I have been building rods since I was a young fella, over 45 years, but after my early retirement 8 years ago my HOBBY got out of hand and I have been making several hundred rods a year. All these years I have been using masking tape as backing for reels seats and sometimes cork. Recently I have had a significant number of rods that were 4, 5, 6, 7 years old returned that had loose reel seats and or loose cork. In taking them apart, my warrenty policy is probably too generous, I have found that the masking tape that I have been using for backing appears to be breaking down with exposture to moisture. I have felt that if I used enough epoxy to seal the ends against moisture that the masking tape was fine, and after all many of the major rod manufacturers used masking tape. This may have been a mistake and I now think that I am going to switch to dry wall tape and or graphite arbors. The masking tape under the reel seats and cork after a few years of exposure to moisture here in the wet Northwest seems, over time and exposure to moisture, to be turning to what can probably best be described as a wet mush. It is a sticky gooey mess, in those that I have taken apart, that has no structural strength at all. Those that are using masking tape as backing may want to take a rod that is several years old apart and carefully look at the tape backing particularly those in wet or high humidity climate.

I hadn't heard of that happening at all emory. I haven't been building very long, maybe 5 years, but have never had a handle or reel seat fail.. the fella I learned from is on his 15th year or so and never had a failure. We both live, work and fish in Alaska, which qualifies as a wet climate... also, my fly rod is wet almost every day of the summer. On reel seats, I always leave space between my tape arbors, about half the width of the tape. This lets me put 4-5 arbors in a typical reel seat. I make sure to use enough epoxy to fully fill in the gaps, and also coat the tape thoroughly. I like to scuff the blank underneath too, to give an extra surface for the tape and epoxy to bond to. The seat fits on snug, but not tight, as I don't want to move the tape when I'm putting on the seat. I use 5 minute flexcoat on all my seats and handle kits. If your doing all that and still having them come back, I may need to readress what I do. With the epoxy rings between the tape rings, though,and all bonded solidly with the blank, I can't imagine it happening.

Keep in mind that masking tape is limited by the adhesive that is on the tape. It's not made for use in structural applications to begin with. Not only moisture but heat and age cause it to break down. When very large bushings are made from it you can expect some trouble down the road.

I know all kinds of people will chime in and say how they use it all the time and never have problems with it, but masking tape is the only arbor material I know of where you can do a good job making your arbors and a good job with your epoxy and you can still have problems down the road. I think Emory is probably a pretty careful builder and he's had problems as described above so I would guess at least in his case the tape was the culprit.

One last thing, I tried the Flex Coat arbors and yes they are faster to fit and glue than any type of tape. I had been using the brick foam arbors but I'm a dedicated Flex Coat arbor man now. These things are fast and slick!

Emory --
Not enough dog hair in the epoxy as a binder -- LOL!

Actually I used to use cardboard tube as arbor material (some turned to mush) - and masking tape (some turned to mush). Then I tried fiberglas boat repair material as an arbor (cracked and crazed / lost adhesion with metal reel seats). As an experiment I cut off two reel seats from my own rods (one that had failed and one that had not). What I found was that the ones that held up had epoxy "dams" on both inside ends of the reel seat that SEEMINGLY kept water intrusion to a minimum while the one that failed did not. Both rods had orignal custom grip from Clemens for grips ... the original more 'squishy' material which may also have allowed some moisture to seep in.
Since I started using drywall mesh material and slathering on two part paste epoxy I've had no problems. Now I suppose I'll have to try the arbor route again --- I did try the original graphite arbors when they came out -- some 15 years ago( can it be that long already?). I thought they were a bit "crumbly". Now I see more folks switching over to these new ones. How are they to work with? Easy to ream? Dense? Resilient?

Emory it sounds like you may be using masking tape as the base for anchoring the entire reel seat to the blank, and it is sure to fail in an application like this. In my application the intent in using masking tape under a reel seat is to center the reel seat on the blank only. I have been building rods for many years using masking tape arbors and not once have I had a reel seat bond failure. Many of the rods I have built are seeing continuous harsh use in the coastal area on a daily basis with no ill effects.

Example on how I install: On a 5.5" long reel seat I'll use four 1/2 making tape arbors, recessed at least 1/8 inside the reel seat. Thus the masking tape take up only 27% of the bonding area under the reel seat. The rest of the space is filled with the paste epoxy I use for bonding (kardol).This epoxy paste hardens extremley hard, and is impervious to moisture.

Using drywall tape and shaping arbors from graphite are excellent methods too, but for a high volume rod builder expect your production to suffer due to the amount of time it takes to fit each and every rod.

Lou

Ken, I knew if I waited long enough, someday you would finally admit that the dog hair WAS the secret binder you have hinted to in the past and some of use have even placed bets on. Because of your slip up I have won a dollar two twenty five bet. Shoot, I can go to McD and get a soda and some fries. Thanks Ken.... I'll split what's left over with you..... Rick

I have always used masking tape for all my heavy saltwater reel seats. This is the way I learned to do it from non other than Leon Todd himself many years ago. As stated by Lou, it is only used like a shim to hold the reel seat centered on the blank and as a dam to keep the fluid epoxy from moving. I use 1/4 inch tape with 3/4" spaces between that is filled completely with epoxy. In my case, I use rod bond but I used to use 30 min. epoxy. I don't use the 5 min epoxy because it is not as waterproof and I want a longer working time. With rod bond, I can assemble the entire handle all at one time. I can make my final adjustments after the handle is complete. Only downside is the curing time is extended to 12 hours or more. It does sound like you are using masking tape with no spaces between to get good adhesion with the blank directly to the reel seat. I build rods up to 130# class and never have had a problem. Like Lou said, the masking tape takes up less than 27 % of the surface under the reel seat. Less when using only 1/4" tape.

I personaly use the masking tape quite often , but only up to a 1/16 of an inch thick , anything thicker , I use the fiberglass tape. I will still use the regular(1/4") masking tape for the 2 end bushings though , it is much easier to center the seat to the blank with the end arbors , then the mesh tape arbors in the center will do the real holding. I also try to get a good dam of rod band on each end to create the seal , to prevent any water penetration. Haven't experienced any problems yet , time will tell. Thanks for shareing your experience with us Emory.
John Dow

The new Flex Coat arbors can be sized, fitted, bored and mounted in under a minute. They are not ever going to be affected by moisture, age, heat, etc., and will be around long after all of us are gone. Except for situations where you only need to take up a very small amount of space, I'd think that everything else is really obsolete at this point.

When you have something that allows you to do a much better job, and to do it much, much faster, I'd think it's something you'd want to look into.

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Skeleton hardware and wood now. Sorry guys.
Seriously though, those Flex Coat arbors are good.

I got some advice from a nice "chap" in Wales (thank you Dave) and that is to use wine bottle corks as an arbour. Simply drill, glue on and turn down to reelseat ID.
It works great and I've had great pleasure in "producing" the required corks from red wine bottles ;-)

Could there be any downsides to using cork as an arbour ?

Peter

Peter,
Great idea. I too would get a lot of pleasure from producing the required wine bottle cork arbors.

Ken,
Your poor dog's tail must be just about hairless by now. You are going to have to switch to cat hair.

I have also used the masking tape as shims with spaces for epoxy and have always attempted to insure that the ends were sealed. It may be that the ones that I have gotten back with loose reel seats were ones that I did not do a good job of getting the ends sealed. I really do not know for sure. The tape is such a mess when you take the reel seat off that you can not tell for sure. But it is such a pain in the neck and so time consuming to repair that I am going to switch. I have not used the new Flex Coat arbors. Maybe I will give them a try.

Mel,
Normally I use the 5 min. epoxy because it is so much faster to set up and I can continue to work on a rod in just a few minutes.
What do you know about the 5 min. epoxy not being as water proof? I have never heard this before.

Cork arbors have been used for years and they're fine. The Flex Coat arbors are much, much faster, but cork is still fine.

.......

Why would Flex Coat arbors be faster than cork? Don't you have to run through the same exact process for both? Or is it because the FC arbors fit inside the reel seat and the cork must be sanded down for the seat to fit?

Just curious.

Last Rod I built (well....have yet to flex coat it, will do that tomorrow) the fit between blank and insert was so perfect (after just a touch of rat-tail filing to the insert) that I didn't need to arbor at all.......It was that perfect, tight but not too tight, fit.

Were they all like that!

I've built about a dozen rods over the last 3 years......certainly not the experience of most of you guys.....but it was the only one that worked out that way. I've had a couple that needed only a couple of wraps of masking tape...but nothing like this.

Keith

The Flex Coat arbors are part of a very clever system that someone should have thought of long ago.

The arbor/s is pre-bored to 1/4 inch. You can mount it inside the seat beforehand or mount the seat over it after the arbor itself is mounted to the blank. The key to the ease and quickness of this system are the pilot bits. They have a 1/4 inch tube that guides the bit through the arbor on a perfectly straight plane. Choose the size bit that most closely matches the rod blank and zip it through the arbor. Takes about 5 seconds I'd guess. The arbor will compress very slightly but if you need to taper ream it at all, you'd still only be talking seconds. Not much work would ever have to be done in this area.

In the time it takes a builder to wrap a single band of masking tape to creat just one 1/4 inch arbor, you can zip through the Flex Coat arbor, adhere it to the blank, mount the seat and be done and have time to spare.

Anybody that does a lot of rods and needs to mount seats quickly and easily, should take a hard look at this system. Tape will never provide the type of rigid and long lasting mount these arbors do, plus. winding tape arbors just takes so much time compared.

Instructions for doing this were in a past issue of RodMaker, but it's so simple that detailed instructions really aren't neccessary.


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A year or so ago , you couldn't find graphite arbors as a seprate item to buy on most sites, at least I couldn't......that's probably why I haven't used them. I checked 2 of the sponsors on the left , and both list them as an item you can get alone in sets, or multipals. I wanted to try the arbors after reading about them in Rodmaker, now that they are available , I think I will give them a shot. JD

They're slick as a whistle. I tried one about a month ago and it's so easy and so accurate I wouldn't ever go back to anything else. Almost foolproof.

I've only used tape arbors in emergency situations, and while I haven't heard of any problems, I still don't like the idea that I used it, simply because of the material.

Ever bought an old roll of masking tape that is just plain brittle? Sealed in epoxy, it may last a long time, but I believe that even the smallest amount of non-coverage will lead to trouble. I don't have xray vision so I can't tell if epoxy pulls away from the tape here or there when you put on the reel seat. Just because factory rods use is, doesn't mean it's a good thing. If everything the factory did were right, the only guys in this business would be the thread artists.

I'm a longtime cork and graphite arbor user and never thought I'd switch from graphite. After trying the flex coat arbors, I'm sold. These things are incredibly light, far easier to work, and extremely strong. I can do a FC arbor in 1/4 the time it takes me to work a graphite one. Not only are they wonderful to work with, they are no more expensive than graphite arbors, once you factor in the size.

For very lightweight, super strong, full length seat support, that costs less than a dollar, and can be worked in less than a minute..... I can't see using anything else anymore.