Sorry for the delay in updates. I have been working on a few other projects and had sidelined this rod for a bit. Over the last few days as we get ready to dip the rod I started on my finish work, I have now re-epoxied the furals onto the rod and started to wrap them. I will say that I'm not happy with the size of the step the furals cause so I?m thinking about how to fix this for a nice clean wrap. Also upon a closer inspection I found that the original reel seat did not allow for a proper fit of the reel feet. To fix this I needed to remove the whole seat and re-cut the thumbnail. In having to do this, I learned that my glue job was a in fact a very good one as the only thing to let go after soaking the seat in boiling water for a while, was the connecting rod and hood. With this rod being broken I now needed to drill out the 3/8 hole to remove the old rod. I also needed to change the reel seat wood as, no matter what I did the one that I used was not willing to work with me. The old wood finally gave up the seat hard ware after leaving it directly on the wood stove for an hour and I still had to struggle to remove the hardware. The new Seat wood has been sanded and polished and a coat of minwax added. After one more coat of minwax I will be had whipping on a few coats of helmsman to give the seat a glasslike shine.