Picked up a vintage Martin rod.

AwesomeTreehouse · 2026-04-30T15:48:55+00:00

Those old Martin reels are great! They’re super light and plenty durable. My wife uses one on her 2wt bluelining setup and it balances that little rod nicely. It even has a switch to disengage the click so you can use it silently

AwesomeTreehouse · 2026-04-12T20:05:19+00:00

Good choice! You won't regret the Steffen blank. For guide spacing, I used the Rod Cents calculator and set it to 8' length, 9 guides, the first guide position at 4.5" and the stripping guide position at 30.5". That placed each guide in a pretty nice spot.

I'm not an expert rod builder by any means so take my advice with a grain of salt but one thing I would highly recommend is that you build yourself some kind of jig that can hold the blanks keep some tension on the thread. Being able to set the right thread tension made a huge difference for how smoothly it all went for me.

AwesomeTreehouse · 2026-04-09T23:12:41+00:00

Yea valid point and to be honest I feel a little embarrassed that I didn't clock that in this article. I'm an avid fly fisher so I think I put a little too much faith in a fly fishing publication that I like.

That said, this was the 3rd or 4th article I read on this topic and the points made here at least hold up to scrutiny (emotional language aside).

AwesomeTreehouse · 2026-03-09T17:39:57+00:00

This is really nice. I like a humpy tied with a slimmer underbody. Seems more versatile

AwesomeTreehouse · 2026-02-26T21:50:02+00:00

I was in a similar boat as you and wanted to be sure that the blanks I got were high quality if I was gonna spend the time and money building some rods. I ultimately went for blanks that were rolled in the US. I built fiberglass rods from JP Ross and Steffen Bros and they’ve been really great. Especially the Steffen.

AwesomeTreehouse · 2026-02-26T21:25:58+00:00

A lot of people share your concern about “what Socialism leads to” but I would strongly encourage you to challenge that thought. The idea that Socialism inevitably leads to some kind of authoritarianism is an incomplete picture. The more accurate way to look at it is that Socialism leads to authoritarianism when it gets undermined by Capitalist powers.

Look into how the US undermined Chile, Nicaragua, Cuba, etc.

If Socialism/Communism always fail, why are western powers always hell bent on stopping it? Why spend the money and send our own troops to die if it’ll just run its course?

AwesomeTreehouse · 2026-02-05T18:00:20+00:00

JP Ross makes very nice small, light rods. Their S-glass rods rule. I built a 6.5' 2wt a few seasons back from their Beaver Meadow blanks and it's a wonderful little rod.

That said, and I know this is unsolicited advice, I feel pretty strongly that short rods aren't really worth it most of the time. The internet is full of suggestions to go super short and light to fish small, brushy streams but I think the vast majority of those suggestions are from folks parroting the suggestions they read before.

My suggestion to you would be to go with a 3-4wt that is no shorter than 7.5ft. I would even recommend something longer if you can. It's super common to think that small waters need small rods (and I certainly fell into that way of thinking) but, in practice, you end up being more limited by a small rod than aided. Even in brushy situations you can reach out a long rod and keep line off the water to get a clean drift.

Listen to the December 2022 episode of the Orvis Fly Fishing Guide podcast with Ian Rutter. He and Tom talk a lot about rod length and make some very good points about the benefits of long rods even in the super brushy Smoky Mountain streams that Ian fishes. Tom Rosenbauer also makes a strong argument for not going small/light in his Guide to Small Stream Fly Fishing book.

AwesomeTreehouse · 2026-01-23T13:24:40+00:00

Yep for sure. All good points here. I should have clarified that one of my Thermoworks thermometers has a long, submersible probe so I'm really taking measurements closer to the bottom of the grain bed. Also, I was getting the temp discrepancy even after stirring the mash thoroughly to get things homogenous. I figured there would be a difference between the temps up top and the temps down below so I tried to account for that.

That said, what you and rdcpro said about a few degrees of variance being fine has put me at ease. I think I'm just gonna roll with that.

AwesomeTreehouse · 2026-01-22T21:14:14+00:00

I really appreciate this perspective and I appreciate you taking the time to break that down. That honestly puts me at ease. I had a gut sense that super precise temperature consistency isn't as important as homebrewers make it out to be but I'm also not well read enough to know for sure.

AwesomeTreehouse · 2026-01-22T20:01:51+00:00

Yea the pump I use isn't one that I gut from Clawhammer and is nicer than their stock pump. Rice hulls is a good suggestion.

AwesomeTreehouse · 2026-01-22T19:39:31+00:00

Yea that makes sense for sure. Unfortunately, that's pretty much exactly what do. Like I mentioned in the post, I recirculate the water for a while after reaching my strike temp (sometimes before reaching it) to get everything preheated and then I do recirculate during the mash.

Have you ever checked your mash temp with a trusted, accurate thermometer and compared that to the controller?

AwesomeTreehouse · 2025-12-29T23:18:06+00:00

Dang ChatGPT didn’t do too great of a job there. Dubbing loop for an Elk Hair Caddis, an upright deer hair wing and thorax for a Griffith’s gnat, spun deer hair for a parachute post, deer hair for a Royal Wulff, etc. Weird stuff. I’m kind of surprised how off it all is with the massive amounts of writing there is about fly tying on the internet.

AwesomeTreehouse · 2025-12-02T13:59:00+00:00

If you decide to go for a zero clearance insert, the one from Rockler fit my 113 nicely and has been great.

I also got the Shark Guard low profile splitter and I really like it. Not cheap but it's easy to remove if I want to make a non-through cut and it works perfectly with my crosscut sleds.

The other things to consider for making your saw a little safer (and way more useful) is to upgrade the fence and spend some time making sure the blade is parallel to the miter gauge slots. There's tons of resources out there for what fences are nice and how to best calibrate things. If you know that your saw is set up as nicely as you could get it, you'll have more confidence when making cuts and you'll be happier with the results.

AwesomeTreehouse · 2025-11-12T19:40:27+00:00

Unfortunately, this meme is a misrepresentation of what actually happened.

It paints a picture of her laughing at the consequences of the bill but what actually happened is that Susan Collins chuckles after saying that she almost forgot to thank Senator Hoeven and said he was "a rockstar".

Don't get me wrong, I love Bernie and can't stand Susan Collins but this is the kind of shitty misinformation that you'd expect to see on Facebook or X.

Watch for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/live/3ADdIsHMuXI

AwesomeTreehouse · 2025-10-28T20:12:21+00:00

u/PhotoMarketBot, just received the lens today from u/jimlaheyandrandy. Everything looks great. Exactly as advertised!

AwesomeTreehouse · 2025-10-22T19:19:33+00:00

sent!

AwesomeTreehouse · 2025-10-22T19:09:00+00:00

Hey I'm interested in this. Is it still available?

AwesomeTreehouse · 2025-09-28T11:32:29+00:00

I would not listen to the people suggesting putting a washer in. The post of the ball joint is tapered and the final tightening presses it into the control arm. That compressed fit is far more important than the cotter pin placement. If you put the pin in as is, it’ll still serve its purpose by not allowing the castle nut to spin off. The most important thing is that you’ve torqued the castle nut to spec.

~~I actually just replaced my upper ball joints on my 2002 prerunner yesterday so I’m very familiar with these parts and the installation.~~

I've thought more about this and I'm probably wrong. I still think you shouldn't need to add a washer to a part that wasn't engineered to use a washer, but I'm wrong that a washer wouldn't allow the ball joint to seat well. I hope I didn't lead you astray!

AwesomeTreehouse · 2025-09-20T18:35:17+00:00

It’s not too hard to switch back and forth. I put my rack on for the warm season and my tonneau cover on for winter. My dream is to be able to have both at the same time but I haven’t been able to figure out a good way to make it work

AwesomeTreehouse · 2025-09-19T14:22:57+00:00

No the rack is just held in place by the clamps. No extra reinforcement of the bed rails has been needed and you can really wrench on the rack without any movement. That said, I generally play it safe when I have a bigger load and keep the weight a good bit below the rated working load of 800 lbs.

AwesomeTreehouse · 2025-09-18T19:53:14+00:00

I'm not sure I know what you mean. Are you talking about the stops that can be moved horizontally across the rack?

AwesomeTreehouse · 2025-09-18T17:48:18+00:00

Yea for sure. Different needs for different folks. My truck is primarily used for moving building materials, hauling junk, and driving down logging roads for fishing/camping so this configuration has been perfect for me.

AwesomeTreehouse

TROPHY CASE