With exposed blank casting reel seats available in various inner
diameters,does this mean the entire length of the seat is that
dimension or do you still have to use arbors in them? Thank you.

Gary,
No the area that is intended to fit tightly on the blank is the area around the exposed portion which is about half of the length of the reel seat. There is about 3/8" behind this area and about 1 1/2" area under the threads that is larger. I do not think that the area at the rear requires any fill. This is a space that is designed to hold the extra epoxy that will be forced back by a tight fit. The area under the threads does require some sort of backing though because the plastic is pretty thin in this area of the reel seat.

Gary,

Those reel seats are a love/hate kind of deal with me. I love how they feel once properly installed but hate trying to fit them to the proper place on the blank. Nearly all of them have to be reamed to some degree, which required me to make a special set of reamers on pieces of blank with strips of emory cloth spiralled and glued to them for the cutting material. I have metal ferrules glued on them so I can use a hand held drill for the reaming.

Yeah, I know folks will say to have a sponsor fit them to the blank. I have a desk drawer full of them that were aquired that way. Seldom will you ever find one to fit exactly where you want to mount it, therefore the need for reamers.

A piece of the Flexcoat Arbors work real well once reamed, to reinforce the thread portion of the reel seat.

Getting off of my soap box, now.

Later,
Gerald <c

Gerald,
I use a lot of these reel seats so that I stock a number of each size and I find that the easiest approach is too slide different sizes on until you find the one that fits or is slightly too small. To size the ones that are slightly too small it usually only requires that I make a few passes with a large round rasp on the end opposite the threads and it will fit. I only have to use the rasp on about every third one that I install. I have tryed to drill them but found that it was difficult to get a nice clean smooth blank opening when I used a drill.
I guess that the trick is to stock one of every size but there really aren't that many and they are only a couple of dollars apiece.

Batson Enterprises - Rainshadow/Forecast has come out with the new design of blank exposed reel seats ( No not reinventing the wheel ) But making it more user friendly. We have added the arbor for you on the front thread area, it actually is ribbed to the same demension as the blank exposed area, this eliminates the use of the grahpite arbors. We have also added the size stamped on the inside so now you wont have to guess what size you have. These are just a few of the things we have done with our Forecast componenets to make them more user freindly.
If you have not seen our new 80 page color catalog contact us or one of our many distributors for your FREE copy.. IMHO the most comprehensive catalog in the industry..
Thank you for all of the support. We are here to support the industry for generations to come. "The VISION Continues" Be looking for our new 40 page blank catalog to be avaiable in January 2005 - The sister to our component catalog. These are exciting times for Batson Enterprises and the industry as a whole..
Bill Batson
CEO
Batson Enterprises
Rainshadow/Forecast
wbatson@olypen.com
877-875-2381

Very nice components! They are all I use now and they are good.

David Banaka

Emory,

I hear what you are saying as I just checked my stash of the seats and find that between Fuji, Pac Bay, and American Tackle that I have over 60 of the seats on hand in just about every size that they make. With the reamers that I made the reaming just takes minutes, however it is just the irritation of having to do so.

I like the Fuji and Pac Bay seats but don't care very much for the American tackle because of them having a straight bore instead of a tapered one. I'll have to get some of the Forecast seats and try them. Then I guess that my stash will go up to about 80 by then.

Later,
Gerald Mc

Gerald,
I used to use primarily the Pac Bay exposed blank reel seat but now only use the Forecast. I just checked and I only have 13 different sizes. they go from 90mm to 155mm in 5mm increments.