I have been reading the various posts with interest recently regarding the relative merits of both masking tape arbors and others like FC. One of the advantages claimed for the FC type of arbor is speed of fitting. I thought about this for a while and in actual fact the complete process of using a pr-fabricated arbor even the FC ones is much longer when measured using total time to fit a reel seat. than the humble tape arbor.

lets take the pr-fabricated arbor first and it makes no difference if the arbor is glued to the blank first or the bore of the reel seat, in terms of time taken.

step one

Fit and epoxy arbor into reel seat bore. Time say max One to two minutes. Set aside rod for minimum of 8 hours to allow full glue bond cure.

Step two

Using Pilot type drill rough bore arbor to just under smallest OD of blank where to be fitted. Say 30 seconds.

Step three

Ream bore to fit to blank taper. Say One to two minutes.

Step Four

Epoxy reel seat to blank. Say one to two minutes Set aside rod for 8 hours whilst epoxy acheives full bond strength.


Tape arbor

Step one

Wind three arbors onto blank. Ensure that they are a sliding fit with reel seat bore and reel seat concentric to blank. Say three or four minutes.

Step two.

Epoxy reel seat to arbors . Say one to two minutes. Set aside rod for 8 hours to allow epoxy to achieve full bond strength.

Now whilst it may actually be quicker to make an arbor with a pr- fabricated one, the actual total time that the comple the process takes is approximataly double as there is an extra bonding process. OK some may try and do both steps in one process but I don't think that is good practice. In practical terms it means doing this part of the build over a two day period compared to one. This is no big deal to a builder with lots of time on his/her hands but can still be a little frustrating nevertheless. In a factory manufacturing scinario it would be a nightmare with additional manufacturing costs added.
Now I am only making these observations to correct the oft stated belief that pr -fabricated arbors are faster to fit. Unless I have got something very wrong above then that is not the case at all

I have no axe to grind as to the relative merits of either tape or pr-fabricated arbors at all. I use both , but favour from an integrity stand point the FC system if done well. But quicker it aint.

Tight Lines

Mike O

I guess you didn't see the article on how to mount these in RodMaker. I can fully install both the seat and the arbor to a rod blank in less than two minutes. You have to reverse the process a bit, adhering the arbor to the blank and then mount the seat. If things are fitted the way they're supposed to be one, it's a two minute operation from start to finish.

Your method will certainly work, but you then have to wait on the arbor to cure or dry within the seat. If you do the way we showed in RodMaker, you can do both steps at once and remove that separate cure time. It does make a difference, timewise, which route you take. Rod blanks are tapered and thus once a properly fitted arbor is slid into place, it will not slide back any farther when you install the seat.

I'm sure everyone requires different amounts of time to mount the arbors of their choice and I would never dare say that the quickest method is the best, but when I can do something quicker and get a better overall product, I'll usually take that route.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/07/2005 11:34AM by Tom Kirkman.

Flex Coat arbors

Step One - slide arbor into seat coated with 5 minute epoxy. Epoxy begins to set and lock in about 3 minutes. Ready to bore arbor. 3 minutes

Step Two - use pilot bit to bore arbor to correct size. - 10 seconds

Step Three - touch up with reamer for correct fit - 20 seconds

Step Four - glue seat and arbor to blank

Total time less than 5 minutes and you have the perfect assembly that will never be harmed by water or temp.


Tape arbors

Step one - wind tape. wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind tape. wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind tape. wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, , wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, , wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, wind, and on and on until it's the correct size. Check for fit often. - 3 or 4 minutes. More if you're taking up a larger space.

Step two - wind second tape arbor. Same as above, another 3 or 4 minutes.

Step three - wind third tape arbor. Same as above, another 3 or 4 minutes.

Step five - pour epoxy in and all around until you think everything is coated and full. 3 to 4 minutes.

In about 15 or so minutes you'll be done and have a mount that is pretty good but one that cannot be guaranteed against water, age or temp in any and all conditions.

I really don't care how others mount their seats but I use the Flex Coat arbors and know how long it takes me. It's not a long proceedure at all. Just a few minutes when done the way I do it.

The only problem with teh FC Arbors, as with other arbors - is perfectly reaming the arbor. The drill bits make this much more accurate, but if you donot have each size on hand, and use a hand reamer - you run the risk of not perfectly reaming. Does it really matter is the reel seat isn't 100% perfectly coencentric on teh blank - probably not, but I'm really, really anal about this and the major reason I am more comfortable with tape.

I do admit the FC arbors seem quicker, especially if you glue them all inside every reel seat you have at one sitting when your order first comes from the supplier. From a large Manufacturer, I cannot imagine them saving more time using masking tape over the arbors, I don't even think the time spent, over thousands of rods, is even close. For a Manu building thousands of the same blank, they would have the drill bit to match the size of the blank where EVERY seat will go, it will take no time to glue up an entire handle assembly in one sitting, provided they pre-glued all teh reel seats with FC arbors.

When I arrive home from work and have a shipment of several reel seats waiting on me. I take a few minutes to wash them out and then go ahead and mount the FC arbors in them at that time. Later when I need to build a rod, I can just select the seat size I need and zip out the bore in just seconds. I don't have to wait for anything to dry. So they are certainly faster for me to use. I have not even found the need to taper ream them. If you get them close the epoxy lubes the blank and you can shift the arbor that last little bit with no problem.

I do not wish to get into an argument over the merits of tape arbors but I see no purpose in trying to push them as being better or even as good than anything else on any grounds. They end up costing more when you add in the extra epoxy you have to use and the time it takes to wind them is usually more than a couple minutes. Other methods are quicker and end up being less expensive in the long run. They also allow you to show your customer another difference between mass produced rods and your own custom rods.

I have no problem with anyone who uses tape arbors on their rods. Personally I will not use them. To each his own.

When I,m putting seats on lets say a dozen or so rods at a time I will put the rod[ butt grip installed] in the rod lathe, mark where the seat will rest and make 3 masking tape arbors in less than a minute, when doing it by hand 2 min max. Jesse

Tom

You are right. I did not get to read the article. I guess that you must be gluing the arbor to the blank and fitting/ gluing the reel seat on top without waiting for the epoxy under the arbors to fully cure. Am I right or wrong here

I will try and cadge a copy of the article before I comment further, and maybe shoot myself in the foot.

Cheers

Mike O.

Shaun,

Like many builders I do not use 5 minute epoxy to glueing my seats so whilst you may be happy with 5 minute epoxy I am not. Full cure is not obtained in the time scale you mentioned even with 5 minute stuff so you could run the risk of disturbing the bond by working on the arbor before a full cure is achieved.

Richard I take your point about pre-gluing pre-fabbed arbors into seats. But my comparison was based solely on comparing both systems starting from scratch. I too did not want to get into the other pros and cons of tape verses pre- fabbed arbors, and stated this in my post. My interest was purly from a time to do angle. I felt the need to defend the tape method. But you did mention that you felt it was not necassary to taper ream the bores on the pre-fabbed arbor to fit the blank., I would have to disagree here. I would consider it poor practice to fit arbors as described. This is a little contra to your views later expressed on quality when comparing pre-fabbed arbors to tape with potential customers.

Billy yes 100% I too am totaly driven to making a concentric fit between seat and blank. It can be done with arbors. To ensure this I plan to fit arbors first to the blank which are oversize to the reel seat bore and then turn them down to achieve this. I am sure though that most builders will be getting the required quality of fit by not having going to these lengths. I am so sad that I was going to get some arbors and check the bore to the OD for concentricity using vee blocks and a DTI. But heh I am forgetting it was only from a time perspective that I was making this, if you like challenge. Still can't quite follow you on the manufacturing front as even with sized reamers the arbors still have to be pr-glued into the reel seats and set aside to wait full cure, unless of course that step is missed out.

Again my interest was purly from a time angle as the relative pros and cons of the various systems for mounting a reel seat have been covered extensivaly in recent posts.

No feather rustling well seriuos ruffling was intended.

TIght Lines

Mike O.

Yes, that's how we do it. But I wouldn't shoot any body parts, regardless.

Those who know that they'll be using the arbors on all their rods might as well just glue them in the seats as Billy and Richard mentioned. Boring them out and mounting them is then just a matter of seconds.

The only real expense is in having a good selection of pilot bits. Cheap wood boring spade bits, like those found at Harbour Freight and other similar places, are just fine for this. You can make up a good selection for probably less than $1 or two per bit. And they'll last forever. 1/4 inch aluminum tube is used for the pilot. You can do this on your own, being careful to align them well, or you can buy the Flex Coat alignment jig if you really want perfect alignment.

I suppose it all comes down to whether you're building rods on a continuing basis, or just one a year or something.

...................

Mike - the Manu would still have to glue the arbors inside of every single seat. I cannot guess on how long this would take, but I honestly think if they had one person doing this all day, they could bang out 10 per minute. Add in mixing epoxy & cleaning up, I don't think installing 500 arbors inside of 500 reel seats in 1 hour is out of the question.

The arbors fit perfectly in every seat (unlike the graphite ones which had to be sanded down a drop), so all it would be is a matter of grabbing an arbor, hitting it with epoxy, and push it inside the reel seat. Or putting the glue inside teh reel seat and just pushing the arbor in - I think this would eliminate the chance of cleaning up misplaced glue on the reel seat, but may not sufficiently glue the arbor to teh seat (I am FAR from an expert, I'm assuming a lot here - I don't know how much epoxy would be sufficient to glue the seat to teh arbor).

Regardless of the type arbor or bushing used, most commercial rod operations don't do an overly great job of epoxing parts together. Most are pretty hit or miss. If you ever take any apart, you'll likely find, as I have, that less than 50% of the available mating surfaces have been touched by adhesive. Remember, we're talking about mass production and things have to go together quickly. If the cause of most commercial rod failures were ever broken down, I'd bet that there are many due to poor assembly as there are due to parts defects. Maybe more.

Several manufacturers have moved to the arbors that Flex Coat is selling to the custom builders. They feel they save time and money with them. Of course, they still need to be diligent in the assembly process or failures can still occur.

..........

Billy-what kind of graphite arbors and reel seats were you using? I've used thousands of them and have never had to sand one down. They've all fit perfectly??

Putter
Williston, ND

The heavy duty Fuji DPSH seats. I could never find one that fit perfectly, either they were too small, or too big. And reaming them was an absolute horror on large diameter blanks - granted, I haven't bothered with them in a couple of years because of the trouble I had - I may be better equipted/skilled/tooled to use them now. I switched to masking tape (which I still use/prefer for a tight fitting seat), then to drywall, on a couple I've used a combo of both. I've onlt used the FC arbors on 3 rods, but with my limited use, and stubborn ways - I do find it easier & quicker to use these with the pilot bits.

Billy, I did just what you said, I glued the full length arbor in 12 #18 spin seats, and 12 into #18 casting seats. Took right at an hour and was very messy [Kardal Glue]. I had 50 #18 arbors for those type seats and 50 #20 arbors for the Stuart Butts , the #20 arbors still had to be shimed with tape to fit the butts when used on a Shakespear 30lb trolling blank. There is no doubt in my mind that the arbors are a good thing but not for me. I am Flexcoats biggest fan so instead of buying arbors I buy my masking tape from them by the case. Jesse

All the brick-foam arbors are sized roughly .5mm undersize. This is done so that if the builder doesn't get them perfectly concentric, the seat will still slide on. Many builders who want exacting precision will use the next size up and sand them down for a perfit fit. The Flex Coat arbors are are more nearly perfectly sized. A very good fit between the arbors and seats.

I would guess I could glue no less than 100 arbors into reel seats in an hour. Maybe more. And I'm sure somebody who did nothing else but this could do even more in an hour.

...............

In the past 4 minutes I mounted a rather pricey Fuji "woven graphite" NPS reel seat to an 8' GUSA (cobalt blue) blank, with 5 bands of 1/2" tape, sanded blank, and 5 minute epoxy. In the next three minutes, I'll acquire the tapered offset spacing from VisualWrap software, go back to the lathe , mark the blank, and start a closed wrap.

The only point here is that I'm confident enough to use masking tape and 5 minute epoxy on a rod that'll have at least $200 in components, and know it won't fail. ( the blank will break before the bond)

Its not a race...if I were into production rods, I'd definately invest in arbors and all the pilot bits, not only to save time, but also to keep up with modern tech in rodbuilding.

( I do enjoy the tape vs FC arbor discussion...thanks :)

That GUSA blanks might be a collector's Item soon, you better hope the bond breaks before the rod does, lol.

....collectors item?? ......tehn I'm glad I permanently mounted a really cool reel seat to it! Mike

Do it the way you want, your rod I would have used rod bond. Hay that's just me

Since when is rod building about speed?