Hi Gurus,
I need to stip the reel seat and winding check off the bottom section of a 7 weight, the tip was defective and I recieved a totally different blank. Any pointers on doing this?
It was glued on with 30 minute expoy. I was thinking of baking the section in an oven at 300 deg for an hour. I’ve heard that epoxy “lets go” at around 200 deg.
Bill
Ummmm…that’ll get it off…In a ball of fire!!!..Try slipping the butt section into an oven bag and then, Into a pot of boiling water for a time…Heat without fire…and it works well…
“I’ve often wondered why it is that so many anglers spend so much money on,and pay so much attention to.the details on the wrong end of the fly line.If they took as much care in selecting or tying their flies as they did in the selection of the reel and rod,They might be able to gain the real extra edge that makes it possible to fool a fish that has,in fact,seen it all before” A.K.Best
“Wish ya great fishing”
Bill
Sure wish I’d known that one a couple years ago! Would have saved me Dremel time and the expence of a new grip/reel seat.
Trouts don’t live in ugly places
I have removed real seats using a heat gun or hair dryer. The 30 minute epoxy bond is fairly easy to break down. The trick is to allow enough time for the heat to penetrate into the center of the assembly. Cork and wood are good insulators, so it takes awhile. Higher temps are not a good substitute for time. Use the lowest temperature that will work and take your time. You may want to wrap some scrap cloth around the exposed rod blank above the winding check to the rod finish doesn’t take the full force of the heat gun.
I would heat up the area with a heat gun while hand turning the blank for 5-10 minutes. Then wait for 15 minutes to allow the heat to penetrate. Repeat as needed. The heat effect on epoxy is cumalitive, it might take 2-3 cycles. Eventualy you will be able to rotate the handle and reel seat as the epoxy breaks down, then just slide it off with a twisting motion.
The oven sounds a little extreme and you might easily over do it.
The hot water method also works well but it might damage a wood reel seat. (Sorry, didn’t catch the oven bag trick until a second reading…)
I have heard of folks using a heavy skillet filled with salt or fine sand, heated on the stove or oven to around 300 degrees. Then bury the rod handle in the heated material for a few minutes. This is a method opticians used to use for bending plastic eyeglass frames. Great way to apply an even controled heat over a specific area.
[This message has been edited by kengore (edited 27 August 2005).]
I have tired several methods and like the heat gun second best. Kengore is right on target with using the less heat principle. What I found very very good is a 100 watt spotlight bulb mounted in the bottom of my drying cabinet. I simply set the end of the reelseat on the top of the light bulb, go do something else for about 10 or 15 minutes, and they usually come right off. I am sure that there are a lot more methods out there that work equally as well, never hurts to know as many of them as you can!