I have jsut recently started making my cork grips on a mandrel that I got from Any Dear. It is a great way to do it and the grips come out very nice....BUT.........It is a bear reaming them out to fit the blank (esp. the butt grip). I am using a reamer I purchased from one of the vendors (graphite with glued on abrasive material) but it appears as though I will be forever doing this and in the mean time I seem to be putting a lot of stress on the grip. Can I put the reamer in a lathe and speed the process that way?

Any help would be appreciated.

Spencer

I normally use a handheld drill to do this. My reamers are just old blank pieces and I spiral a small strip of sandpaper around them and then insert them into the drill like a normal bit. Seems to work well and gets the job done in 5min rather than 45.

If you make a complete set of tapered reamers, rather than use just one, it will go a lot faster and easier. Use pieces of scrap blanks from old rods, powdered grit from one of the sponsors, and epoxy. Also, to make it easier, epoxy grips (scrap handles) to the ends of the reamers, and wear rubberized gloves for a firmer grip. Use not only an up-and-down motion with the reamer, but, when the fit is snug, rotate the cork itself with your other hand, while pressing down. I do a typical butt and foregrip, starting with a 1/4" hole, in about 15 min.

i have three sizes of rattail files. i cut off the tang and then chuck them into a half inch drill chuck on a handheld drill. on most blanks i can get close or right on. sometimes i clean up with handheld reamers. if you use the rat tail file run the drill in reverse (counter clockwise) or it will cut too agressively.

Spencer,

The best stuff that I have ever used is the Flex Coat Reamer Abrasive which you glue onto your scrap blank with contact cement. I glued a ferrel on the butt end so that I can use a hand held drill. I can ream a 10 inch butt grip in maybe 30 seconds. They also work equally well as a hand reamer, just take a little longer.

Later,
Gerald Mc

The FlexCoat Reamer Abrasive for use in a power drill works really well.

I tried epoxying two different sizes of grit to blanks and have found, like Gerald, the FlexCoat material far superior to glue-on grit. Make reamers in various sizes to fit the daimeters you're likely to use and put a ferrule on the end, or glue in an old drill bit.

Stan

Spencer,

You could try drilling out your cork to fit the smallest area of the blank you intened to attach the handle to and use a larger mandrel prior to shaping. It makes the reaming time alot less.

Regards

I do the same thing that Doug does. I drill each cork ring before gluing and then quickly sand to fit the blank.

Gerald,
Where did you get the abrasive material and what is a ferrel? Do you mean one of the metal pieces that
you put on bamboo roods to fit two pieces together?
My mind went blank on ferrel.
Cheers old friend. Ellis

Reaming grips should be fairly rapid if you use the advice given here. If you use reamers made with grit take time to blow out or clean out the grip well before you slide it on the blank. Pieces of grit can come loose in the reaming operation and remain in the blank. These pieces can scar the finish on your rod as you slip the grip in place.

Like Stan said and especially the first use or two of a new reamer. Mine is over (I'm guessing) 18 years old and hasn't done it in many years, but I do remember the first few grips that I reamed...

Putter

I buy 40 grit sanding belts for hobby sanders at a tool outlet. The belt is about 3/4" wide. Neat thing is they are defective belts in that they have come undone where they were joined. Of course that's where I would have cut them apart anyway. Since they are useless like that to other users, they sell them really cheap.

I drill my cork rings to the size mandrel closest to but smaller than the blank so that when I remove the finished grip from the mandrel I have a minimum of reaming to do to fit the grip to the blank. Ralph

Ellis,

Excuse me, that was a misspelled word. Should have been ferrule. The ferrules that I used were some metal ones trhat were used with the old Feather Light casting handles in the late 50's and early 60's. An old drill bit glued in the butt end of the reamer will work just as well.

About all of the sponsors that sell Flex Coat should have the grit material. It comes in two sizes 25 and 75 feet and is 1/2 inch wide, I bought the 25 foot roll and made three kinda long reamers with it and still had some left over. The good thing about it is it has a material backing instead of a paper one. Roger demo'd the material when we had our first Texas Get Together three years ago and several of us bought the material while there.

Later,
Gerald Mc

I do the same as Ralph, except I use threaded rods. I have them for every 1/16" and most of the time final reaming is minimal. John Butterfield

Like many here, I bore my cork rings to the closest mandrel diameter of the grip area of the blank. Sometimes fore grips and rear grips get different diameters even. Then they are glued up on the mandrel and turned.

I made my own reamers. I took some crappy premade grips I had and cut them in half to use for mini handles. Then I took 2 cheap fiberglass rods blanks. I cut those into 16" lengths in staggering steps. So, the largest diameter of my first length is larger than the smallest diameter of my next length. I started with a tip diameter that is small enough to go into the foam arbors and worked my way to the butt of the rod blanks. I then took 1/4" wide masking tape and masked off a ring around the tip of the reamer and then ran a strip of tape spiraled down the length of the reamer. I brushed some 2-ton epoxy on the reamer, coated with grit, and placed in my rod box for 24 hours to cure.

One of the best home-built tools I've done in a while. I always have the right diameter, they all overlap in diameter, they work much better than my purchased reamers, and they are very comfortable.

I chucked up a regular drill bit in my lathe, a couple drill drill sizes larger than mandrel hole. then set tailstock so grip will just fit between it and drill bit. Center grip on tailstock and eyeball drill for center. Crank handle on tailstock to feed grip on drill bit while holding grip in hand, it self centers as it feeds.After you run tailstock travel all the way you can feed by hand rest of drill bit length. turn grip around repeat. Then go to larger drill bits. Then ream to fit. When doing foregrips don't drill tailstock. ED...

John, I use allthread for my mandrels,but only because I cannot afford Andy Dear's. (my medical problems are expensive) I thought the subject matter made the difference between mandrels immaterial. I do have all the sizes from 1/4 to 1 in. and use the appropriate size as I stated above. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. Ralph

Oh, I use the rattail files and also applied epoxy and then Clemens grit (I've had and used the same reamers that long) to several old blank sections to have the right size final reamer for anything I've built or repaired so far. Ralph