Any advice?

[ol' blue]

I just picked up a lathe for cheap (well, actually, free). I've built lots of rods in the past, but haven't turned any inserts or grips. Any pointers on this before I get started? I've never used one before, so I'm not quite sure how to do it. Do you bond the cork to the blank before you turn it or is there a better way? I am assuming that you can turn your cork with sandpaper, but I'll have to get some tools to cut the wood.
I'm going to save up a few bucks to get a good 5 or 6 wt blank, and then put a turned insert/grip on it. I have some copano burl rings from Lamar, and am going to add a couple of burnt rings for trim inserts, and am looking for the right wood for the seat. I'm considering some nice walnut with stain and poly under A7 hardware.

[Arkriver]

Well, I've not turned cork but have been turning a lot of wood in the last yr+. I would think that you do not want to start out turning cork. You first need to use and sharpen your tools. I understand that Harbot Frt. has a pretty good set for not much $ that might get you started. Then I would start by playing with some wood, possibly just scrap 2x 4 cut down to 2x2. See what the tools do. Read a couple of books, probably can find at your local library. Learn to sharpen your tools. Cork is very soft and I would think a dull tool would shred it pretty fast. Ask around and you might find some local wood turners to help get you started. WARNING: woodturning is addictive and gets expensive fast - worse than rod making- The voice of experience speaking Good Luck Allyn

[ol' blue]

Thanks for the starting pointers. My dad is a retired woodshop teacher, and believe it or not, that is partially responsible for me never taking up woodworking before. It is a long story, and isn't as ominous as it sounds. I can see me getting into some serious turning at some point. It looks fun so far. I'm sure my lathe is a cheap one, but it has a drill chuck in it, and a bowl turning attachment. I will need some cutters, and some other basic bits and pieces including a rest of some sort.
Anyway, I'll definitely be picking up pointers from him as well as doing some serious practice on scrap, but the cork is the part that I'm not sure about more than anything. Does it get turned on the blank or is there another method that is better?

[kengore]

If your lathe has a hollow head stock you can turn the cork on the rod, but you will need to rig some kind of a support for the end sticking out or the rod may go out of balance and oscillate to the point of destruction. A cardboard box with V notches cut at either end will work just fine.

I prefer not to risk the rod blank in a high speed lathe, so I turn my handles on a mandrel made of a 12" length of threaded rod, I use the same mandrel as a clamp to glue up the cork rings. Rub a liberal amount of candle wax over the middle part of the threaded rod to prevent any glue from sticking, a hot air gun will help melt it for good coverage. Place 2 nuts (use 2 so they lock tohether) and a washer at one end, thread on the cork rings with a light coat of glue between each layer, I like Titebond II. Place another washer & 2 nuts on the end and tighten to clamp the rings together. Note: cork is very springy, it is easy to over tighten the clamp and squeeze all of your glue out of the joints, use only enough pressure to remove the gaps. I don't like epoxy for this task, it is too dense and will leave ridges in the handle as the cork wears over time. If you use a preformed handle you can skip the glue up, just clamp it on the threaded rod and go.

Mount the rod in the lathe and turn the cork to shape with sand paper. My lathe has a 3 jaw chuck in the head stock and a 3 jaw chuck mounted in a live center in the tail stock. If your lathe has a fixed tail stock you can use a hex coupler in the tail end and turn on regular fixed point, just place the point in the open end of the hex coupler. Add a drop of machine oil so things spin easily. (A hex coupler is a 1" long hex nut designed to join 2 pieces of threaded rod)

I like the open mesh paper used for sanding drywall, it won't clog up as easily. Use 80 grit for rough shaping, then work down in steps to a 200 grit for a smooth finish. for the final smoothing use regular sand paper, the mesh tends to leave small ridges and the regular paper will take these right out. Go easy, the cork will cut quickly.

Remove the threaded rod and slide off the finished cork handle. If it sticks to the mandrel you might need some extra persuasion...drill hole into a pine board that is slightly larger than the threaded rod, place the mandrel into the hole so the cork is supported on the edges and lightly tap the other end of the threaded rod with a hammer.

Good luck and have fun. It's great to be fishing with your very own custom handle. Try laminating small pieces of wood veneer or other soft materials between rings for a really special custom cork grip. The redwood bark chips sold for garden mulch make nice inserts. Sand two sides flat on a belt sander and cut plugs of the material with a hole saw. Avoid very dense hard materials for inserts, over time the softer cork will wear more quickly leaving the harder material sticking up too far.

[ol' blue]

Thanks! That explains a lot. I would have never thought to use drywall paper. I happen to have quite a bit of that laying around. As you are sanding down, do you find the wood will work slower than the cork and leave a high spot? I would love to do that sort of insert, but I'm worried that it will reduce at different rates and be unusable.

[kengore]

You are right on the money to suspect that the harder insert material will sand more slowlly than the cork. If you use a small sanding block you can force materials of different densities to sand at an even rate. The block makes sure the high spots get more sanding.

If you use a hardwood insert make it very thin, 1/16" to 1/8" to minimize the effect. Birch bark or redwood bark is very soft and will sand easily at a similar rate as the cork. I have had good results with redwood burl (very soft wood.) For other woods I try to stick to really thin veneers, just used as an accent here or there. I also try to avoid using any dense materials in the part of the handle were I grip, so that any ridges that may form are away from my hand.

If you are going to turn hardwoods for a reel seat you will want to use standard turning tools, sanding would just take too long. A lot of the really nice reel seat materials are very difficult to turn. Burled wood is a great example, the erratic grain patterns that look so nice are a mess in the lathe, structural failures in the wood are common (ie, the blank explodes when an unseen flaw is exposed, wear a face shield!) Keep your cutting tools extra sharp and use the techniques bowl turners use for end grain ( do a web search, lots of bowl turners out there.)

You can use a router or dremel tool as a cutting tool. You will need to build a jig to hold the power tool in the lathes tool rest, turn the lathe at very slow speed and let a high speed flush cutting router bit bit do the work.

I have had fair success roughing out reel seat blanks using just a router table and a quarter round over bit. You saw square sections of the wood about 12" long and round off the corners with a bit of the correct diameter. Start and stop the cut about 2" from each end, the uncut corners stay in contact with the table and fence and keep things flat and level. Once all four corners are rounded over you have a pretty fair 'dowel'. Final shaping can be done in the lathe with sand paper.

I like to bore out the centers in the lathe, chucking the reel seat in the head stock and using a stationary drill bit in the tail. This type of rig is 'self centering' the bit can't wander off line. There are inexpensive vices used by pen turners designed for center boring on a drill press. The lathe rig works the best however.

[ol' blue]

More great info. Thanks Ken! I'm getting excited to start messing with my new toy.