Here's a question from the Volume 4 - Issue #1 issue of RodMaker magazine:
"...I just took the reel seat off of the Berkley Rod I have.
I stripped it down to the bare blank. Now, I had a Pinnacle
rod that was broken and I took the reel seat off of that one.
Boiling was the trick. I found that the seat had been mounted
on a cardboard sleeve. Seems a little cheap to me. Is that a
commonplace sleeve to use in the fishing rod industry?
I made my own new sleeve out of phenolic and machined it down
to the proper inside and outside diameter. I will make two
bushings from it, each about 1 & 1/2 inches long. Should
I fill the gap between the bushings with epoxy? I am going to
use Epon 151 which is a 24 hour epoxy. Also, I extended the
handle 2 & 1/2 inches with a G5 fiberglass rod that I tapered
to fit inside the blank. Should I extend that rod all the
way into the blank past the reel seat? The rod below the
seat will have cork bushings. Does this all sound like it
will work to you? thanks. Garry. . . El Torra, CA
To begin, yes cardboard bushings and masking tape spacers
are the norm for mounting reel seats in the fishing rod
industry. Is this a viable way to mount reel seats?
Most of the time, yes. Is it the best way? No, not
at all. Custom rod builders like yourself are better served
by taking a bit more time and fashioning rigid yet lightweight
arbors for supporting a seat anytime the difference between
the seat diameter and blank diameter is more than just fractions
of an inch. Your phenolic bushing bushings will work fine, but
you may be able to perform the same job with arbors made from
lighter, yet equally rigid material. [Covered in depth in this
issue's Techniques column, Mounting Reel Seats.]
I am not familiar with the Epon adhesive. It may well be a good
one for this purpose. Most of us get excellent results from
regular 2 part slow-cure epoxy such as that marketed by most of
the epoxy finish suppliers, or that which can often be found at
the local home hardware store. Trondak's Rod Bond is another
truly excellent gel epoxy which has, in fact, been formulated
specifically for use on fishing rods. (Oh no! Charges of bias
will once again be raised!) There is no need to fill the gap
between your bushings as the bushings themselves possess a high
degree of sheer strength. Thus, any extra epoxy you pour inbetween
the bushings serves no purpose other than adding additional weight.
Don't do it.
Your final question really depends upon the particular rod you are
working with and the demands that are expected to be placed upon it.
If you expect it to see hard and heavy use under demanding conditions,
then extending the fiberglass extension into the handle area will
certainly gain you some measure of extra strength. There are
many excellent ways to approach handle extensions but yours
should certainly prove sufficient. Perhaps we will offer a few
more way of doing such in an upcoming article.
~ Tom Kirkman
Publishers note:
If you have any tips or techniques, send them
along! Help out your fellow rodmakers!
~ Publisher, FAOL
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