reusing reel seats

[fly-chucker]

I broke my 7 wt today in the but section. I have a new blank section comming and I would like to use my old reel seat. By doing a search it appears that I can get the old one off by putting it in a bag and submersing it in boiling water (it has a wooden insert). I'm assuming that all of the components will come apart in addition to the seat comming off of the blank. Do I need to clean the old epoxy off with a little acetone or denatured alcohol. Then glue it all back together?

Any help appreciated.

Kevin

[lou t]

If you are interested in just recouping the reel seat and not the rod blank, Use a cork reamer to ream away the blank after poping the end cap.

[ET custom flyrods]

you should not have a problem with the boiling method. Every once in awhile one can be stubourn though. If that does occur you can follow lou's recommendation. Good luck

[David Parker]

Do what you can to stay away from the acetone, for it can really do it to certain finishes. Rubbing alcohol may be a good alternative depending on what adhesive was originally used on the reel seat. As mentioned already, I would also suggest start with the boling water heat and go from their.

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[flyfisherjoe]

David's right about the Acetone, too strong a solvent. Alcohol won't do much good on epoxy.

It will be gooey after heating it. On the blank, try scraping with non-metal things. Popsicle sticks and fingernails work good. Old playing cards scrape a curved surface real well.

The metal parts you can clean with solvent but I would remove as much of the glue before the solvent. The wood you can scrape, even sand the part that is covered with the metal. The more glue you get rid of while it's soft, the easier the whole thing will be.

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Joe

[Arkriver]

Those sample credit cards you get and those plastic doo-hickeys that are used to close bread bags make good scrapers and will not damage a blank

[dleo6446]

Acetone can do some serious damage to some blanks. Try a little lacquer thinner. I have had great success using dry heat to remove reel seats and the beauty of heat is that it makes the old adhesives easier to remove. Anytime you are using chemicals, it is a risk unless you know what you are dealing with on both ends. One never knows the composition of the graphite blank nor how it would react with harsh chemicals.

[fly-chucker]

I'm not too concerned about the blank. The butt section is now in two parts.

Thanks for all of the input. As soon as I get everything back from St. Croix I'll start boiling.

Kevin