Many years, beginning in mid-January, the Texas FlyFishers holds the first of their classes for the year, Beginners Fly Tying. About the same time, the club also offers its two rod building classes, Beginning Rod Building and a few weeks later, Advanced Rod Building. These classes teach the students how to pick out your rod blank and other components, lay out and warp the guides and then, apply a professional looking finish to their rod at, in many cases, a fraction of the price of a upper end production rod.
The first class, Beginners Rod Building Course, is a two-day, all-day course, meeting from 8:00 am to 3:30pm (the instructor does permit a lunch break), usually held on consecutive Saturdays. In the weeks prior to the first class, you will be provided with a list of components necessary to construct your custom rod.
The club also offers an Advanced Rod Building Course to those who have previous rod building experience. This class will take you to the next level by teaching advanced techniques like creating decorative butt and guide wraps, feather inlays and special marbling techniques. This class is held only if a minimum of 5 students sign up.
The End Result
This is a rod built from the blank up by Joe 
Nicklo, formerly the Instructor for the club’s Beginners and Advanced Rod Building classes. From Joe: “I finished my 8 wt., 9′ fly rod project. It has a window reel seat with burl wood insert, full wells cork grip with matching fighting butt, both with burnt cork caps, green burl and Tiger Trout cork from Custom Fly Grips.Two-color thread wrap with gold trim wraps. Feather inlay with 18 different inlays over a full-length black under wrap and individual feather inlays on guide wraps. Finish is four-coats of Flex-Coat thin epoxy.” So, if you would like to learn to build your own rod, contact Education Chairman Frank Schlict.
Where are the classes held?
Hope you got an answer before now, and that you were able to attend the class in January. If not, they are held at the Bayland Community Center, the same place that TFF meets.
I can highly recommend this course. I have built two rods, a 6 wt and an 8 wt, and I have used them to fish all over Colorado and Alaska, in Canada, and in Africa. Your guide will really perk up, when you show up with a custom rod that you built.
Is there a class scheduled for 2017?
No class is scheduled yet.
Eric,
Sorry to be late in responding to this question. As mentioned by Dave the class has not yet been scheduled but we are actively working to get one arranged within the next several weeks. I will let you know as soon as the dates are available and will post here.