Did my first alignment dots...easy enough! More importantly though, I tried poping the bubbles in my finish with a lighter held VERY close but to the SIDE, not underneath. Of course, once you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Let me tell you, this rod had ONE bubble in the entire finish! WOW. Holding the lighter to the side of the finish while rotating leaves now ash/soot and provides concise control over the heat application. I would literally watch the bubbles JUMP right out of the finish!

I also tried a wrap that was simply done by placing down 2 threads of black and wrapping with the garnet...when the wrap was sufficient I simply unwound the black, leaving an almost perfectly-spaced spiral of garnet thread traveling up the blank. Not too shabby...

On the downside, I don't like how the garnet thread ended up going with the hardware on this rod. To make matters worse, I tried gray thread SANS color preserver for the ferrule wraps that needed them (some guides pulled double-duty as the ferrule wraps). Anyway, dispite being nice clean wraps the just don't work on the rod (gray turned to black, garnet just nees something else to it). Solid color wraps just don't look good...they just need "something". Or perhaps it's the fact that the color from the blank, and the two different threads are all so close together....I don't know! Just my personal taste, but I'll probably cut the wraps off the rod next year and redo it! Or maybe I'll sell this one to someone who likes it and build another...

As far as inletting this custom turned grip, I just used a wood-boring bit on a hand drill...easy. A bit of sanding got it to be the perfect snug fit! Just take your time in drilling and sanding and you shouldn't have ANY problems.