CJB Custom Hardware

Above and below photos: On my lighter trout rods, I make a custom-fit tiered butt cap for a double-slide band seat. Both rings feature an internal taper that prevents the band from slipping off the reel foot. All my cork checks and winding checks are custom-made by hand to fit the specific rod with exact precision. Cadence in the hardware is simply a prerequisite; form and function always work together.

www.cjbovarods.com

If you were to line my cane rods up with other cane rods around the world, you would immediately be able to pick them out in a lineup. As visual designers, both my wife and I understand the concept of visual cadence and the maker's fingerprint. She graduated from Pratt Institute with a Master's degree in industrial design in NYC. I graduated from ACCD (Art Center College of Design) in Pasadena, Los Angeles, with a degree in illustration and graphic design. My father was an engineer from MIT. My grandfather, from Bellefontaine, Ohio (the old Iron City), was a fabricator. It runs in our blood. 

There isn't a day that goes by that we aren't creating something with our hands, using what we have learned our entire lives. We did not suddenly discover what computers could make in the last decade and call ourselves designers; we trudged through decades of hard work, dedication, failure, financial hardship, and discovery. The process is always difficult but well worth it on a daily basis. The ritual of doing and making is simply good for the soul.

Being a craftsman is a lifestyle, and a very long journey that pays very little but rewards you with something more valuable than money itself, creative satisfaction fed by passion.

Above photo: Some finishing touches on a 7' 3wt.

In a world that is changing hourly by AI and its ability to give individuals a false sense of accomplishment, “the handmakers” forge ahead and dig deeper with more conviction. My community, among other craftsmen, artists, and tradesmen and women, is tiny, but we all believe in our abilities, past achievements, and our dreams for the future. We are not shaken by current trends, technology, or marketing. It's simple: create our best work every day, and evolve and survive with our brains and our hands. That's what we are paid for, that's what we live for. In the end, I am not creating a white paper deliverable that is slid across a boardroom table; what I make is a living, breathing artifact used as a tool. If you are afraid of AI, don't be. Every craftsman who's worth his or her weight can tell what kind of fingerprint is created by a very advanced high-speed 5-axis ultrasonic CNC machine and what is tooled using more traditional hand tools, such as block planes, lathes, and hand mills. At what point is there a departure from the crafted artifact into a production artifact altogether void of the maker's mark? Many manufacturers pride themselves on productivity and seamless automation, which is fine, but is the end result considered intrinsically a crafted artifact? Something for us all to reflect upon. Many people today simply do not care.

“Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere 

reed shaken in the wind.”

~Johannes Brahms

Wabi-Sabi is a traditional Japanese philosophy focused on nature's imperfections and the beauty it embodies. A philosophy that embraces natural imperfections that make art and artifact meaningful and so very special and unique. I'm not saying you are getting any less of a quality product from a 5-axis, high-efficiency CNC machining center that is all about enhanced productivity and automation. What I'm saying is that the craftsman's bench bears the human touch on the artifact, which, like art, makes it intrinsically that much more valuable, again embracing the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi used as the example above.

Above photo: A winding check for a custom fit on a swelled butt section. 

My components are all made on a traditional lathe, using wheels turned by hand, and are entirely done by eye, with no computer input, just a micrometer and calipers. The tool lathe originated around 1300 BC, when it was used for woodworking in ancient Egypt; the Romans later advanced it to fashion iron shafts on a foot-powered treadle lathe. Bluing on the nickel silver hardware is all done by hand and bears the very subtle inconsistencies of old turn-of-the-century firearms.

Every component on my rods is ever so slightly different from rod to rod. This runs counter to the conventional wisdom of modern manufacturing. I learned to use both lathes and mills as a 6th grader at Punahou School in Hawaii.  At the time, I was using very large Atlas lathes that had been used at Punahou during WW2 to make munitions for the Allied forces. In today's world, kids don't learn these skills at all in school because of liabilities and the belief that they are no longer valued. It's sad, but the reality of our American educational system is as it stands. The renewed interest in the handmade artifact, devoid of AI and high-tech automation machines, is rising again. Hopefully, 2026 will bring our society full circle, and our creative rituals on our benches and in our studios will be better understood and appreciated. For my peers and living mentors, I bid you my best wishes, stay focused on what's most important, the craft of doing and making.

Happy New Year and a productive 2026

“The hand of a craftsman engaged in his craft is always pure.” ~Manu

~Clint Bova               Click link to return to my rod site  ~  www.cjbovarods.com