I am looking at building several long rods for personal use and find myself dealing with the issue of reel seals and their proper placement. Are they truely necessary? The rods I am in the process of designing on paper before building are all 9'6" or better in length and I find myself questioning reel seats. They cost money, and I am building on a budget.

I am also looking at altenate grip types wanting to get away from cork, hypalon, and eva. I am leaning toward grips made of friction tape, rubberized cork tape(bike grips), and patterned cord with shrinkwrap covering. The materials I can easily get my hands on. These grips would allow flexible placement of the reel for different situations and species.

The question arises however, as to how to attach the reel to the grip. I know about electrical tape and hose clamps but I would like to get some input from you good folks as to possible alternatives.

Searching the archives as well.

Thank you all

dsrtegl2004atsbcglobaldotnet

Derek L. McMaster
Rohnert Park, CA

Born to Fish, FORCED to Work

Derek,

Down here in Australia and particular South East Queensland, there is a common style of rod that we build here for a fish species called whiting, basically it is a around a 10ft blank for the grip and seat area we use the Fuji plate reel seat and basically nothing else except a Fuji tapered butt cap. This setup is very lite weight, I have used cork tape, leather and cord but the preferred method is bare blank.. The reel if an Alvey is used you mount nearer to the butt. If a spinning reel is used I usually set it at around forearm length.

Sounds like you might be looking for reel coasters.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

This pic is an example of some breakaway coasters on one of my heavers. There is another "metal banded" coaster available as well. If I can find a pic I'll post it for you.

/Scott

Here's the other one.
[www.rodbuilding.org]

Scott

I find that surgical tape, that cloth-backed white tape, holds the reel in place much better since it has pratically no stretch.

Lou

Derek McMaster Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am looking at building several long rods for
> personal use and find myself dealing with the
> issue of reel seals and their proper placement.
> Are they truely necessary? The rods I am in the
> process of designing on paper before building are
> all 9'6" or better in length and I find myself
> questioning reel seats. They cost money, and I am
> building on a budget.
>
> I am also looking at altenate grip types wanting
> to get away from cork, hypalon, and eva. I am
> leaning toward grips made of friction tape,
> rubberized cork tape(bike grips), and patterned
> cord with shrinkwrap covering. The materials I
> can easily get my hands on. These grips would
> allow flexible placement of the reel for different
> situations and species.
>
Sounds good Myles ,would you mind mentioning the bank you use
down south we generally use you standard 7 ft flick rod.

I’ve built up a few FSU 4120 for rock fishing using a lower pipe seat
for an alvey and the upper plate seat for a threadline on the same rod.
Cords good for a grip but gets messy and hard to clean so nowadays
I'm happy with the bare blank look .
Regards Charlie

No (short-winded).

Instead of electrical tape, try using silicon tape (I have also seen it called "Plumber's tape" and "Tommy Tape"). Secure the reel to the handle, blank, grip, whatever, and then wrap over with the silicon tape. You stretch the tape as you wrap, and after twenty-four hours setting, it is like concrete. It bonds to itself, and is much like shrink wrap. Additionally, it has no adhesives, so there is no gooey mess in hot summer weather. It is readily available at good hardware stores or plumbing supply stores, and is cheap. To remove it requires some cutting, but it is simply done and there is no residue.
Tight lines!
Hunter

How about zip ties to secure the reel. Like the ones used in electronics and for handcuffs. For the grip you could get a leatherette type wrap like the ones used for replacement grips on golf clubs and baseball bats.

Is it just me or do those coaster look like they would SERIOUSLY get in the way. I am leaning toward industrial grade heat shrink tubing to seat the reel to the grip which should work as I am using mostly conventional reels.

Derek

That wasn't really long winded. I like reels as much as the rods they are fit to, and I change reels alot. And, I like reel seats, if I broke a reel, I could change out if I carried another reel, which I typically do not. But may start to, if I ever get time to fish next year. Levi

Derek, the coasters actually don't get in the way at all. The rear coaster acts as a trigger and the front is offset slightly to keep it out of the way. They're really useful when you want to experiment with reel position, or just want to change the position of the reel to satisfy different situations, which is the case for the pic of the black coasters I posted above. I can fish the rod "high reel" and then mount a reel at the bottom of the rod to cast in a low reel position for distance casting.
/Scott