Gilding the Lily
A question that I receive quite often when I’m working on a commission is what I can do to emulate other builders or companies and although I may take some inspiration, I believe that every builder has a sort of '“intellectual property” that would be wrong to just copy outright on my own builds. I thought I would take the time to give a little bit of inside knowledge into how I go about designing my rods as well as which companies and rods give my inspiration the process.
One of the easiest things to see on my builds is that my rods are definitely defined by the colorways staying in that “Earth-tone” realm. At the implicit requests of customer, I will get as crazy as they want but on any one-off builds or something personal, I prefer to apply the KISS principle: “Keep It Simple, Stupid.”
Gilding the Lily
If you’re wondering what the title of this blog post means, first I will give a direct definition and then explain what it means in my design process.
Gilding the Lily is the process of adding unnecessary ornamentation to something that is already beautiful in its own right.
Inspirations
R.L. Winston - The first high-end rod that I got was a 6wt Winston Alpha+ which I use for streamer and bass fishing. The first time I held onto the rod I just didn’t care that it was monochromatic and I still don’t care. The gloss green blank with visible rolled graphite is a thing of beauty, there is no need to church it up with flashy colors or exotic tipping because that Winston-green is as synonymous with excellence in fly fishing as British Racing Green is in the motorsports world. High performance and in a league of its own, so much so that Winston doesn’t need to be something that it is not. In my eyes, R.L. Winston is the antithesis of Gilding the Lily, which is what I love about them.
Scott - One of my favorites for their mastery of color schemes. Usually, Scott incorporates three colors of wraps into their rods with one of those colors really popping, normally a white, black, or yellow.
Thomas & Thomas -
CF Burkheimer - Besides the performance of their rods, one thing that I have always loved about Burkheimer is their aesthetics. I particularly love the way that Burkheimer uses varying levels of thread to incorporate a tactile component into their builds. By building on layers of epoxy over a thin thread wraps before finishing it off with one flooding coat, you are able to create an interesting series of ridges. These tactile ridges help to break up and otherwise smooth rod section to make a unique look and feel.