12ft Spey

I have a spey rod! Whoohoo. Well, probably more accurate, I have a 12ft rod with a double handle. This one was tricky as I have no idea how a spey rod is supposed to feel and/or behave. I have never touched one before.
Huge thanks to Philip for the rod sections. I had this blank put together the afternoon I got the box of broken and single sections. I was so excited.
The blank is actually 6 sections, but I glued some together to form a 3 piece blank, with the middle section just slightly shorter than the butt and tip sections.

As mentioned, I have no idea how to rate this rod, but I'm thinking it's around 7/8/9 weight. I don't have a line yet and I won't be able to buy one for some time. For now I'll be experimenting with a 9 weight floater I have lying around. I'll see if I can at least get some sort of shooting head going with that.

The build is a bit of a mix match otherwise as well. I really didnt want to order anything and just used what I had and tried to keep the weight down especially at the top. The tip top and first 4 guides for instance are bright chrome single foot snakes, followed by single foots in some kind of blue grey Ti finish, followed by the same finish double foot snakes and then the strippers.
Grip as always courtesy of JC le Roux and a couple of burnt rings I had already. The wood butt is pear, which I salvaged from a neighbour's tree a couple of years ago and buried to let it rot a little. One thing I learned afterwards is that you are not supposed to use an oil finish on light coloured spalted wood, turns it orange and muddy. Oh well, still looks nice.
http://www.flytalk.co.za/forum//atta...id=25848&stc=1