ok, so i know it’s a fly fishing site, but I was hoping you guys could help me anyway. I have an older fenwick E-glass baitcasting rod with the one handed pistol grip on it. the rod is dead slow and has a super soft tip and plenty of backbone that makes it great for catfishing with circle hooks. however the one handed short grip makes it hard to cast for distance with. does anyone sell a longer handle where the blank glues directly into the reel seat and doesn’t continue thru the butt? I know that is how some of the ugly stick rods are made, as well as a few others i have seen over the years. Like I said, I love the action of this rod, or I wouldn’t bother…
Hugefish,
You can easily ‘replace’ the pistol grip handle with a longer one. But, you’ll have to ‘build it’…you aren’t going to find a ready made glue in unit.
The steps are easy, though:
First, take the old handle off. Some of the old style short grips had a ferrule that the blank went into, and then the ferrule went into the reel seat/grip assembly. These are easy. If the rod isn’t one of these, you can sometimes remove the existing reel seat and grip by cutting it off of the blank. You may need to just cut the blank just in front of the foregrip/reel seat.
Measure the butt end of what is left of your blank. You’ll want to acquire a piece of aluminum tubing, fiberglass tubing (old rod blank?), or such that will slip OVER the butt end of the rod blank. Cut the tubing to the length you want the handle section, allowing about six inches of ‘overlap’. Clean off any wraps, markings, etc., that are on the part of theblank that will be glued into the new handle.
Measure the outside diameter of the tubing, and purchase a reel seat that will fit onto it. You can also buy a foregrip and rear grip of either cork or foam that will also fit, or you can build your own ‘grip’ with cork tape or any suitable material. Buy a ‘winding check’ to go onto the blank and slide down against the new grip to give a nice clean ‘finish’ to the installation.
Put the handle together with epoxy and let it cure.
Slide the winding check onto the blank and slide it up out of the way. Use some fine wet/dry sandpaper to degloss the blank. Build up the rod blank with tape until it fits into the tubing easily but doesn’t wobble (you are trying to take up the ‘taper’ of the blank so the handle sits solidly in place without movement). Epoxy the blank into the handle. Make sure it’s aligned properly with the guides. Clean off any epoxy that’s outside the assembly and slide the winding check into place.
At this point you are done. You can add a butt wrap of thread if you want to.
Buddy