Dear friends,

There will be probably several topics regarding what I'm going to ask. Unfortunatelly, this time my English is not good enough to find the right words to search. If you want, please reffer me to these topics.

The question is that I have a commercial deep jigging rod, 7 feet, 4 to 18 oz lure weight (jor jigging, not casting).

Due to some constrution defect, reel seat turns over the blank so I cannot use it. It has a 8 in eva foregrip, a 22 size graphite reel seat and, 11 in grip and a graphite gimbal.

Questions are:
- How can I remove EVA grips and gimbal?.
- How can I remove remaining epoxy?
- I'd like to replace this seat by an aluminium one, and EVA grips by custom cork grips. What do you thing about it?.

Thanks in advance,



Daniel

Daniel,

I had a very similar job to do recently with a jigging rod and found thet the best method was to cut the gimbal off (This shortens the rod by about 25mm) then cut off the rear grip. The reel seat can then either be removed and refitted or replaced. Then fit a new rear grip sliding it up from the butt and drill out and re-fit the gimbal.

The reason that the reel seat on the rod that I repaired was spinning was that whoever built it had used a solid mass of masking tape as packing under the reel seat and then glued the seat to the tape. The masking tape glue was giving under load allowing the reel seat to spin.

Many people here recomend the use of drywall tape or graphite arbours instead of masking tape. Whatever you use though make sure that it is used in bands so the the glue can come into contact with both the inside of the reel seat and the blank.

Cheers

Andy Woodford

Cheers

Andy Woodford

I've already removed the gimbal (it also spinned, so it was easy to remove). I've also cut off the rear grip, and removed (just spinning) the reel seat.

Both gimbal and reel seat were in effect glued using masking tape bushings, one at each edge of the seat. A big ammount of glue was added and then left cured in horizontal position. So, what I have found is a "block" of glue (I imagine it's epoxy, but I cannot remove it heating it, even with open flame). This block goes from the blank to the reel seat, occupying just a half of the longitudinal voulme (Irepeat, like if it has cured in horizontal position). This block is 1/16 in high (I mean, from blank to seat).

I've read all post after searching for "removing epoxy" but they all reffer to small ammounts.

If I cannot find a solution, do you think the new reel seat (aluminium) can be effectively glued over the existing glue?

hi Daniel,

if you are from Romania, please give me a short confirmation! I have some rodbuilders friends in Bucharest and they can fix your problem!

cosmin

I have used a file to remove large lumps of epoxy under reel seats. Just be very careful as you near the rod not to nick it. I would just leave a bit of the epoxy on and go ahead and install your new cork and reel seat. I think you will like the cork much better than the hypolon. Good luck with your project.

Russ