Product Description
PRODUCTION ON PAUSE
Until we pack up the lingering inventory, we may have a few pre-made guides from this series available. Doesn’t hurt to ask if you need something. No promises.
Hi Folks, we are no longer producing this line – for the time being. Once the shop is moved and set up again, I expect to resume production on these and many other of our Golden Witch and Arcane Component Works parts. After an item is listed as ‘Production On Pause,’ please don’t request that we make an exception for you; the tools to make each paused item are already boxed up and ready to move in a shipping container. Thanks for your understanding and patience as we shift from a full-time operation to a semi-retired part-time operation. I expect our sabbatical will last the entirety of 2023, with operations firing up again in early 2024. – Russ
Franken-Stone™ Hydro-Welded™ Guide Series
Freshly Harvested Vintage Rings Brought To Life Again With Our Exclusive Hydro-Welded™ Frames!
A Re-Ground Franken-Stone Ring Bezelled With Roped Silver Wire.*
These up-cycled guides are our ode to Mary Shelley’s modern Prometheus, the monster constructed piecemeal by Doctor Frankenstein. Victor Frankenstein haunted the graveyards and mortuaries seeking organic parts that had recently cast off their mortal coil. We’ve re-visited the Golden Witch collection of vintage German guides searching for beautiful – inorganic – agate, agatine, porcelain, & carbide rings that are soldered into frames the likes of which will never sell in quantity to restorationists and collectors. Many of these parts are beautiful, but functionally dead. After twenty years of resisting the urge to deconstruct entire bins full of these lovely guides and tiptops, we have succumbed to temptation. Using a combination of snips and torches, Drake & I have begun harvesting the good bits – the historic rings. By relying on vintage rings, we reduce the environmental impact associated with mining and cutting new stones, so these guides are a big plus for clean waters! We design and build stripping guide frames to suit the historic rings, showcasing each in perfect form. In rare cases there are a thousand or more identical rings, but in most instances there are fifty rings, or five, or fewer. Many of these rings are larger, best suited for heavy duty guides. If you’re making a custom fly or Spey rod for salmon, steelhead, shark, tarpon, or taimen, you’ll want one of these guides. Bigger frames means more labor & more silver solder. Deconstruction before construction – also more labor. Limited supply – there’s that, too. These will be priced according to our investment and our ability to make more – or to make no more. Like our Founder’s Series of guides, any of these Franken-Stone™ Guides that are for sale will be available for immediate shipment. Expect prices ranging from $50.00 carbide ring guides in light frames up through $200.00 or more for extremely limited edition agate rings set into heavier frames. Some of the Franken-Stone™ Guides will feature ornate silver bezels and these, which resist easy categorization, will also be lodged with the Jewelry Tier Series of guides.
Here are currently available, and previously available, Franken-Stone™ Guides. Below these several links to the catalog pages is more info on the Franken-Stone™ series, so you can marvel at the destruction and re-integration. Unlike truly custom guides, these guides may be available for immediate purchase, unless another maker beat you to them. Click the caption text beneath each guide to jump over to that guide’s product page….more info, and the ability to buy one.
22mm OD Wide Orange Swirl Agatine With Brass Bezel Set In A Vintage Super Duty Frame (99)
18mm OD Narrow Red Agatine With Brass Bezel Set In A Vintage Super Duty Frame (89)
15.5mm OD Wide Porcelain Ring With Brass Bezel Set In A Vintage Super Duty Frame (89)
10mm OD Wide Porcelain Ring With Heavy Nickel Silver Bezel Set In A New Hyrdo-Welded™ Frame. (69)
As we have time to craft other oddball guides, we’ll post them here.
The Walking Dead – These Ancient Guides Do Not Sell, So We Cut Them Up To Harvest The Rings!
The Remains – Cut Down Frames Ready To Recycle.
Vintage Franken-Stone Rings – Freshly Harvested.
More Of The Harvest – These Are Fancier!
And here are a four more piles of rings we’ll be using to make Franken-Stone™ Guides:
While we don’t have any Franken-Stone™ batches for sale yet, here are a few more prototype guides we worked up for photos.
Heavy Duty – GUIDE Weight – Hydro-Welded Frame With Vintage Agate Ring.
Large Agatine Rings Set Into Hydro-Welded Frames…GUIDE Weight (Heavy Duty) And Regular Wire.
Large Agatine Rings Set Into Regular Weight Frames – Standard Frame On The Left And Medium Frame On The Right.
Before long we’ll start making batches of these Franken-Stone™ Guides. Check back here to see what’s available for you to harvest!
*In the interest of transparency, the guide which is currently the primary product image is NOT set into a Hydro-Welded™ Frame. It’s a extra heavy, or super duty, vintage frame which we have in very limited quantities as raw (unformed) frames. The forming, shaping, and polishing of the frame was done in our shop. These frames are the frames that convinced me I could make a better frame than our first generation frames. It took a few years, but now we’ve got them. This stone looked just like the rest of the grooved agates pictured higher up on this page after it was removed from a Walking Dead guide. We re-ground the stone to remove the rough patches, then re-shaped it and touched up the groove. The bezel was crafted in-house from rope twisted Argentium (a nominally non-tarnishing precious silver alloy). This is a durable beauty, ideal for a presentation-grade salmon rod!
Here’s another guide made in the shop…it’s not Hydro-Welded™ because we didn’t have the Hydrogen torch back then. This one features a hard silver weld that was completed with an Oxy-Acetylene torch. I dropped the picture in here because the ring is another that was harvested – singularly, not as part of a batch – from our vintage collection, then re-ground, re-polished, re-bezelled, and set into a custom frame. If you need bomb-proof salmon guides, we can make them.
