Rod build

[Ken L]

Epoxy mixed and ready to go. Little did I know at this stage that the syringe had delivered more hardener than it should have and this was going to go off VERY quickly. It started gelling and getting very hot as I was coating the bottom of the rod. I quickly pushed the butt cap into place and cleaned up any excess glue, paying particular attention to the rings of tape that were already a snug fit for the corks and the face of the butt cap that would match up with the other corks.

 

I then mixed up another batch of epoxy and slid the next two pieces of cork into place with a thin smear of glue on each face to bond them together. Its important to slowly rotate the corks as you slide them down the blank as this gives good contact. Most of the excess glue will fill the voids where there is no tape but any that squeezes out between the corks can just be wiped off with a cloth.

[Ken L]

After ten minutes, the masking tape can come off. The gelled excess epoxy can be lifted off with a fingernail or can be removed with a light sanding. Either way, it comes off easily as its still soft.

As you can see from the photo, the problem with the fast setting epoxy wasnt an issue because the tape ensures that everything lines up perfectly.

[Ken L]

Build the blank back up with Masking tape again so that the reel seat will fit snugly. Ive also masked the reel seat itself and marked where the clamp for the reel is.

[Ken L]

The next job is to sort out the foregrip. I cut a section of cork to the length I wanted and mounted it on an ordinary household drill by building it up with tape until it was a very tight fit.

The forces involved in sanding a bit of cork arent great and this seemed like a reasonable plan - it worked perfectly.

 

The cork quickly wore a hole right through my sanding block but when I turned the block over and used sandpaper, that turned out to be much more resilient. As you can see, I sanded the taper and slightly rounded the edge that will sit against the reel seat.

Suprisingly, the sanding process produced very little airbourn dust.

Edited October 6, 2013 by Ken L

[Ken L]

Here's the reel seat and the new foregrip mounted on the rod with the tapered cone that I will use for the other rod in the background to show the difference in size.

 

You can of course just use a tapered cone (as I will be on the light rod), and this is what it would have looked like if Id fitted it here.

Edited October 6, 2013 by Ken L

[Ken L]

As you can see, theres a slight void in the cork at the front or the foregrip so Ill make sure that that sits under the rod where I wont see it. This photo also shows that Ive tapped the blank right down to within a mm or so of where the foregrip will sit so the rod doesnt get any glue or epoxy covered fingerprints on it.

 

The tape is built up on the blank to ensure that the reel seat and the cork mount centrally, everything is covered in masking tape to protect it from any mess and I have black marks on both the reel seat and the foregrip so that I can easily line up the reel seat and that little void in the cork up with my masking tape spine marker on the underside of the rod. And we fix the whole lot in place with epoxy just as we did with the rest of the cork, remembering to line everything up with the spine marker at the end.

[Ken L]

While the epoxy is still tacky, strip off the masking tape and slide the plastic winding check into place.

 

After a light sanding, we have a finished handle but those photos can wait for the final instalment.

 

Next the guides....