I know better than to jump in on this, but, I will anyway and please understand that I am not taking any side and do not mean to upset anyone. Lets put aside who said what and who was wrong because neither case will eliminate the problem which is that the "receiver" feels he has a rod that he cannot use due to the cork grip being too large. What needs to be done is provide the "receiver" with a means to turn the grip down which I feel can be easily done by either the builder, another builder or the "receiver". I know that I have purchased factory rods that I felt the grip was too large for my small hand and I just took the rod to a rod builder friend of mine in Tullahoma and he took the butt section and chucked it up in his lathe and used sandpaper/emory cloth and within a matter of miutes, had turned the cork handle down. Unless there is another problem that I am not familiar with, I really do not understand why the builder cannot do the same as the builder here does. He just taped the butt of the rod so his lathe chuck did not make any marks on it and turned the lathe on and sanded the grip down. This only takes a few minutes. This same local builder has built rods for me and he always called me to come over when he was ready to turn down the grip so that I could grip it and let him know when he had it right.

Just my 2 cents worth and nothing more. This whole post has turned into a battle on who was wrong and who was right and the question was how to sand down a grip that was too large.