Thanks Coach. I've thought about that because I ran into the problem you noted. Since this is my first rod, I don't know if I trust myself enough to start chopping the graphite. Once I put everything together without gluing, I found that if I screw the fighting butt off, it will fit into the case, so I think I'll just go with that for this rod.

I just started taping it up yesterday (I'm working SLOWLY):
I wrapped the 1/2 inch protruding end with masking tape (maybe 8 wraps) until it was the same diameter as the end of the blank. I then used tape to wrap that and part of the blank together, creating my second stack wrap for the reel seat to fit snugly. So, that should give my fighting butt a little more support than just expoxying the 1/4" that fits snugly in the reel seat itself, which was something I was concerned about the first time I put any weight on it. Has anyone else ever done this, or advise against it?

One other question I have is how important is it to find the spine of the 2 butt ends of a 4pc rod? Obviously, it doesn't flex much in those two pieces. The top two pieces were easy to find, but since the bottom two don't flex much, I was having a harder time. In addition, I was trying not to put too much pressure on it because I didn't want to crack the graphite, since I haven't wrapped the ferrules yet. Any suggestions?

[This message has been edited by ameyers41 (edited 15 March 2006).]