Well, I have been quite busy with work and non-fishing travel, so I have not had much time to fish or work on any of my projects. I was hoping to steal a day from this weekend, but the wall of rain falling outside my window has made that impossible. 

Fortunately the mailman has been very good to me this week, and I have now received the last components I need to build the Orvis Hydros rod for my friend Ned. 

I took the blank up to the Bay area this weekend so that Ned could see it, and pick out a reel-seat insert, grip style and thread colors. He picked our a very nice Zebra insert, a reversed half wells grip and yellow/silver wraps. I have yet to set up a good cork lathe, so the grip is pre-formed by Struble, with a nice inlet to match the Struble reel-seat hardware. 

If the rain keeps up, I might get quite a bit of the work done on this rod over the weekend. At the least, I would like to epoxy the handle section, lay out the guides and wrap the ferrules. 

As always, I'll post updates here as I go.

--Posted by Eben