carbon fiber fly grips and antler experiment

[baitwaister]

Here are a couple of my carbon fibre grips that I have been working on. Mine are finished with a buffed Satin finish. I also do not sand mine down to a perfectly flat finish and leave just a hair of texture. The Full wells weighs 16.2 g and the half wells ways 14.6 g.





Here is also an experiment to see if I could get antler to bond to cork well enough to turn on the lathe

[Uncle Jesse]

Did you turn the carbon fiber down to shape or form it from a "cloth" and resin process. That should have great feel to it, you will probably think the fish is trying to snatch the rod out of your hand.

[baitwaister]

It is a wet lay up process over a rigid foam core.

[dunfly]

I'm trying to get a handle (no pun intended) on this carbon fiber thing. Is the foam core poured and molded, or does it come rigid and then turned like you would cork? Also, it appears to be more rigid than a cork grip. Does this put extra strain on the butt of the blank just above the grip? How much weight do you save? You indicated the full wells grip weighed in at 16.2 g. How does this compare with a cork grip? I am designing an out of the box concept rod for casting long distances in saltwater and would like to incorporate one of these grips.

[Bass_Bug]

Nicely done!!!

I still can't get over how cool those elliptical inserts are (the antler butt is way cool as well). As for the carbon fiber fiber grips, I can see on of those on a black Matrix blank with matching black Matrix reel seat and all black hardware. The "Ninja Rod"!!! Unless this is your proprietary design, I myself (and others I'm sure as well) would like to see step by step pics of the process,

[baitwaister]

You take a cylindrical foam core, mount it to a mandrel and turn to the desired shape. I do not have a good quality cork in a full wells configuration to weigh against but I do in a half wells. The half wells cork weighed in at 15.6 g. Not a lot of difference but still lighter. You can get that lighter still by going to lighter density foam. I am currently using 6lb foam and a person can use 4 lb. As far as extra strain on the rod, the skin is more rigid than cork but the core is not so there should be little or no extra strain. This would only come into play if you had a blank that flexed all the way to the butt section. I would think that a rod designed for casting distance would be a moderate fast to fast action rod depending on casting stroke would not be bending to the handle. In fact depending on line size, many rods have an independent fore grip that is placed above the regular handle to hold on to help land the fish. That foregrip will put more strain on the rod than one of these grips. I learned how to do these from several sources. RodMaker magazine V10 issue 4 and V11 issue 6 cover it. You can also get a tutorial (no Pics) on Riley Rods website. They also have the all the supplies you will need.