I spent the later part of 2016 prototyping a new line of rods that I thought would not be a rigorous as it turned out. I knew that coming up with a spey rod that was in the quadrate format wouldn't be easy, however I didn't quite have the full breath of all the specific issues I would run up against. I have made a few hexagonal spey rods that came out fine.... I never really pursued them much since I just didn't get really excited over them. The single-handed fly rods have kept me quite busy the past few years, so I was very content to stay focus on them. However after being at Spey'o Rama spring 2016 my interest was re-sparked by new friends and the community there. My plan was to "simply" mutate the equation for my existing Freestone Quads into a new spey quad. I say mutate rather than clone because there simply is no easy way to blend out the equation from say 8 feet to 12 feet and have the action hold true. The only way to make this stretch was to jump in and make the first rod... see how it feels and casts and go from there. Luckily during Spey'o Rama I was able to Meet and become friends with James Reid, a rod designer and maker in Vancouver Canada. With his advice, over phone calls, imessage and video sharing, I was able to find my way to a taper that began to speak to me. Along the way I've made 7 of these rods to date. I discovered allot, and was able to grow past some technical hurdles that don’t exist in making hex rods. From the simplest things like turning the grip to keeping the silk thread evenly flat all became more difficult as the rods also became more dimensional. What seemed pretty straightforward in the planning process even became a challenge when hand planning strips that start at .530 in dimension. I found it was impossible with my current set of form to keep the strips from rocking in the groove of the forms, resulting in strips that had inconsistent angles by in some cases 2 degrees when all 4 strips were nested. I spent a whole month making by hand with Mill, file and drill a complete new set just to hand plane the butt sections. In the end allot has been learned. One thought, "if" you can find someone to make you the forms for under 1800$ and you have the spending cash its the way to go. But, if you only have 500$ then destiny calls! Below are some pictures from the process of making the first quad spey rods.
