....it did not turn out too good. I used Tom Kirkman's method of gluing the rings together on a pre-waxed mandrel and it worked great. Thanks, Tom!!! But, that's about the only good thing. When I put the mandrel in the lathe, it became obvious that the front 1/2 to 1/3 of the grip was going to need substantial turning to make it uniform and perfectly round. This made the grip smaller in diameter than what I wanted (1-1/16 is what I wanted). When I glued the rings, I tried to line them up as level and uniform as I could. I numbered them and drew a line across the top to make sure they ended up in the right place. Because it was my first attempt, I used the lower grade cork rings from Jann's.

1. Did I do something wrong when I lined up and glued the rings?

2. I know the super, extra, etc. rings are of better cork quality, but are they cut any better? More concentric, uniform, etc.?

3. Should I be starting would with larger diameter rings?

When I sanded the cork, I started with 60, than 150, than 220 grit. I used a regular sanding block with the 60, but I used a hand held 1 inch wide strip when I used the 150 and 220.

1. Is it OK to hold the sandpaper in hand and wrap/drape it over the cork (like shining shoes) or should I fashion a 1 inch wide sanding block and only have a small part of the sandpaper touching at any given time?

Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks a million, in advance.

THe best way I have found to get the rings even and level BEFORE shaping is a sanding block the length of the grip. On flyrods I typically build a 7inch grip. I have a 7" piece of 1x4 that I wrap 60grit paper around, then use to get the rings concentric and level. One other thing that might help is I use it to rough in the taper on the front end of the grip. I found that do it freehand gave me some bad results. So angle the board to match the degree of taper and hold steady till you work it down to close to finished dimensions. The rest of the grip I usually do freehand, but you can use blocks to shape all your angles and tapers. Your grip will look chopped when done with the blocks but then you simply round the angles by hand and your done.
Don't know if this helped.
If your end diameter is going to be 1 1/16, you need to go to a larger ring. Go to the 1 1/2. If you are using the 1 1/4 you are only allowing to remove 3/16 of material. That is cutting it pretty close when you consider the variances in the rings themselves and our human miscalculations when gluing up. There are 2" rings available too, but they are more costly and should need that much to play with.

One thing you have to understand that is your first attempts at turning cork are not likely to be anywhere near perfect. When I first starting turning cork, I nearly swore it off after ruining about $100 worth of nice cork. But I stuck with it and today could turn a fly rod grip in about 3 minutes and duplicate it perfectly, over and over, freehand, without any pattern to go by.

There is just a learning curve you will progress through. What you need to do at this point, is buy some of the cheapest cork you can find and practice on a few grips. You need to get a feel for how much cork should be taken off in the roughing cuts, how much with the coarser sandpaper for getting the basic shape you want, and then how far to progress before starting work with your finer grades of paper. These things only come through experience.

I will pass on one tip I think will help. I normally start my grip turning with a Stanley SurForm file to knock off the excess glue and to get everything down to a cylinder. Then, I use a wood turning scraper held a consistent length from the cork to make sure the grip is concentric with the center bore/mandrel. If you do not do this, you may find that your grip does not end up with the bore consistent with the outer diameter. This step takes only about 2 passes and maybe 20 seconds. It's very worthwhile.

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That the May/June and July/August 2000 issues of RodMaker had a two-part series on turning cork grips.

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I'm not sure what size cork rings you used or whether their holes were concentric or not. If you needed your grip to be 1 1/16 then I assume you're using 1 1/4" rings. I drill my rings with a concentric hole so I don't depend on whether they were pre-drilled concentrically or not. There was an article in Rodmaker awhile back on making a cork ring drilling fixture. I use this fixture - it works well and was kind of fun to build too.