upcoming boat/kayak rod builds

Hi all,
Firstly wasn't quite sure if i shouldn't rather post in the museum section or not....lol

My son and I plundered his grandpa's garage, my FiL..and amongst the old fishing junk, rescued the following, which to me feel like they have a very nice action, and still have a YT and a bek or 2 left in them. Just gotta see past the relic rod furniture/ parts and i think they got potential.

Set of 3 Fenwick Fenglass tuna/boat rods in 10, 20 & 30 lbs, custom made by Rob Brown in the late 70's / early 80's. (He's currently better known for his custom knives).
They have removable & interchangeable butt sections which hold the reels, as was the style then.
There are also some Noxon rods; tuna/trolling & a boat spinning rod.

I'm thinking they are nice enough to rebuild the lighter of the 2 Fenwicks and the spinning rod for Chris & i to use on ski & boat, with new grips, winch & spinning eyes. Either through a local builder, or as a project with my son & the assistance of said builder.

Would be be kinda cool to fish the same waters they did 40 years ago back in the skiboat pioneering days, use something with a personal family connection going way back. BUT ONLY if theyll still pull the fish.

Anyway just thought I'd share, your input welcome. Thanks for reading.

Why rebuild them are the guides buggered?

Cam, yea, the guides are toast, besides roller-guides aren't suited to our type of fishing. Also the Fenwicks are built on the old removable interchangeable butt system, with a 450mm approx steel & wood butt, which is really heavy; so i'm gonna build on the blank itself without the butt section, which would make them 1,65m.

The spinning rod will be refurb'd in its current state. Managed to get the reel seat cleaned up and unjammed, which means that plus the grips can remain. Scraped the the cracked finish off the wooden rear handle & cleaned the fore grip.

Any suggestions for refinishing the wooden butt, it will spend alot of time in a closed rod holder, ie in water?
Black resin, epoxy, enamel paint, hammerite..? those are the options i can think of...

just thought of another option.... seal the wood and put a heat-shrink grip over it...?

there's some very knowledgeable rodbuilders on the forum I'm not one of them though:?

I've converted a couple of old Solid glass blanks into Gaffs which worked nicely. 

They are good rods and it seems they have sentimental value. Now call me old school, but if you want to keep them fishing as you say, keep them original. By that i mean, replace like for like, same colours, guides grips etc. I always wonder when you see classic rods brought out for redoing but at the end of the day, with new style grips, new style guides, etc etc they not nearly half the rod they were if know what i mean. By changing too much of the rod , you lose alot of that rods value and sentiment. You can wrap the rod in exactly the same colours, use the same type of guides and grip but just new.
Thats just my take, change too much and you looking at a new style rod, is that what you want?

I would keep them the same......

Appreciate the reply Grootvis.
Yes the spinning rod will be pretty much unchanged, as with the one-piece boat rod.
I essentially agree with your sentiments, and i don't want to completely transform them or hide their heritage, but there will have to be some changes with to make them work.

Classic car analogy: I'm not gonna rat-rod it, but it's not going to be a blue-printed replica either - gotta have good brakes, suspension & reliable engine.

The set with the detachable /interchangeable butts will have to change somewhat for them to be useable to us at all - the build will be directly onto the rod section itself omitting the steel butt section, which would make them way too long & heavy, but the rod colour and binding colours will be the same. The 12 cm steel connecting piece will remain as a ferrule/collar. The roller guides will have to change to spinning eyes tho.
And, of necessity, my binding will be much more utilitarian... lol

I've completed the builds on the set of three Fenwicks, and the lighter (spinning?) Noxon, and hereby humbly present my offerings.. lol

The Fenwicks had detachable and interchangeable butt sections comprising a wooden handle and steel reelseat which were attached into a mating section steel spigot at the bottom of the blanks. due to the weight and length these butts added, I elected not to use them and built on the blanks directly, keeping the spigot as a nod to their past, and as end reinforcing. End result is 5'6", which is my preferred length anyway.

they were rated 10, 20 & 30 lbs (tuna) class on the original white blanks. In respect of action, the stated ratings seem quite conservative, by comparison to what im used to, but i could well be mistaken.
The guides were mostly all shot or close to it, and the coating was worn through in many places, flaking and peeling. They were completely stripped, sprayed white and re-epoxy-coated.
I tried to build them all in the same style, but with variation as the rods get progressively heavier, so that at a glance you could tell which rod is which in the set.

similar theme carried through in the tips

I rather like the midnight blue effect of the royal blue over the black under-binding.
To be honest i didn't realize the blue would go translucent under epoxy, but I'll take it.

handles, winches, butt sections and ferule/spigot detail.
Still need to clean bit of epoxy off top of the eva foam.

The fenwicks are all hollow, so are nice and light. In my research, those old rods are still rated as a good blank, having good hoop strength, among builders that are familiar with them.

The next rod is the medium Noxon, solid blank, wooden butt stripped & refinished (old finish chipped and cracked), steel winch cleaned & restored to working condition, blank stripped and refinished.
This is the rod in the before pic which had yellow binding.
I tried to rebuild in at least same color style.

.

Noxon eye binding. Looks a bit like a bumble bee....
I'd like to thank in particular Mark Norval from Rodworx, who was so generous with his advice and input.
I know the rods aren't perfectly executed, but for me they are good enough to like and to use and not to want to hide away.

I still have 2 heavier Noxons tuna/trolling class rods which are definitely too heavy for the ski, even by my standards, but im thinking about doing them also, just for the odd time we get to join the fossil fuel brigade

Very very good job......be proud of those!

They gonna pull fish like crazy......with the history of those rods....good karma!

thank you Grootvis.
Father in law is impressed & happy for them to have a new lease of life, and my son, in his usual understated few words: "mm better than i expected" however I'm meant to take that ...lol

Nice one Fred, great set and handi-work.

These are good blanks. Well worth the rebuild. Neatly done

Very cool, ((goodp_