[SPEAKER_01]: Join us August 14th through 16th for the 2026 mastering rod building seminar at the Orange Beach event center at the Warf in Orange Beach, Alabama.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is your chance to learn from the best in the rod building industry while enjoying a full weekend of hands-on education.
[SPEAKER_01]: great food and community fellowship on Saturday.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll have seminars all day.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll feed you breakfast lunch and have a crawfish and shrimp boiled dinner on Saturday plus breakfast and more seminars including lunch on Sunday.
[SPEAKER_01]: Discounted lodging is available just a one minute walk from the venue.
[SPEAKER_01]: So grab your tickets now and if you're bringing others be sure to include all attending names at checkout.
[SPEAKER_01]: For more information, email my guy, Jack Baron at J. Baron at anglersresource.net.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's JBARO in at anglersresource.net or call 251-943-4491.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see you in Orange Beach.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Mastering Rod Building podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Bill Faulkner, and I know sometimes I get excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I exaggerate, sometimes I get carried away.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love this stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this community and rod building are my favorite things in the world to talk about.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I am truly giddy today because I have one of the, by any definition, living legends of the craft.
[SPEAKER_01]: really a man who needs no introduction, but I'm going to introduce him anyway, and that is James Docski, Lebanowski.
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome Doc.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, hi, how you doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, I am so glad to have you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can't imagine anyone who'd be listening to your podcast doesn't know Doc.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Doc is one of these guys who's extremely reticent to talk about him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'll talk about him a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Doc has been, Doc has been building rods literally since he was eight years old.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was not able to get the carbon dating returns back from that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know exactly how many thousands of years ago that was, but he's been building rods for a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's so long time member of the Bats and Pro staff.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was unanimous ballot.
[SPEAKER_01]: one of the first legends of Rod Building inducted into the Custom Rod Builders Guild Hall of Fame in 2008.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's really, I started to try to bring up all the dock all the articles and magazines and radio pieces and stuff you've been in over the years and there's too many to count.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I can't even gather them all even with today's internet.
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
[SPEAKER_01]: Ladies and gentlemen, the man, the myth, the legend.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're watching on, I can't on YouTube.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's a photo of me that I keep in the office.
[SPEAKER_01]: So several years ago, Doc Grace does at our Mastering Rod Building event.
[SPEAKER_01]: He and Bill Batson came down together in Orange Beach, Alabama.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Doc says, all I want to do is catch a red fish.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said, Oh, Doc, this is so easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we got red fish.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to get you red fish.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we basically got a tropical storm.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we weren't able to fish at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Doc mailed me this picture after it and it says, Dear Bill, thanks for the imaginary fishing trip, Love Doc ski.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess I deserve that.
[SPEAKER_01]: yeah you did yeah oh man well welcome to the show dock this has been a long time coming it's like amazing to me as good a friends as we are and as much of a mentor as you've been to me in the countless hundreds of hours and thousands of words you've wasted on trying to help me be a better rod builder over the last 20 plus years that this is the first time you're on the podcast but I'm awfully glad to have you well thank you for having me I really enjoyed doing this
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this community.
[SPEAKER_00]: It saved me and it saved a lot of other veterans.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Doc, I, man, I would, I would be honestly really hard press to come up with anybody who's given as much back to the community as you certainly much less more than than you have.
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you for all of that on behalf of the community on behalf of the thousands of students like me, you've tutored and everything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got so much to talk about, but
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things I do on every podcast is that I asked the first question, like how did you get into fishing in the first place?
[SPEAKER_01]: And how did you get into rod building?
[SPEAKER_01]: And in this case, you got a really interesting story involving your dad.
[SPEAKER_01]: So will you tell us the story about how you got into, how you got into rod building?
[SPEAKER_00]: No problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually started building rod, wrapping rod.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was eight years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: was on the USS Monker Hill and they took a kamikaze hit in the middle of the ship and blew his whole gun turret and the eight members of his team into the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh gosh, they spent eight hours in the water he was the only survivor from the team.
[SPEAKER_00]: Game home of course had to do recovery.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had, I believe they said two hundred and eight pieces of shrapnel in his body.
[SPEAKER_00]: which took many, many operations to get rid of, but they couldn't take eight pieces out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, that's just part of the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other part of the story was, of course, he had to do some kind of rehab with all these surgeries to fix.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they sent him up in a tackle shop doing whatever the tackle shop wanted.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's actually at a landing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe it was a peer-point landing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We wrap the guides on the rental rods.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, of course, he comes home.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's bringing out work home with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's a little son looking at him going, hey, I'd like to learn how to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, he basically taught me how to wrap guides.
[SPEAKER_00]: And after I got,
[SPEAKER_00]: Good at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He let me take care of the family, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's also started there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: He also taught you how to join the Navy and go serve our country because she did that too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's another story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you want to go to that one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we'll talk a little bit about it because we're going to talk about how you do so much and you've facilitated and encouraged and supported others to do so much for our veterans.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you yourself are a veteran of the Navy.
[SPEAKER_01]: where you served as a a corpsman right and which is where you get the moniker dock right so how long were you in the navy dock twenty three years nine months and three days approximately how approximately i lost track of the hours sure sure well you can be forgiven yeah if you want a huge story i'll give you the huge story how i got it you give me the real story whatever the truth is is a truth man
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like many kids, experimented.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, me and my buddies went up a couple of weeks before graduation, and we hung outside a liquor store, found a guy that needed some liquor himself, and we paid him some money to go in and get his drinks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I had no clue how to do that, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got wasted.
[SPEAKER_00]: We went up to this place dance, and I got even more wasted.
[SPEAKER_00]: And on the way home, I slept in the backseat of my own car, and my buddy was driving.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cops pulled us over and I didn't know what's going on because I had drunk, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was passed out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when the cop pulls me out of the back seat, he was just trying to see if I was okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know who was, I took a swing at him.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, that doesn't end well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I missed him.
[SPEAKER_00]: like a, you know, a cement edging.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he tripped over that as buddy thought I caught him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh gosh.
[SPEAKER_00]: He put me to parade rest for real quick.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I ended up in jail over the weekend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh gosh, I've never heard this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And on Monday morning, in, in I go to meet the judge, my dad's in the gallery by then.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, this could put you in jail for a while, but since you're young and pretty impressionable, maybe if you chose to do something like join the military, I could for a go and he prison time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's how I got in a really okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it had nothing to do with your dad being in the Navy originally, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how did you get into being a corpsman?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I wanted to be a sub-mariner.
[SPEAKER_00]: But because I had a police record, I couldn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just saw them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They said, well, how about a dental pack?
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I say, oh, that sounds pretty good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, dental tech somehow turned into corpsmen because they had enough dental facts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: I ended up corpsmen, of course, back in the 60s, you know, I joined in 64.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back in the 60s, you had very little choices of where you went.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they attacked me to the Marine Corps and I got to do fun in games.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, as I said, I'll keep you busy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like to talk about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have to, but suffice it to say thank you for your service, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you for all that you do for veterans.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, another huge thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, you hate when I do this kind of stuff, but you know, I think the world of you and I love you dearly and you've been so good to me over decades.
[SPEAKER_01]: But one of the things I, it's several things I admire about you doc, but one of the things I really admire about you as a rod builder is that there's basically nothing you can't do like you've gone out of your way to learn all the techniques and in fact you're self taught in so many of these techniques like some of the things like color change weaving like I don't think a young rod builder today could probably understand
[SPEAKER_01]: the hours you put in to reverse engineer and figure out how in the world to do the color change weaving, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Which you do?
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no color change weaving.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's talk about it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when I first, when I first started into rob building, first of all, kind of backstory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to fish a lot out of Newport with a lot of jackpot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was pretty talented.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you're legendary.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like there's skies you still know who you are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I know you're being humble again, but y'all, there's TV shows that featured you in some of the guys you fished with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you were a, you were the man.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're one of the guys, one of these sticks.
[SPEAKER_01]: No doubt.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, if I showed up at the landing people knew something which happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, it's a good anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: I fished out of Newport.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've won a lot of jackpot, you know what a jackpot is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so for those who might not know, when you go on these long range boats, you can put money in as you're heading out to see for one of these long range trips.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be seven days, 11 days, 18 days, could be whatever, but you can put money into different pots.
[SPEAKER_01]: and the jackpot is like biggest fish of the trip, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you could stand to get your trip paid for if you won the jackpot, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so this and oh, by the way, we're all competitive.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're all anglers.
[SPEAKER_01]: We all want to catch the biggest fish.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why we're there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here, now I'll start off like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Didn't up like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly and and I'll just tell you all these guys can fish this was not for amateurs or first timers even back in the day so When it's kind of like professional bass fishing when the same people keep win tournaments it ain't luck or by accident So dock won a lot of jackpot, so keep going.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're talking about weaving and win and jackpots out of anyway, I wouldn't want to let a jackpot And I got I was still in the Navy at the time
[SPEAKER_01]: and you were physically fit.
[SPEAKER_01]: You were a specimen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen the videos.
[SPEAKER_01]: You were a strapping lad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a hard I was a hard gore.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the skipper that I fished with an awful lot gave me a custom fishing rod.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, I just I went and I've been fishing with this garbage all a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I got orders to Australia.
[SPEAKER_00]: I packed that fish and mud in my stuff to go over to Australia, and they got broken shipment.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I came back from Australia, I was stationed in Portway, Nemi, and there was an outfit called Harrington Rod Company.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, they were formerly known as Arnold.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first two-peeler fiberglass on the market.
[SPEAKER_00]: I met this lady named Jean Herrington, and I said, look, I had a custom rod.
[SPEAKER_00]: It got broken and shipment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to learn how to build a custom rod from the ground up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she taught me, at that time, an age, nobody shared anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jean Eve was a godsend.
[SPEAKER_00]: She taught me all the ins and outs more than most rod
[SPEAKER_00]: I would go to the factory and see in the rods, built a cloth cut, how they were put on the mandrel and the whole operation, I hung out there, like kids play video games a day, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she taught me all the basics, and then sitting in the corner, was this rod with a diamond wrap.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, you do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she talked me through, you know, you do this,
[SPEAKER_00]: Talked me through it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went home that night with the kit we call them kits.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Through the kit together, put a diamond wrap on it and I came in and I said, what do you think of this?
[SPEAKER_00]: And she goes, it is the tightest diamond wrap I've ever seen, but I forgot to tell you all the diamonds have to be in line.
[SPEAKER_00]: She actually kept that rod.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know where it is now, but she threatened to bring it out into the public.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh gosh, I wish I would, I would, I would fund the event to get it out in the public.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's be hilarious.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was assuredly after that, I really got serious about rod building and a lot of, I could go on for hours talking about all the things that have happened to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like I said, nobody shared anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in fact,
[SPEAKER_01]: But you got pretty good at reverse engineering it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got pretty good figure it out and we're going to talk about this with tiger raps.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, keep going.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish God were here.
[SPEAKER_01]: He could bear a file and we'll get Scott on.
[SPEAKER_01]: He does verify it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've talked to him about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're telling the truth, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep going.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, I got the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't claim in the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's custom read artists.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, thread art, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the back section, they have weaving, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're very basic weaving, single layer, single layer, one color, yeah, very nice.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought, oh, this is so cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I started weaving.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I went, wait a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: A yellowfin tuna doesn't have a tip of the sickle gold.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I get that, you know, from a blue body into a gold sickle?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sat there and there was a tackle shop owner in Oxdard.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he and I kind of got new a competition to how we figure this out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I kind of won.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I say I won and let's put it this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were within a week of each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really my only real copy, my only real cop, what do I want to say?
[SPEAKER_01]: Contributions that you actually love.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: My real, only my real cop cheese.
[SPEAKER_00]: I came to say the word.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, and from there on, I realized that was my niche.
[SPEAKER_00]: I loved it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you can produce a picture of something.
[SPEAKER_00]: person's face and of that and of course it was very time-consuming and that's why not many people got involved with it because it's still this it's time money oh yeah and you I don't know that you could ever get paid for some of these weaves right it takes too long yeah I have to take an over a hundred hours yeah I mean that's
[SPEAKER_01]: it's almost priceless right yeah and you look at and then from the time you sort of brought it on this is one of the things that I think is so cool is you are always willing like jeannie taught you you always taught and shared with people you weren't threatened by people knowing how and I'm not saying
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, some people might argue, but if I look at some of the weaves people are doing now, like I've seen weaves by Todd Dobarowski, I've seen weaves by I was taught by Jeff Vatican fish sticks and he Jeff is fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, and basically Jeff's the student of yours and Jeff passed it on to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: God bless him, and thank you very much, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like and the tree is and you look at what people like Steve McLeod are doing in the UK like
[SPEAKER_01]: You talk about ultra realistic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's just incredible art.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's art, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he doesn't even put most of them on rods anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: He does them on things and gives them his gifts or their pen holders or it's But it's remarkable.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but again, I what we only know the world we know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've never known a world in 31 years of rod building that didn't include Docski, but thank you for being a guy who was willing to share and teach.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not saying Steve wasn't going to become a remarkable artist.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying Jeff wouldn't have figured something out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying Todd wouldn't be, but we all stand on the shoulders of those who helped us, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the most positive development and rod building in the last 10 to 15 years is this shift from no one's telling anybody anything to Hey, we're open books.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're all going to share and to the point where I don't even have any imagination that anything I'm doing is original right it's all something I learned from somebody else who did it first and that's okay, right like do whatever you know what it's also okay To take the time when you do something like
[SPEAKER_00]: us got through tiger wrap or Jim Trelekas olive branch it's okay to give them recognition you should know I would say you need to pay away from your work no it doesn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: it doesn't at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's the way that I think about it is like, uh, who, uh, Michelangelo sculpted the David, everyone else who's a sculpture after that can be inspired by David.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody knows they're not, they're a sculptor, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not, it doesn't take away from anybody's art that they were inspired by somebody else's art.
[SPEAKER_01]: In my opinion, but, um, yeah, and like I, uh,
[SPEAKER_01]: literally there's not an element and that is funny you mentioned JTOBs and you know some of those things because these are Jim Treleakas who's another friend of both of ours, another batson pro staff member, a guy I think the world of and consider among the very best I just stopped show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well and to me you coming up with the color change weaving, him coming up with
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... dragon scales him coming up with j t o b's just those rare people who have the ability to sort of create something new whether it's out of necessity or creativity you know he says he came up with j t o with all branches because somebody wanted to try marthra and the color that wasn't made so he's like how about
[SPEAKER_01]: How do I do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, it would then it became a technique, but it just, this speaks volumes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many of the gym, Trilika's techniques, I know you taught me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I learned from DocSke the gym techniques, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's awesome, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it speaks to how without ego you both are and how how much you're willing to share information and how broad your influences, like I can't even, I don't know how many people I've taught stuff a lot, not nearly as many as you, but like
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all because of you doing that and guys like you doing that back in the beginning.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just an awesome legacy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I personally think you and Jim and some others like that who chose to go the route of sharing, not the route of just a secret.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not telling anybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, which was most people, um, I really give you guys a lot of credit for that and I give you personally a lot of credit for that because I feel like you're a calm voice of positive reason and sort of just warped in love in this whole thing and it's like the reality is in 31 years of rod building that I'm aware of, I've never lost a rod to another rod builder.
[SPEAKER_01]: I either didn't make the sale or the person didn't want the raw.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or they weren't willing to pay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So why wouldn't I teach somebody else what I'm doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not competing with one another.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not how customers come to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, anyway, the truth is, each individual knows how good they are, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know how good I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know how good you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jimmy knows how good he is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Y'all are both better than me.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: it's not a better thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's why nobody knows.
[SPEAKER_00]: We know what level we're at.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I learn from people that don't know anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: They come to me with the mistake.
[SPEAKER_00]: I spend half my life on this computer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they come to me with something they're having trouble with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they show me pictures and they do this and they talk to me on the phone.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll be trying to work out their problem, and I'll go wait a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the solution to your problem, but this has a possibility.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this may not be a problem, this may be an idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I did with Jim Traleiky stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I don't have the sharpest brain in the world,
[SPEAKER_00]: a God-given ability to look at something and find a way to alter it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe improve it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe just change it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, that's where I went from, you know, olive branch.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all we saw for a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then saw blades and all these other variations.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you get that crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm saying this is lovingly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Arnold or stiff knee Arnold.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, a 70-minute at her hold.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, she does diamond ramps with this stuff all over the place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's like crazy, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's done some time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I have come up with variations and new ideas to try that came from an error.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: if you're not open to adding to your repertoire, you're not going to, you're just going to go, okay, copy, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I say there are two types of builders.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's innovators and there's copiers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Neither ones right or wrong, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that there are just some people that are happy with, oh,
[SPEAKER_00]: I mastered this technique and I'm going to use it a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I, I'd say this because I'm very, I'm very convinced and comfortable that I'm a, I'm a imitator, a copier.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't, and I'm that way as a guitar player.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm that way as a rod builder like I don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Either way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that show you put on it and that's fun that's not even work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you come and I'll play guitar for you anytime.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's referring to the live music at the at the shrimp oil at the or fish fry that year at the customer odd builders guilt.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, the mastering rod building event.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're having an august this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are always welcome doc.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd love to have you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was one of the best places I've ever gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that was fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a fun trip, and it meant a lot of having you there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody in all the old ladies were putting the makeup on me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, look, you know, you still got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the year you came and we got the bus and you and me and Bill bats that we all went to the CCA event over in Mobile and the bus had the stripper pole in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the dancing pole in it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That may be classified.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, that's another episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure there's one part
[SPEAKER_01]: We're sorry, this podcast has been discontinued.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please hang up and try again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, but we Yeah, we'll leave that out just out of being old-school gentleman and describing, but I say that as someone who's a copier Right, which is fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I admire the innovators and my observation is the innovators are much more rare and a much more special breed and you're you're one of that breed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So is Jim right and there are others I
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just admire and respect that so much and how look how much the craft benefits when the innovators are willing to share.
[SPEAKER_01]: They sort of they they create and innovate for all of us rather than just keeping it to themselves, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I just say she relates to his hours.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does an experience and it's funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: put the hours of testing and trying new techniques.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, they don't, but I'll tell you, this is so interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: You just said something a minute ago, Doc, before we got off on the bus with the magic pole that resonated with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, join CCA, support your local CCH after.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the upshot of that whole story.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we want to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the Thrupe Tiger Rapp was a mistake.
[SPEAKER_01]: by Scott, it was a peel off and see something after the fact, which we can talk about, the dragon scale was a little bit of a mistake by Jim that in both cases, those guys said, oh, what is that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, so I'm going to set the stage for people because I don't know if people can remember this is probably close to 30 years ago doc I can't remember it's a long time ago, but there's a very talented rod builder out there named Scott through and Scott is individually a craftsman himself and his built lots of rods and built long range rods out of California
[SPEAKER_01]: at various times.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he was running and managing, uh, graphite USA's fly rod production.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was managing able reels or something like he's he's had his hands in a lot of work to tackle shop too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he just had his hands in a lot of pies and I think it's a very talented guy and he he does he's always done real work too.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not just rod building, which is amazing to me because he's had a big impact.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this guy starts doing
[SPEAKER_01]: This optical illusion wrap, this wire effect wrap, called the Scott Throop Tiger Wrap.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's at the world on fire.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they're around so long now and it's been demystified, thanks to you and we've been taught how to do it, thanks to you and there's so many of us who can do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you still see good ones and you still see bad ones, but yours are always so good, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like anything else to get a passable one is not that hard to consistently get the effect you want, with the color you want and everything you want, actually take some skill and practice in hours,
[SPEAKER_01]: But there was a time and this is so crazy to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jim Trilika has just told me this, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: When he first came out with dragon scales, and he was still perfecting it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was not teaching it because he wanted to make sure he had it.
[SPEAKER_01]: figured out.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was not teaching it yet because he was just trying to make sure you had all the kings worked out and he knew the right way to teach it and everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: And people were getting mad at him and sending him hate mail like you better teach us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it's like, what are you talking about?
[SPEAKER_01]: So Scott was getting some of this noise and had chosen at that point.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it was because he was managing a rod factory.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he was entertaining using these wraps to sell rods.
[SPEAKER_01]: on a small scale OEM basis and he it's exercised his right that he wasn't necessarily going to teach anybody how to do it for now which is his right like he he you know he invented it it is he can do it every once but it was a hot topic especially in southern California for a long time a lot of people try to figure out how to do this tiger app
[SPEAKER_01]: And some time at a show sitting there staring at Scott's raps.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're the one who out of the tiger app, you figured it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: You reversed engineered it to your point about having a gift for reverse engineering.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you did it with your eyeballs.
[SPEAKER_01]: You did it by looking at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You didn't tear one down.
[SPEAKER_01]: You didn't you figured it out by looking at it on your magnification.
[SPEAKER_01]: If memory serves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us that story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, whole story is a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's I had called Scott and said, Scott, you need to get this out of how to do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you need to share it with people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he goes, you know, Doc, this is my money maker.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, well, Scott, I've kind of figured it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I, you know, I don't want to cut your throat on this, but I'm a shareer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, well, you'll never figured out anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had the best look at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I reversed engineered a lot of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I knew it was a two-layer wrap.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew that the bottom layer was solid, and I knew the upper layer was open.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: But until I got my hands on one, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: He brought one to me in a Fred Halshaw one day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, this is a story I was hoping to tell him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go ahead and figure it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I got motion figured out that I told him,
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it goes, yeah, well, that's that's pretty close.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's pretty close.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I go, you're being cagey with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You also wrap an opposite directions.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he went, and his jaw dropped, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And shortly after, then I made the promise to him that until he actually published the technique, I wouldn't say anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I would, in time, share it with other people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I took about a year and then he got published by Rod Maker magazine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd make her.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And after that, you know, it was off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to, I have to share that's, I just, we can't advance if we don't teach others.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, there's an old, uh, and I really don't even know where this comes from, but there's an old adage that says knowledge, share, not shared is knowledge wasted or lost, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, easy for me to say, because I'm not a creator.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a copy of it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So obviously, I want to learn these things and come.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't, don't say that is a, is it come down?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because, oh, I don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I copy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Copying is one thing, but when you copy and you come out with an excellent product, that product is still all yours.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not trying to talk down to myself or anyone else.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I mean by a copy here is I could learn any technique and I'll all develop it and master it and get consistent with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would, I don't think I would have ever come up with the Tiger app.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I would have ever come up with the JTOB.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I ever would have come up with
[SPEAKER_01]: the dragon scale.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: I would never come up with a gold leaf dragon scale even though I was already doing dragon scales.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, these are all things taught to me by lens, you know, lens points at Scrylla and Jim Trilikus and you and others, but the tiger's an interesting one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and you got to understand, I don't know if our audience can understand, at that time, everyone in rod building was trying to understand this rap.
[SPEAKER_01]: right like it it was a talk and I didn't even see the picture one I couldn't understand what it was or like it's get it's in the moves it's an optical illusion it moves and I'm like what do you mean it's an optical illusion like it's thread on a blank like it can't be I don't understand and then of course there's been so many people so again this is one guys opinion
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you mentioned this earlier, and it's the fact it's ours, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's, and if you read outliers by Malcolm Gladwell in the concept of 10,000 hours to be a prodigy, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there is something there.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is science and data behind it.
[SPEAKER_01]: you I suspect have more hours with the tiger wraps then even Scott through now at this point or anybody else right I have a lifetime a lot literally and you also have an understanding and we're going to get deep here for a second but this is part of what I want to talk about because
[SPEAKER_01]: the variables that matter.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for example, I suspect you have the largest and most diverse collection of thread of any rod builder alive today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't know that absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can tell you you've had and used and possessed to this day more threads than anybody else I've ever seen heard of talk to no of and and you don't you're not going on a bragging about that but you got a lot of thread and you've tried it all right
[SPEAKER_01]: And you understand the differences in diameter, regardless of how it's labeled ABCDE, you understand the differences in darkness and opacity versus transparency.
[SPEAKER_01]: You understand the difference in a electro metallic, you know, good broad versus a regular good broad.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's unpack this a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you
[SPEAKER_01]: your YouTube channels like ThreadArt with Doc ski in friends, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, which even that is like collaborative and positive.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so in the event, and I can't believe there is, but if any of you are listening to this podcast, you're interested in learning a million tips and tricks about all kinds of rod building things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I'm trying to think,
[SPEAKER_01]: I have fine tweezers on my desk and I go through and take fuzzies out of my finish because I saw that in your video.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do multiple coats of finish and trim off fuzzies with the razor blade.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once the first thing is because I learned that from one of your videos.
[SPEAKER_01]: Certainly I learned all my tiger stuff from your videos, but you've got 10,000 hours.
[SPEAKER_01]: You put a lot of time in this.
[SPEAKER_01]: To the point, I'm just going to give people a couple of variables and I'm not going to it's not my job to give away secret sauce or anything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Doc's doing one of his color change ways, he's not using all the same size threads for the the wraps that are going down the rod and the threads that he's going back and forth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like he has tweaked it out to the point of, and so let's talk about this as it relates to Tigers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you want to know more about Tigers and how to get good Tigers and why a Tiger works and how to do it, Doc's got a ton of videos out there on YouTube and they've been out there for decades.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not new, but they're as relevant today as they were the day you put them out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: the video is actually very good which has gotten easier like we have auto focus cameras and all this stuff like it was not easy for you to sit out and shoot net at this stuff back then it was a lot more work now it's a lot more work back then and they're very good and they're very clear and they're very relevant today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also love that you show how you do things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you do a lot of things that break the rules, you know, mix in your finish in an old cup with other finish that you mix with the end of a brush, the bristle end of a, like, but hey, but it works, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I always try to tell people there's more than one way to do anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I kind of love that you get these incredible results and you break so many of the rules.
[SPEAKER_01]: But let's talk about, let's talk about the tigers and some of the stuff you've learned there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I feel like some of your major innovations
[SPEAKER_01]: And also the burnishing patterns on both the bottom and the top layer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So where do you want to start?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we start talking about this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you've got 10, that's why you should start anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that the beginning?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's start at the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: That very beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I always like to start there because the new guy that's never tried to tiger wrap or gal needs to have a spot to start.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the Scott through methodology from day one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three threads, three different colors, usually you want to have something that contrasts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three threads, they don't all have to be the same size.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't have to be the same company.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can be three threads.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wrap them, but to tip, all at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Scott only burnishes the bottom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: He only furnishes the bottom layer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you've wrapped from butt to tip, then my methodology to burnish for the basics is if you wrap from butt to tip on the zero and 180 axis, you burnish that direction butt to tip.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then on the 90 and 270 axis, you burnish
[SPEAKER_00]: What that does is it takes a thread that basically straight and bows it and bows it like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you get movement, you get patterns from the thread sizes and the gaps.
[SPEAKER_00]: You get movement from how much finish you put on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you see people with glasses that they've got their glasses on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And their eyeball looks about.
[SPEAKER_00]: the size of a dime, but there's a big open spot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's because the glass is so thick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So is up to the individual?
[SPEAKER_00]: I usually go with three or four types of finish.
[SPEAKER_01]: And let me be clear with what Docs are referring to is when we're doing a tiger, we're going to wrap one direction.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like he's saying, I do it the way he's saying from butt to tip for the first layer with three continuous closed wrap threads, no gaps.
[SPEAKER_01]: then we're going to put finish on it and it's the number of coats of finish you put on that base layer before you do your top layer that he's talking about that it affects how much movement you get so when you hold the rod in front of you and tilt it back and forth how much it's shifting and moving is driven and this is physics you can prove it is driven by how many coats of finish you put on the under threat and I'm with you I use fourth in coats so anyway and then back to basics right
[SPEAKER_00]: exact same color same model same thing change nothing exactly three threats right you wrap from tip to butt.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you remove one or two of the three threats.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, usually it's best to remove two.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: But.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's an individual thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where you can experiment even on the beginner level.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So talk to me too and I know we're still at a beginner level, but the questions I get a lot to are color, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's been different opinions like, I personally think the color is influenced by both reps, although it's predominantly driven by whatever you leave, the non-sacrificial thread on top.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that like where you come down on it or how do you teach people how much pounds that?
[SPEAKER_00]: darker colors on top, tend to give you a richer, a richer color to everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you use a light color or metallic, it blows everything out.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're still there.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a tiger there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the blows it out with all that light for some reason.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the washes it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't either.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's some kind of physical effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: my method is always black on top, but on occasion, I want the blue that's on the bottom to come up on top a little bit more.
[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe I'll use a darker blue, right, or dark blue and other blue, which is a shade darker, but basically you can get a really good tiger just doing
[SPEAKER_00]: furnishing, three layers or four layers of finish, top wrap, opposite direction, remove two threads and use black, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to get a nice pattern.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I also burnish on the top layer, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I burnish the same way, the same dot pattern that I used on the bottom.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wrapped from tip to butt.
[SPEAKER_00]: So on the zero and 180, I go from tip to butt.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and the opposite direction on the other side.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I learned this burnishing simultaneously basically from you in a guy named Kim G Carter with Trinity rods and Hawaii.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he calls it wood grain.
[SPEAKER_01]: You call it lava lamp and islands and swirls.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's the figure that I really like, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, but let's talk about something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you're talking about burnishing on four axes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, you're normally doing long range rods out of San Diego.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are big rods.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kims doing a lure rods.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're huge diameter.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't burnish on four axis on an ultra light spinning rod or a slow pitch, jigging rod or something small, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So just know that you can adapt these techniques based on the diameter of the blank that you're using.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm only going to do zero and 180 on a blank, any skinnier than about three quarters of an inch, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're making the, that you get the same effect, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the basic.
[SPEAKER_00]: thousands, literally thousands of other variations to the technique.
[SPEAKER_00]: My basic rule of thumb is the pattern.
[SPEAKER_00]: I already told you how to get the movement, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But the pattern comes from the gap size of the thread.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do a lot of experiment.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't always have to have three threads on top.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't always have to have three threads on the bottom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, wait, so I'm going to walk you there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's start a little more basic.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I may, sorry, I want to get to where you, because like I said, you are so advanced on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me tell you about a classic scenario that has happened to me and that people have since come to me with all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very normal for someone who want to say, hey, I've got this leftover good abroad, electric metallic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got this limited Fuji color change.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've got some old hytina stuff that I like.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to waste it on the over.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to sacrifice it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to use my good threads on the bottom.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to use one good thread, two trash threads on the top.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then all of a sudden, all they get is a barber pole.
[SPEAKER_01]: right?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is incredibly common.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, it's so common, Doc, that to this day, I only use the same three threads on the top and the bottom, like you're saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean the same ones from the same spool.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't mean another Fuji size a ultrapalry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean that because it's the only way that I've found for every single one of them to always turn out.
[SPEAKER_01]: As soon as I change that variable it's a variable and I get variable results.
[SPEAKER_01]: But let's talk a little bit about why changing thread doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_01]: And largely it's because
[SPEAKER_01]: for the effect to happen at the basic level.
[SPEAKER_01]: the intervals between the thread at the bottom and the gaps in the top need to sort of match up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when you start changing threads, you're changing thread diameters.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're inadvertently making the gap either too big or too small.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there can be a time in a place for doing that on purpose and we'll get to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you are constant, what would you tell the person who's not using the same threads on top and bottom and is constantly getting barbeque poles and can't get any swirls or lava lamps?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about gap size.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: to bring everybody up to where I am right now, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is basically three threads on the bottom, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Almost always, three threads.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done four, I've done five, but the basic three threads is almost infallible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you figure out the gap, agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'll also give everybody a hint on how to help themselves figure out where to start.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, please do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's my magic formula, three Fuji, NCP, any three colors on the bottom.
[SPEAKER_00]: On the top, I have to mention the name.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, please.
[SPEAKER_00]: Voodoo, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: A, black, right, which is slightly larger,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the video is kind of fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also it's like the blackest of the blacks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's.
[SPEAKER_00]: I call it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Black hole space.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's space.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll start off with that and say I only do two on top.
[SPEAKER_00]: I use C or D plane Fuji.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, man, that's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pull it all off.
[SPEAKER_00]: The good thing about a tiger is you still have all the fish on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: All you got to do is change sizes and thread.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll go up a color up the size on the thread or down the size on the thread.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always leave the A that that A black that's your constant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have found that if I use 2 G 3 and 3 A and C P on the bottom and a bullard.
[SPEAKER_00]: or not bullet, it's good, uh, boo-doo now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who do black, yeah?
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, boo-doo black with an NCP size C good blood.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a bowl, rap, every single time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but here's the problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who's got any good blood C no C P anymore besides you?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, but you can experiment with other threads.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you just got to find that niche.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's the secret though, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: I wrap it one time to stripey.
[SPEAKER_00]: I go up a thread size, even more stripey.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, going the wrong direction here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go down a thread size.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's starting those stripes are not stripes anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now they're more vertical lines.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, now I'm getting that lava lamp or what did you call it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Kim calls it wood grain and I'd never thought of that, but when you look at it when you get those big beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does look like you've been on the right side.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cross cup wood grain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the best.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some little islands put in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's perfect to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I want them to look like.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is my secret method methodology.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the key is the gap.
[SPEAKER_00]: So no matter what you're using, no matter how you decide to go on top, whether you're going to use somebody else's company or a different size thread or three threads, just remember that cap size.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have to wrap it a second time and it gets better, you're going the right direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's simple.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, it is going to get splorted that way, yeah, but you've got 10,000 hours doing this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And isn't nothing I'd pay attention to, like, listen to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is arguably the best man on the planet at doing this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And do you hear what he's saying?
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got to do it more than once often.
[SPEAKER_01]: right so i think a lot of times people look at it and they just say oh what's this easy for him is just always turn out no you're just unwilling to settle for anything less than an excellent final product i want to unpack something you said because i i'm afraid people could get tripped up on this uh if you are new at this and you're relatively simple you could say well there's size a thread and there's size d thread and so uh there's only a couple
[SPEAKER_01]: not all size D threads are the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's B and C out there available.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's zero and double out out there available.
[SPEAKER_01]: So talk a little bit about how A is not A and there are big A's and small A's and D is not D. Each company is different.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going to tell you, if you substitute from my secret formula that I just gave you, if you substitute somebody else's thread,
[SPEAKER_00]: My formula ain't going to work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's inherent on that fixed diameter of the BUDU flag A.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can go company is slightly off.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if they call it nanometers or 1mm or 10mm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it the slightest change even within the same company.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: A, no C, P.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like more than A and C. B, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's it's a different text out, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know for Fuji, we can actually mic out that the A regular is a little bit smaller than the A no Cp because the A no Cp is an opaque text.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it literally a different product.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's actually not twisted and woven exactly the same way because it's a different fiber.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, but I'm just I wanted to call that out because what I would tell you, you have to put the human factor in too, the guy coming into the factory in the morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: You said it early earlier that you have to use the same thread off the same spool, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: I go into the factory in the morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a party in all my love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was it on a bus to a CCA event?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I go in and let's see the dial 15 percent.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, what was that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: 15 percent, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you realize oh
[SPEAKER_00]: I just ran off a hundred spools who was supposed to be a ten percent or whatever, right, you know, so the twist may not be right in the old good broad days There was a lot of problems like that where the twist wasn't yeah as tight Yeah, so the thread didn't react the same way right in a tiger that would be a disaster would be yeah, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so Hyctena all these companies
[SPEAKER_00]: Madeira has two thread sizes, 60 way, the 40 way, and NCP versus CP, all of those things are factors but the one thing that can't be changed is that gap size.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you hit the right gap size, it's magic.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all you gotta do is copy that formula again.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you change a different thread, all bets are off.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to start from the beginning now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to tell everybody something that I did that I've been big to do it commercially and I just won't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, but I got Lexan to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is a great idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was going to I was going to ask you about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like the the future you can see the future your predictor Lexan to me about an inch in diameter.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has to be pretty thick stuff because you're wrapping thread on it and that thread will compress it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it has to be pretty thick stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I'll do is I personally like to use Boudou A or D black.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I made up a stick with Boudou A and A Fuji.
[SPEAKER_00]: and Fuji and C.P.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who do A?
[SPEAKER_00]: I made these little sex light.
[SPEAKER_00]: Increments slightly bigger gaps.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I removed this thread, put finish on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cut the thing in half, the whole two and a half.
[SPEAKER_00]: I give bats and half of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I take the other half.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now when I do a wrap, doesn't matter what I'm using.
[SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't matter what thread can you put that piece over and see whether you're going to get the pattern or not right it's so brilliant starting point it doesn't give me exactly what I can't guarantee, but I can say this okay, this stick shows me that this bunch of threads reacts well with.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm going to do a little test wrap on my rod back it off and go, hmm, not quite what I want, but it's close.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so that's what I get into a little bit bigger or a little bit smaller.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and then you can always always I haven't failed once yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Find that niche that gives you exactly what you're looking.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it just may take something to put in your kit.
[SPEAKER_00]: and take you could I love doing displays with it other than the fact people want to buy them off of me.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, but how many hours does it take to do one of those?
[SPEAKER_01]: Enough quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no way I could commercially make those to share with I would love to share.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to make weaving jigs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I used to make all kinds
[SPEAKER_00]: and money garnered it'll never pay off yeah anyway that's that's just a little trick and and you know I don't know if we would ever have time to do it maybe someday
[SPEAKER_00]: J, if you ever make it out here, maybe we can film something at back soon that we can do a live display.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dude, you sound like Bill, I have got to get out there and go fishing with him and Keller and Kerry and you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we will do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: That'd be a killer thing to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, just hold.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't tip me with a guitar, buddy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'll bring a red fish with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to dive in and put it on your line so I can get you off my ass for.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, God, you even understand of all of all the people I didn't want to get weathered out on that you were probably the top of the list, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you got to understand that once I find a weak spot, I never like.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I'm aware.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm aware.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm aware.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no, badgers.
[SPEAKER_01]: You make badgers look soft and forgetful.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you talking about?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, in all seriousness though, like,
[SPEAKER_01]: it's so much in that like I hope people are hearing the attention to detail that you've got I hope people are hearing that not even you get it exactly the way you want it the very first time every time but it's your unwillingness to settle and the fact that the rod doesn't go out of the shop with your name on it until it's right that makes you so world-class right and so I hope
[SPEAKER_01]: there's some comfort there for people that are and look when you get down to it if you actually break this stuff down to like the unit-based economics of what goes into a rod thread is so cheap i mean like a little bit early don't worry about wasting some thread like it is the cheapest part of this whole deal it is way cheaper than your time i promise uh way cheaper than your epoxy way cheaper than your rod blank way cheaper than your guides like you can burn a lot of thread and it's gonna be okay right so
[SPEAKER_00]: But I gotta tell you something though, if you let me in a rough first place, please, and I'm not just blowing smoke here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fuji Thread is the best thread I have ever worked with, me too, and I say that meaningfully because I've worked with every thread that's ever been produced.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Fuji is always consistent, she is important to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, they you dock if you the factory's outside of Kyoto and I've been I guess five times now and if you watch the whole process from them bringing in the raw materials to scan it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: and the pressure and temperature sensitivity to the way they die, lots and all the ways they use robotics to govern the coloring and every, I mean like they are literally being as precise as they can be and what I love, you know, my favorite part of this is I learned a real lesson the first time I went to this thread factory.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know the final inspection is what they use lasers, they use spectrophotometry, they use weighing, they use all kinds of stuff to get the uniformity of the thread.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then if it passes all that,
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the most experienced two employees in the whole factory has a control batch that stays in a UV deprived room and they look at what this color is supposed to be compared to the original and they make a human judgment whether it's on or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: And even if all the lasers and lights and weights and laser spectrophotometry and I'm all this stuff, even if it all looks thinner, the bull's eye, a human can reject it and they do.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's, uh, and that's remarkable.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the stuff they do to weigh spools like there's no knots in a spool, the spools don't come apart and like they, they really do and I know I'm biased and you should take it for yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the only thing that
[SPEAKER_00]: then point.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's very good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, you're marked that I have the largest friend library in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I really don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's one guy that beats me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's that?
[SPEAKER_00]: Trying to think of his name now.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's good friend, my brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: At my age, I forget named real quick.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's somewhere up near Minnesota, a great big guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's got more than you.
[SPEAKER_00]: He lives online, he's got a little program that he put into his computer, that when people mention thread or rod building thread, he gets to know it, yeah, it gives him an alert and then he goes to buys his stuff, ton, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: He overdoses.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have more than you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, you've got a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And see.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like some of what you're able to teach us because of that, we could never learn without that same library, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the one thing I will caution.
[SPEAKER_01]: The only, the only, and to me, this is not a complaint.
[SPEAKER_01]: I use a lot of A, and I like a smaller A, like, to me, more reps of a finer thread, I have proven to myself through testing to be stronger, and it just looks higher res and better and uniform to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't use D, but smaller threads smaller gaps.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But Fuji, Fuji A and Fuji D are towards the small end of their respective sizes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So almost any other brand A is going to be larger than Fuji A and almost any other brand D is going to be larger.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, Fuji's D is the same size as some brands C. But you know, but to me, that's a good thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's that consistency batch to batch color to color, never having schools come apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Never being able to prefer important and show many things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just consistency.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how many times I wrapped a rod back in the day when I'd be using 245 good rod.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the most, it happened the most on that color, 245 and I'm wrapping and I'm wrapping and I'm on the third guide up and got to get a new school, point, put it up, wait a minute, not to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not to say.
[SPEAKER_01]: So 245 is that kind of medium royal blue, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that blue.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's the one color we haven't been able to copy to our satisfaction is I don't do something about that color.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had trouble making color when it was done right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, I was brilliant.
[SPEAKER_01]: And people asked for it all the time, I wanted it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been trying to get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we just can't, with all this technology, we cannot seem to dead on match that color.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if you ever said Fuji is fooled 245.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, I'm taking it to the factory myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've taken them electric metallic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've taken them several things, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I've got to wish that the electric I wish we could get more of that stuff was magic, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did.
[SPEAKER_01]: I still coveted it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's one where I get high lights, everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: I buy a bunch of loose.
[SPEAKER_01]: empty wooden spools or bobbins and when I got to take it off the top, I wind it onto there and then I use it for JTOBs and trims and little inlay turns and stuff like, I don't want any of this stuff away.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's gonna be no more of it ever, so I ain't throwing it away.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: awesome such a deep dive on tigers and and look doc is out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's accessible.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's written 10,000 words on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got tons of posts on rodbuilding.org.
[SPEAKER_01]: He teaches at tons of bats and events.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got lots of published articles.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got an incredible YouTube channel like and by the way I'm not chiding you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just saying I recently saw you post some work for the first time in a while and I was really happy to see that.
[SPEAKER_01]: The community is better with
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm glad you're back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Getting old is not for the week of March.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not for the faint heart, brother.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: But speaking of not for the faint heart, another thing that you do besides being the goat when it comes to teaching and reverse engineering and just look, the dock has built so many rods over the years that
[SPEAKER_01]: Bill badson's got a rack full of PCS every year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pick one up and find a problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: Find a flaw.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the consistency, the craftsmanship, and I'm glad people are hearing you talk about doing stuff over.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's about quality control.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not about it goes easy right every single time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Although you get it right first try more than most and most of the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are mistakes that you can hide.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there are, but, you know, and you learn that too with hours.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's an hour thing too, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But in addition to that, you're just your consistency, your positivity and the community, your willingness to teach and share and learn and inspire, like I just, I'm so, I admire that about you so much doc, but we would be missing the boat if we didn't talk a little bit about maybe your biggest contribution and that's all the stuff you do for veterans.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, you're a veteran yourself, not adding to or taking away from anybody's service.
[SPEAKER_01]: You had real to use your words, fun, and games in the service.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not a bunch of short deployments and cruises with shore leave, like it was the real deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was freedom, isn't free stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: you are so passionate about giving back to veterans.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I see it all the time, like you and I can barely have a conversation at ICRBE or PCS or anywhere I'm fortunate enough to see you in a year that 10 people don't come up and wanna get their picture with you, wanna talk to you, wanna say thank you to you, like your reach is just, your legacy is just,
[SPEAKER_01]: unbelievable and i know i know it's something you're so passionate about let's talk about a little bit because i think sometimes for those of us who either weren't in the service or
[SPEAKER_01]: or maybe have limited time or resources or talents or whatever to give.
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks like, ah, I kind of want to help, but I don't even know where to get started.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, one of the things I've learned from you on this is like, there are plenty of places to help.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are plenty of people who need help.
[SPEAKER_01]: It can be full time or it can be easy and minimal, but like help, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Talk to me about all the stuff you do with veterans.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, how many rods have you built and given away to support troops?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's got to be a thousand.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, easily, you know, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been involved with giving back the veterans for a very long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, when I started my business, you know, I had a veteran price, which was much lower than the average guy's price.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an interesting concept.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that kind of comes out of my service.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's personal with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when it came to 64, it was not a good time for our country.
[SPEAKER_00]: um, service.
[SPEAKER_00]: People going in the service for it, respected.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nope.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were looked on as losers and killers and whatever else.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those that were doing it did it or yeah, when you got out of the 70s and 80s, you didn't get thank you for your service.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you get now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, coming up here to Washington, the very first day,
[SPEAKER_00]: I got thank more for my service in Walmart that I did the whole 70 plus years and I lived in California.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lesson there, kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's cause you move to America.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and but anyway, back to how we can help, I donate to every organization that helps service members and first responders
[SPEAKER_00]: They're just service people that stay home, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: They stay domestic, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That same stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got wake up call at 2 o'clock in the morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a riot going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you leave, you don't know if you're coming home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Got to watch.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kiss your wife, goodbye, and that might be it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was the same thing with anybody that serves anybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't matter if it's a wartime or not, because how many times you get in the news
[SPEAKER_00]: Helicopter crashes at Camp Pendleton.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, hey, you got to practice water.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to train hard, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's dangerous.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, I think my favorites are, you know, appear in Washington.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have a thing called salmon for soldiers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's basically a two day event where about 200 boaters and their crew and whatever else they want to take,
[SPEAKER_00]: to four veterans, for free, it's not a tournament, it's take them out, everybody catch fish, and veterans have provided a boat every year, and we take out veterans, and we try to let them catch all the fish.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, you know, here's another one, you know, and sometimes you have the right spot, salmon fish, both rods are going at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, go.
[SPEAKER_00]: hand him one rod and the other guy sits over here just turns to handle real slow when he pulls out with it and you go, okay, get over here now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So give back in any way you can now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So salmon for soldiers will get back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we'll post these links, but salmon for soldiers.org, just like it sounds.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Docs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: So salmon for soldiers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I help.
[SPEAKER_00]: I virtually every
[SPEAKER_00]: with veterans.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Bill, I do about, I think, six rods or eight rods a year for him to take the different venues like PCS in California, Europe and other events around the nation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he gives them away to veterans.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or we give it to a veteran leader to then put
[SPEAKER_00]: money through the organization, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Build up funds.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I can't mention all of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even remember all the names of all of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's a lot of, there's, we would more years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's project healing waters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I know if several that you've done.
[SPEAKER_01]: But and look, the point is there's, it's a joke if we expect the servicemen and women our first responders rotating out,
[SPEAKER_01]: to be properly cared for by the VA or anything else that's barely scratched in the surface and is highly subject to where you are in the access you have to care and everything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not all VA is created equal, but there are lots of ways Rod Builders can help, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Rod Builders can donate older excess components.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not going to use to let somebody else build right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rod Builders can certainly donate time, because they certainly donate money.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can donate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rod Builders want to project healing waters every year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yup.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have a rod building competition for the members.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yup.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could go down and help them teach, you know, these people, well, first of all, I got to back up just a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please, yeah, a lot of building in general.
[SPEAKER_00]: The craft is a godsend to somebody with PTSD.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me more about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've heard this before.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've done an episode on a, I don't need to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But more than hospitals and shrinks and everything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: that those don't help, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you're building a fishing rod and every one of you rod builders out there know this to be true, you can't think of anything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that thread's going in just right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, oh, oh, I made a mistake.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got it back up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and they're something you're not thinking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was there and you're happy right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and there's something inherently positive and expectant and forward looking about it right because we're not building this rod to put it away and not ever look at it again.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're building that's go fishing right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's like here.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's looking forward in the anticipation to every fish and trip we might go on everywhere we might go to take this rod like it's an inherently and it's an investment in your future, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes just that positive mindset, not looking back, looking forward can be profound for people that are at a time that's what they need, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And we are not talking about weakness, we are not talking about people feeling sorry for themselves, we're talking about people that had been through real trauma.
[SPEAKER_01]: that has to just be survived one day at a time and has to be clawed out of and get moving forward and like some people can compartmentalize and they they can survive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you have those that just don't know what to do with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's too much too much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, you can go and talk to people all those things help.
[SPEAKER_00]: your thoughts and what you're doing to focus on the event right in front of you what's going on that tubular piece of fiberglass or graphite or whatever, right it's it's just I've seen so many people that have been in danger and what I mean by that we lose 42 people a day to suicide.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's suicide.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our veterans are awful
[SPEAKER_00]: Every time I teach a veteran, I see a profound change and the person that walked in the door and said, thank you for taking me in and helping me learn how to do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: To the person who walks out of the door with confidence and happy and look what I created and I'm going fishing and that fish I caught on my rock.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there just, it could be a gun.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying it's gonna help everyone
[SPEAKER_01]: tremendous results well it's awesome and you know here's here's I guess the challenge that I would give our audience we the audience is our community doc you know a lot of the people who listen to this podcast you're a role model to most of them I would I would wager that I would wager that there's a chance that every single person who listens to this podcast has been influenced by you personally.
[SPEAKER_01]: either through something they learned from someone you taught or something they learned from you directly or something they're going to go learn.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, and I'm really, I'm not trying to blow smoke up your ass.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like I really believe that's the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: So profound and far reaching is your personal impact.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you are beloved in the community, which I know you know, but I'm going to say it anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes, I have people say, man, I don't even know how to give back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even know how to say thanks to all the people who taught me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, here's a way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Doc would love it if you get involved with the veteran and teach them and pay it forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: Helps you might save somebody's life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, literally you might save somebody's life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And these are lives worth saving, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: 22 a day, 22 hours too high for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: 22 a day is a number that could put me in a fetal position if I thought about it too much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't overthink it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't take a million dollars.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't take a week.
[SPEAKER_01]: It paid time off Little efforts can help do what you can Donate old stuff you're not going to use just show up and help somewhere Sure, just take somebody fish and who doesn't want to take somebody fish and I mean I'm always looking at out
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you serious?
[SPEAKER_01]: I keep just lobbing you these softballs and you keep just teet him up.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, I should know better Son of a bitch I love you doc.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you too, buddy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well listen if it's no fun doing this I don't know if people are getting much out of it because we're doing a lot of bullshit in between But oh, no, they are they're getting a lot of it because you're involved, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is my community
[SPEAKER_00]: And I call up my community because from the day I got into it, I said, this is for everyone, I want to help everyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Jeannie would teach me something.
[SPEAKER_00]: I teach somebody the next day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, and it just,
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more like a big family.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and it feels good, sharing it and paying it for it and helping somebody, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I think sometimes people who don't volunteer or maybe don't naturally give back or haven't been taught to give back, don't realize.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's its own reward.
[SPEAKER_01]: You get as much out of it as what you're giving.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hate to say it this way this right now, but I usually do with somebody sooner or later.
[SPEAKER_00]: Each individual knows who they are,
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know how good I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can blow smoke, you can do whatever, but I already know where I fit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where I get my cookies is when I can get that guy over there who's making a mess up to my level.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I see his improvement, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's his improvement, but I was helping.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: There used to be a TV show where a little girl would come out and go, and I hell.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's awesome, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I want to say thank you for all that you've helped me, for all that you've helped the community.
[SPEAKER_01]: To me, Doc, it's no stretch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm serious.
[SPEAKER_01]: If there's no doc ski in this community 40 years ago, there's probably no rod building podcast in 2026.
[SPEAKER_01]: because who would be here to listen?
[SPEAKER_01]: Who would we be sharing information with if we hadn't been taught to, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, seriously, I so profound in my opinion is your legacy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know, I hope that I worry that sometimes you worry only about the one that got away or the one you didn't help or, you know, in today's Looney Day an age, you can,
[SPEAKER_01]: have somebody unhappy about anything any time right but uh i i think i truly and i think bill batson speaks eloquently about you and many of the batson pro staff members who've given so much back over the years and built such a strong community and you know y'all know it takes care of the community i mean oh yeah can't believe how many people and i think i made the post that you saw recently i had to take the time to thank him oh yeah because
[SPEAKER_00]: he's involved with me and veterans and and rollo and right all the all the organization after all his kids at sea by the way, I don't ask you and all the kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rods for kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know can and Josie's in the arts and blanks to countless I mean literally like countless, right, but again, and I kind of respect and admire that he's doing it quietly out the side door and not making a big deal out of it because that's really the way you're supposed to give, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's because it's the right thing to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not the curry favor or get positive press or anything else like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And everyone will know us by our actions, no matter what we say, people know you are by what you do and bills show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bill and that whole family show where their heart is, by how much they do, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But.
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't diminish your role in what you do as a teacher and uh, and I just, I'm, I'm, I look up to you so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: I admire you so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so proud to know you and I'm so, I literally thank God that you're one of the people who was in my life in the Rod Building community because I don't think I'd be, uh, in this happy place I'm in now.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it hadn't been for people like you who were willing to create that community for new people who had done nothing to earn it other than be passionate about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll feed off of each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we do, but I never happiness in fact me my happiness in fact somebody else and listen man I don't care whether you're a veteran or not in the world we live in today with all the negativity and all the bullshit swirling around and all the reasons to get down and focus on bad things and take a negative mindset bullshit people are inherently good great things happen every day and if this community can be a place where those kind of works are rot then I'm all in sign me up let's do
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, hey, now that we got you on and we've blown up all your excuses about technology and that you're too old to get in front of computer and all this what I got to have you back we could literally do 10 episodes you and me like what should the next episode be on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we could probably still do a lot more on tigers because I'll do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm down.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't mention the fact that tigers don't have to be done just with threat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, here we go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we didn't talk about more than two layers either, which I know you've done some messing around two layers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done tigers with paint.
[SPEAKER_00]: You wrap the thread on like a tiger, pull a thread, spray it, take off the nair to thread there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, my gosh.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then how about cheesecloth, take cheesecloth and just play with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cheesecloth will give you its own kind of diaper.
[SPEAKER_00]: Huh, I thought about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Different shuttering effect, different wire effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so we can come back for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can, we can come back for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's, you said it at the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have my fingers in to every technique out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, one technique.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not do EVA.
[SPEAKER_00]: that's okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty messy.
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, it's, look, I'm sure if you decided you wanted to do EVA, you'd be a master at EVA, like you're a master at everything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, you're just that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that you're still that little kid that wants to figure it out and it's going to buy God reverse engineer and figure out how it's done, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so on behalf of the world of rod building, thank you for all you've done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for color change weaving.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for teaching all of us knuckleheads out of tiger the right way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I really will have you back and I can't wait.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be a great day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good boy that we might fast didn't I know I'm sitting here and I'm like wow We're hour and a half in and we've like hadn't taken a breath.
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew that was gonna happen though I get I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I talked to much.
[SPEAKER_01]: I should shut up.
[SPEAKER_01]: You talk to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, they're probably put one on for like 48 hours straight and still not get everything Hey, what if we did that?
[SPEAKER_01]: What if we did a 48 hour telephone for like the veterans that'd be actually a pretty good I wouldn't be awesome is to have
[SPEAKER_00]: get together like this and then have a live session where people could come in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come in and go out, you know, click in and have them have them waiting in the sidelines with a motion.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to talk to my butch and I'm took the butch and jail my great days out doors did a little digital editorial partners and we'll figure it out like we'd be able to get a host of interesting people to talk to you on here for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know just more people get involved
[SPEAKER_00]: in this situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but I love answering questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have all the answers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you got a lot of answers, though.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got enough to be helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't have as I have a way to get to that answer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, that would be a fun thing to do and I'd be really up for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we could get others involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure Bill or Keller or for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: They do, they be all important.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're hugely supportive of anything we try to do for the community and I appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, it's been such a pleasure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love you so much, Doc.
[SPEAKER_01]: And hopefully it didn't come up as too much of a fanboy fan fest today, but listen, you're the goat, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no, there's no question.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I will have you back.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll pick some topics.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll go deeper on tigers and we'll, there's a lot of other cool stuff you do.
[SPEAKER_01]: We should talk about too, guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's equipment we can talk about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I think about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: All my stuff is handmade.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't do any wrapping on a machine anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have this fascinating since 2005 pay attention kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, it's all it's all hand wrapped stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm pretty fast at rolling that blank.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, and you can hear it in the video.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like in here, Doc has built most of his equipment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can see some of this stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got a really unique thread carriage, circular thread carriage, you've got really unique kind of rollers and everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, it's sort of like flies in the face of what other people are doing in many ways, but it's like, look, I can't argue with this result.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the results speaks for itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what we're all after.
[SPEAKER_00]: So well, you shed it on the finish.
[SPEAKER_00]: I whip my stuff that looks like whipped cream.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, really, in a used cup, and what you use is the bristle in a brush.
[SPEAKER_00]: But hey, the cheapest brush, the cheaper brush you can find.
[SPEAKER_00]: And put it right at that brush when I'm done with it in a jar of alcohol, so I can use it the next day.
[SPEAKER_01]: hey you can take uh... you can take the uh... lab and ask you out of pollin but you can take the pollin out of the lab and ask you i don't know i don't know if it's a it's working for you your results if if we're just looking at the results the results are beautiful and i got no criticism and they broke amen brother amen uh... well and we thank you for inviting me oh gosh you're
[SPEAKER_01]: to the here's to many more this is the first of many and i'd like i appreciate so much you being here thanks for all you do for the community and and thank all of you all for tuning in and listening uh... right here on the mastering rod building cut podcast please remember to like down low subscribe wherever you get your podcast content and and i really sincerely take a moment search your heart and see if you can't find some time space talent something that you could get back to our veterans or whatever calls mean something to you because it's
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the impact of little actions like that that have such a big impact on this community.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Doc, love you, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll see you next time, brother.
[SPEAKER_01]: OK. All right, we'll see you all at your next time on the Mastering Rod Building Podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.