Matagi UL for upcoming UAG Southern series 2016

2nd rod for this year is another MATAGI hollow fiberglass blank ultralight built. I did that the same fish weaving design on it. Just thought I need more practice to get it right.

It is far from what I expected it to be. Still need more practice, I guess.

Partially finish.

KR concept Fuji k-guides

After a few coating of epoxy

Adding shadow lines effect to MATAGI rod decal

Grey and black camo EVA for the split handle. Clean and simple handle with no winding checks.

No winding check

K-guides line up

and the butt cap....

This rod is now ready for the Ultralight Anglers Gathering -  Southern series 2016 in Melaka on the 28th February..  YEAH!!!!

Here are more photos of the rod taken under the bright blue sky..

Completing the ROD

Weaving the rod (decoration) is one thing, completing it , is another thing...

Upon completing the weaving, then the reel seat comes in.

After a few layers of epoxy coating... I do not want to elaborate on the epoxy and sanding process. 

Then the guides.

I am trying a new brand of guides for this rod. Nice and cheap guides from China with SiC rings for a fraction of the price of Fuji guides.  I guess no harm trying it on ultralight rod.

Dark brown wrapping with light brown trim complimenting the colors of the rod weaving.

After epoxy.

Done, KR concept guide ultralight spinning rod.

Rod Weaving.. not something new

I did my 1st rod weaving project 8 years ago with little guidance from the internet. It was very hard to find any step by step instructions. The easiest weaving or rather rod wrapping I did was dragon scale wrapping. It was pretty straight forward compared the cross wrapping.

Cross wrapping with intended design is complicated. The positioning , the colors and the wrapping direction plays a very important part in the out come of the design.

Rod weaving is not what I like to do, but just to get the kick of it I tried doing one recently.

Weaving is still bearable, it's the epoxy part that kill the fun. Epoxy.. epoxy.. sanding down... epoxy.. sanding down... epoxy... repeat until you are satisfied with the flatness of the epoxy coating.

Here's a weaving pattern I tried last weekend.

Credit to Ademir Romano.

A very detail illustration stey-by-step , I would say it is like " ROD WEAVING FOR DUMMIES ". It is easy to follow and you can never go wrong if you follow the instruction. 

Some photos taken during the weaving. At a very beginning stage.

When it is done.

I used brown thread to match the timber insert of the reel seat.

Both sides.

And... after many coating of epoxy.

There!! That's it.. The outcome is really close to the intended design shown in the illustration.

Not that difficult to do after all...

NOW EVERYBODY CAN WEAVE...

:)