In the last few years I have purchase a few custom rods with down-locking sliding band reel seats that were manufactured by REC and possibly Bellinger?
On all three of these rods I can barely get the sliding band over the reel foot or even in the end cap which ain’t a good thing. The funny thing is that on some of my old Leonard rods that have sliding bands I never had an issue. I realize that some newer reels today have a fatter reel foot but the reels I have tried are older reels.
Is there something I am missing here or do the modern reel seat makers have a different idea of where the bands are supposed to fit on the reel foot.
:? I will agree with you. I have a Heddon#13 with a sliding band, I also have vintage reels none of which will fit. Im not much help, the best I can suggest is find a reel which comes close and grind it down. Thats what Im facing
I already dressed down my reelseats but I had a very nice reel fall off one rod but FORTUNATELY the water broke its fall and it wasn’t damaged. I now keep an O-ring on the reelseat over one foot just in case but I never had to do that with any older rod I ever had.
Hi Bamboozle, I’d prolly take the rods to a fly shop and try reels on the seats until I found one for each rod that worked well with the slide bands and end caps and also balanced the rods to my liking. Something I wouldn’t do is alter a nice custom fly rod or reel to fit.Somehow that just doesn’t seem like the way to go. You could even go so far as to take the reels and rods to your custom maker and have reel seats installed that will work. The feasability is there. Hope some of this helps !
I had a similar situation trying to fit some older Pfluegers on my boo rods. I notice that the problem was actually the width of the feet (not wrapping enough around the reelseat). I don’t recommend this but what I did was put the feet in a vise a gently squeezed it which made it narrower by arching the feet. I sweated bricks doing it, but it worked. Just make little adjusments and test for fit. Please don’t try this if you are talking about a pricey reel.