and lots of advise.

I am beginning my first rod. I bought a kit to start with ( thought it would be good training ), a St.Croix kit, 7', the blank is 2C70MHF.

I will use the rod bass fishing, worm, jig, or big spinnerbait.

One thing I noticed immediately......it's going to take quite a bit of reaming for the rear and fore grip to fit the blank.
Should I do this with hand reamers or use my drill as a power reamer...???

I suppose that I will order some cork reamers. Which ones would you suggest...?? Should I get coarse, medium, and fine reamers...??

If I had a lathe or power wrapper this would be pretty much a piece of cake....( I now see another value of a power wrapper/lathe.)

Well, anyway....thanks for your patience, any observations would be appreciated.
pb

Hey Pete,
I am currently building a SCII 7' MH St. Croix and the but sections on these rods were 3/4". I was at the auto shop the other night picking up some sheets of cork for the handles and they had a pyrimid shaped drill bit that work out great! Got it close with the drill and then finnished it off with the reamer! You can make your own reamers from old rods if you have any that you are willing to sacrafice or have broken? Go to your local harware shop and pick up some "no slip" grit paper that they use for steps. It has an adhesive backing to it that you can wrap you old rods with to make your own reamer.

If you have any questions feel free to call (978) 912-1788

Tom

Pete. Don't neglect the possibity that on some future project you may find a grip with an ID much closer to the blank size. A set of reamers from some of the sponsors costs very little.

When you said coarse, medium, fine reamers - if you were referring to the size of the grit on the reamers, that is not an especially important factor. What is important is that you have a set of tapered reamers with different diameters - the smallest small enough to get into the typical 1/4" hole you start with, then progressively larger. You can buy sets of reamers from the board sponsors. but it is very easy and inexpensive to make your own from sections of old fishing rods, some grit (from sponsors), and epoxy. How to do this is described in Tom Kirkman's book, but basically you brush epoxy on the sections, pour grit over it, collect the excess grit on newspaper and return to the container to use again, let the reamers dry a day or so.

thanks guys........

this being a kit........I thought that the handle would be a lot closer to the blank size than it actually is......and since i am just getting started, I dont have any pieces of rods to make my own reamers.....so I will probably purchase some reamers.

As things progress, I am sure i will be making my own reamers and hopefully rig up some sort of power reamer.

I'm in no real hurry to construct this kit......I would rather take my time on this first one.....get the tools I need.....and do the project right.

I do have some rat tale files I can use.....just time consuming.....guess I'll start paying my dues.

thanks for the comments and offers.......pb

Pete, I'm a NEWBIE too, and watch these post's like a hawk. Seems like every day someone asks a question that is the same as one I have. I remember a post that said, if your using Rat Tail files/rasps, to chuck them up in your drill and run them in reverse. I guess it's not supposed to chew up the cork so bad. If I'm wrong someone please correct me.

Bill in WV

You can use rat tail files. I cut the rat tail off and chuck them into my hand drill. By running the drill in reverse, they won't lock into the grip. Pick up some old garage sale rods or check the stores and talk them out of broken rods and use them to make reamers.

I like the rolls of 1/2 wide grit paper and use Rod Bond to spiral wrap it around a blank piece with a 1/4 to 1/2 inch gap between the spirals. Makes very good reamers

Mike