I have a Pacific Bay exposed blank casting reel seat reamed and ready for mounting. I am pleased with the fit. Hand reamed the hole with a tapered reamer covered with abrasive grit. Had to finish reaming at an angle to get the reel seat body parallel with the rod blank. Seems like the interior hole was not parallel with the body as manufactured. Have you ever seen this situation with these reel seats?

There is a large recess in the trigger end of the reel seat. Do you leave this open and let it fill with epoxy?Or fill this with cork? Masking tape? A graphite arbor?

I would normally roughen the blank surface prior to mounting the reel seat. I don't want to do that in this case because of the the exposed blank. Do you mount the seat on the smooth blank? Roughen the areas that are not exposed? Or roughen the entire blank under the seat?

I know that some epoxy will ooze out through the hole in the seat. How do you clean this up? Denatured alcohol on a cloth? Some other method?

Thanks for your advise.

I leave the (small) recessed area open, epoxy only adds (usually) unneeded weight. At least the area on the exposed seats of their's that I've used is pretty small... Now the threaded end on the Pac Bay's I've used has needed an arbor, though.

I mask off the area of the exposure with 3/4" wide masking tape and Scotchbrite the rest of the area. Don't 'rough up' areas to be glued, make the surface into a water break free one (might check out the LIBRARY article above on this).

If you use Rod Bond, you can wipe off the oozed Rod Bond once with alcohol on a paper towel and walk away; it's a paste type epoxy and I love it for this reason and that it's the only glue that Lamiglas recommends for gluing components to their titanium butted rods. It's a great product!

Putter







Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2005 11:57AM by Randy Parpart (Putter).

Steve,
I cant comment on the whole not being parallel with the body, because I have never seen this.
As far as the recess in the end of the seat, I inlet my handle into this space. I build my own handles so I just take down the area to be inletted and when glueing everything up I shove the seat onto the handle.
I would scuff up any area except where the "exposed" section is into a water break free surface.
I clean up all my epoxy runs with 91% Isopropyl Alcohol, I get mine from a local pharmacy.
Hope this helps,
Noel



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2005 12:04PM by Noel Spann.

1. Some Fuji exposed blank seats are designed for angle fit. Not sure what you have.

2. Carefully file the front end of the rear cork to fill the hole in the end of the seat. Wrap the bushing area of cork with masking tape before using a flat file work the cork to the correct size. Makes a nice joint and gives a secure rear bushing to the seat. If you cork is not long enough to do this take a small piece of cork and fit it up to fill the hole.

3. Locate the spine of the blank and note position of the seat. Take a piece of masking tape and tape off the location of the "exposure window" so that it is not scratched. Work the complete surface of the blank that will be used for glue up with a Scotch Brite pad. When blank prep is complete remove tape pad protecting "exposure window". I use matte black and matte clear blanks and have not been able to see any of the scratching on the back side.

4. Need a short section of arbor for the front end. Be sure that you applied Rod Bond to the outside of the arbor before shoving it into place.

5. Apply liberal amount of Rod Bond and pull everything in place. If epoxy oozes through the imperfections - good wipe off excess with paper towell. I wait until the initial glue up is complete before I clean up the cork with a finger nail super fine emory board.

6. Be sure spine and reel seat are in proper alignment. Rotate "exposure window" so that it is up while the blank is in a horizontal position. Wipe clean with a paper towell. I do not wipe this area with denatured alcohol for fear of having the Rod Bond diluted with solvent in a critical area.

7.Check it for the first hour and wipe off any excess that appears. Be careful not to rotate the seat while the Rod Bond is curing.

Good Luck
Gon Fishn