My 6 mo old rod has a small piece of filler missing.( It is sad that a $600 rod has such poor quality cork.) It is only a few mm defect but it is located where my thumb lies so I feel it on every cast. Any simple fix for a non-rod builder?
It is sad that a $600 rod has such poor quality cork.
What company makes a cork that will not come apart? Cork has little pits in it. I know of one company that mixed epoxy with cork dust as filler. It worked perfectly!
For a while.
I do not know of any company that makes a cork handle that might not have pieces drop out. To complain that it’s poor quality for a $600.00 rod is unrealistic. Didn’t you examine it before you paid such a high amount?
Be it a very expensive rod, or an extreamly cheap one, you can inspect the cork till the cows come home, and chunks are still going to fall out after you’ve used it a few times. That’s cork. If you can’t get cork “dust” to mix with glue to fill the hole, use a good wood filler, a dry one you mix with water, and fill and sand those holes. That’s just one of the many joys of flyfishing!
Trouts don’t live in ugly places
On my heavier weight rods I bust up the corks regularly
To make filler, use a rasp to file a wine cork to make some cork dust.
Mix the cork dust with some wood working glue and fill the offending spots.
Sand when dry
If the grip is actually busted …
a whole different story
Chuck;
Sleep well, ol’ pal…
Tomorrow will be a new day and we never know what excitement lies ahead…
Snoopy;
Actually, I can’t tell one day from the other…
You might try a little Minwax wood putty in golden oak, for a quick fix.
Bill O.
[url=http://www.oysterbamboo.com:8df00]www.oysterbamboo.com[/url:8df00]
The cool thing about cork is that it is a natural product and it is what it is. I have bought the best flor grade cork that money can buy and it had some “pits” in it. I have rods that cost $30 and I have rods that make me shudder at the thought of having to replace them and guess what…they still have the voids in them and have been filled at some point in time. the ONLY beautiful solid cork I have seen in a very long time was in a Winston bamboo rod that I saw recently and it was from stock that was about 30 years old that Glenn keeps for his rods.
Thanks for all the ideas. The rod was a gift so it was not inspected before purchase. I know there is a shortage of good quality cork. I guess that I should be happy that the handle is not made of plastic like the kind some wine makers are using in place of cork.
Well, I haven’t got even a fraction of the experience with handles/rod building that these other guys have, but here goes:
Isn’t part of the reason cork makes such a great handle for a fishing rod BECAUSE of these little imperfections present in all cork? Aren’t they what give the grip its, um, GRIP? Sure, those nice smooth ones look nice, but personally I’d rather have a grip that’s not gonna slip out of my hand when I get dunked in the river while fighting a fish/wading (which happens a lot with me, as I’m somewhat lacking in “grace”). I say what really matters is how well the rod performs (this includes the grip). If it looks great and performs just as well, you’ve got a fine rod. If it catches plenty of fish but the grip looks a bit worn, it’s a WELL USED fine rod. If the grip is all smooth and un-blemished, but you just can’t seem to get the hang of the thing, then it really makes no difference how nice the grip looks. Unless you’re using the rod as a display item, don’t worry about any cosmetic imperfections, just go fishing with the damn thing!
Joe Martin
Salem, OR
One of my hobbies is fancy inlay. I save some sawdust / sanding dust from every kind of wood or stone I work on in little film cans. It can be used later to fix imperfections (can’t call them ‘flaws’ when working with natural materials). Mixed with epoxy and inlayed, it makes an undetectable fix. And for really fancy inlay, I seomtimes do whole sections of (for example) pipestone dust into ebony.
Save a jar of cork dust whenever you are turning a cork handle down!
DANBOB
The sticky kind…try the 30 minute stuff.