old reel seat and rebuilt it from scratch with a new reel seat .I did a similar one a couple of months ago using a high frame guide instead of the wire guide , I plan on putting one against the other up at Fraser in a few months. I think the wire guide will suit my bigger  spool Mitchell 489 reels better , and should give me a little more  casting distance. Time will tell.

[Huxstang]

Thanks guys.   The Live Fibres are a great blank (for their age) but as Andrew says may not be worth the energy to convert.

[kmcrosby78]

4 hours ago, Neil Stratford said:

I think the wire guide will suit my bigger  spool Mitchell 489 reels better , and should give me a little more  casting distance. Time will tell.

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I just tried searching for your previous thread/s about the Mitchell 489 reels Neil but only this thread came up. What's a good price for one in decent condition? I'd like to get one at some point. 

[Neil Stratford]

They come up on eBay annd Facebook  every now and again , but most are in poor condition with the epoxy finish peeling on  them , so check them out carefully before rushing in to purchase one.

A good one goes for around $100. 

 They are not for everybody and resemble a coffee grinder when you crank them hard.

But ,they are very  very good for tossing and retrieving 65 to 85g lures for tailor in the surf.
I find the manual bail arm  mechanism excellent, and you never have the issue of the bail arm accidentally flipping over, no matter how hard you cast.They are very simple and salt and sand  can be easily washed out of them , just like an alvey. I regularly wash mine off in the surf and lay it in the sand with out worry. In saying that I always give it a thorough service after a week at Fraser so it’s ready to go the next year.

 

 

[kmcrosby78]

Thanks Neil, appreciate the info.