For those builders living “down under,” North Fork blanks are heading your way thanks to our distribution partner, Gary Howard, at Australian Rod Manufacturers. ARM will be carrying a variety of North Fork blanks, and will be working with us to create models specific to Australian species/conditions. You can contact ARM here:
Phone: (07) 3881 3550
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One reason Gary got into this business is to help his custom rod builder friends. He wants to hear from you. If you have questions about blanks, rod making, graphite, CCA, fishing, whatever. Write them here (or email them). I’ll make sure that Gary gets as many of them answered here on Monday as he [...]

The 905 (and likely 906) Next IM, two-piece fly blank(s) are getting really close to “go time.” After a couple of late nights of CCS-ing, deflecting, re-building, tip-swapping, and just plain old-fashioned wiggling, things are looking good. The catalog blanks will be picked from several excellent candidates after a final build-out and test-cast round. Published [...]

Just finished adding some more new designs for you bass anglers.
Crankbait – one-piece in Next IM

CB 661
CB 701
CB 704

Spin Bass – one piece in Next IM

SB602
SB 604

Spin Jig – one-piece in Next IM

SJ 543
SJ 545
SJ 603
SJ 604
SJ 605
SJ 607

If you’re looking at these and thinking, “Where can I get one?” (the blanks, not the bass), [...]

No new post yesterday, but we have a good reason. We were too busy with our next releases!  We finished our testing and are ready to produce some new models.  All are one-piece in Next IM material.
Freshwater – one piece in Next IM:

FW 461
FW 501
FW 561
FW 601
FW 702

If you were waiting on any of these, [...]

As most Connection readers likely know by now, North Fork is using the CCS (Common Cents System) to varying degrees on our blanks. There have been a few questions about how we are getting our measurements, and how that might impact builders who also do CCS, or are at least interested in what info the [...]

Every rod should break. Sound surprising coming from a blank manufacturer? Don’t be surprised, it’s just the reality of designing for high-performance. For example, if you “high-stick” (no, not the fly-fishing technique) a high-performance rod, you may be encouraging a break. The design features that make high-performance what it is are often at odds with [...]

It’s common knowledge that most blank manufacturers provide blanks not just to custom rod makers, but to other rod companies. G.Loomis for years built blanks for a number of customers who built up those rods under their own label. Few outside the industry ever knew or cared.
With the movement of having blanks and/or finished rods [...]

Just wanted to note that we received a comment from a renowned Australian Rod Maker. We’re thrilled that folks recognize just how big a risk it is for us to release objective measurements for our blanks.
http://northforkcomposites.com/blog/2009/10/10/ccs-page-updates-and-etc/#comments

There is definitely a “special language” of the fishing-rod world, especially among manufacturers and builders. While manufacturing has its some of its own lingo, there is a fairly broad spread of terms that apply across the board. At North Fork, we like to be able to communicate effectively with our customers and others in the [...]

We have been working on getting what we call the “keystone” fly blank—the 905—locked in, and are probably a week away from it. We have the power dead-on, we just want to see a slightly faster action (CCS 66/67-ish) Once we have the pattern set, the other fly blanks in the catalog will come more [...]

“I could build you a rod that would never break, but you wouldn’t want to fish with it!”
That may be one of Gary’s most-famous blank-designing quotes, and it reflects both the realities of high-performance design, as well as Gary’s own philosophy. While a small book could be written about how Gary approaches design, there a [...]

Blank weight. Everybody wants to know: Why didn’t the 66X and 705/9 Mag Bass have listed weights when we shipped? Well, last week NFC customers were “asking” for blanks (as in “Where are our blanks?!”), so we had a wild day of packaging, made FedEx by literally two minutes, and then sat down and said, [...]

Every one-piece IM catalog blank (other than what’s already been OK’d for production) went into the oven today for a mega-bake. We’ll sift though it all this coming week, put into production that which meets spec, and re-pattern that which doesn’t. We are going to be busy!
And then a stack of our modified two-piece mandrels are [...]