I have been building for a while now, mostly spinning rods and a few baitcasters. Most of my clientele (make that ALL of my clientele) are Bass fishermen. I have now come to the point where I need to make some with blank-thru reel seats, and I haven't done this yet. On the spinning reel seats, the seat is always larger than the blank and it is a simple matter of making arbors and gluing the seat on. With the blank exposed ones, I can see that it would be critical to get the exact right measurement and taper of the blank at the exact location where balance demands the reel seat be. I haven't tried to order these reel seats but I have noticed they are metric. I used to stress over tip tops till I got the little gauge from Jann's. Now it is a breeze. My question is: Is there a guage or some simple method of sizing these reel seats? How is it done. I read the article that just came out in Rodmaker and I want to go further and cut some down like that. I still will need to know what size to buy tho. I know this is a newbie question, but all things are new until we do them aren't they? Thanks in advance for the help guys...

Steve Buchanan

Steve's Custom rods

I use a 6" Digital Caliper (which I bought from Grizzly for under $20.00) for measuring things like that. It registers in both inches and mm. I consider it one of the truly vital tools for rod building.

Apologies if this goes through twice, but my first attempt got lost cuz of a crappy computer, or a stupid operator.

Steve, there are a lot of conversion charts out there, but some simple math is all you need. If you have an accurate measurement of the blank diameter where you want the seat, multiply it by 25.4 to get the size in mm. For the opposite, multiply the metric ID of the reel seat by .039 and you'll have the english equivalent. You'll never get an exact match, unless you get extremely lucky. From there, you just have to decide if you want a larger reel seat, built up with tape, thread, or arbors, or a smaller ID seat that you can ream to fit exactly.

Maybe tomorrow I'll work up a quick conversion chart for reel seats to blanks.

Hi Steve,

1. Mark the exact spot on the blank where the reel seat will be placed and use a caliper to measure the diameter of the blank at that exact spot.
2. Most blank-thru reel seats begin with holds from 9mm thru 15mm for size 16mm reel seats. You should be able to selct one that fits exactly. Better still, bring the blank along to try on the reel seat as most suppliers should carry the whole range.

Anthony Lee

When you order the blank, tell them how many inches from the butt the opening will be and ask them to fit a seat, they will do it. That's the best way to get the right fit

Mike

Search Google for 'inches to millimeters'. You'll get lots of hits. Some vendors only give decimal inches, not millimeters, so you can search for 'decimal to inches' too. These seats can be reamed a little. Mark the section of blank that will show through so you don't prep it for epoxy. A blank-thru RS coupled with a short neck and no foregrip is a nice setup. I find that my index finger naturally rests on the blank just in front of the RS. My ring finger naturally rests on the bottom of the blank.

Steve,

I agree, get yourself an inexpensive dial or digital caliper for around $20 and you don't have to mess with any conversion charts, just read it out directly.

You should have any problems with blank-through trigger seats, just make sure to fit them tight. You can shim the top of the blank if they are loose, but tight with no spacers is best for these.

If you are building a spinning rod with an open/blank through seat, then you have a little more work to do. Typically this is done by buying the skeleton seats (front and rear hood) but with no insert. Since the skeleton seats only go down to 16mm, you will still need to build up an arbor to fit the skeleton seat to the blank. You'll also need a tapered piece to close the space from the reel seat skeleton to the open portion of the blank. Most use wood or cork, but this is needed to give that finished tapered look from the skeleton seat to the open portion of the blank between the 2 skeleton sections. Tom has had some great pics in past editions of Rodmaker and I'm sure there are some open spinning seats shown on the photo page. This pic is not totally an exposed blank, but you can see what Tom has done to taper the open portion between the skeleton sections.
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Hope this helps.

Terry

Where do you take your measurement ? The front of the reel seat? the rear of it? The front of the cutout? the rear of it? or the middle of the cutout? Which location will give you the size needed to order the seat?

Steve Buchanan

Steve's Custom Rods

On the baitcasting, blank-exposed reel seats, I was stocking many sizes (in all of the colored hoods) to cover my rear end whenever I needed one. I've come to the conclusion that many times, one is too big and the next size smaller needs to be reamed a tad or it could damage the blank by Mr. Idiot here shoving it into place to make it fit (when it shouldn't be shoved that far).

Anyhow, after reaming several dozen of them, I've come to the conclusion recently that I'm just gonna stock the smallest size I normally have ever needed and one more size half way up the ladder (between the smallest and largest ones I normally use) and just ream the two sizes to fit all applications.

A rat tail file, done judiciously, does short work of these and they fit right where I want 'em to. I've reamed them out recently quite a ways to make sure that I would be capable of doing this without any problems, and I'm satisified that I can do it with no trouble.

You might not want to do this right away, but later it might work for you after you've needed to touch one up to make it fit when it's a bit on the small side. At any rate, DON'T force one too small onto the blank and MAKE it fit. That's not good...

Just the way I've decided to do it; I have a file that I use only for the reel seats and have used it on a great many; doesn't seem to dull it at all yet.

Putter
Williston, ND

You posted the last question while I was posting above.

What brand reel seat are you getting? I don't use Fuji, so I don't know how they're made.

Pac Bay's are bored on the back half of the seat; the front 1/2 requires one arbor to be placed.

American Tackle's are heavier and are bored all the way through.

I would measure the front area of the seat and ream it slightly. If it's too big, it'll pose problems for you. By ensuring that you get one small enough (even if you have to ream it slightly) by measuring the smallest blank diameter that you'll encounter, you will be sure of this.

Putter
Williston, ND

Don't drive yourself crazy, tell the dealer where you want the blank opening to be and let him fit it when you order ( Order a spare or two different sizes and build up an inventory,)

Mike

Again, what if where you want the reel seat to go on that blank is half-way between two sizes? Which one is the guy checking your blank going to send to you? One guy will send the too-large one, the next guy will send the one for you to ream. If you have the blank... (posted to see if my buddy Mike would have some more on the subject LOL!)

Putter
Williston, ND



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/2005 01:46AM by Randy Parpart (Putter).

Like I said, buy them both, they're cheap and you'll have one that use some other time, Or get one and either ream it or build it up.

Ok. I'm all over it. Take an 8 foot or 96 inch rod blank, .750 butt, # 9 tip (9/64ths or .141 inch, rounded)
Subtract .141 from .750 for a change or reduction in taper of .609 inch. Your overall reduction of .609 divided by the length in inches gives you a taper redution of .00634375 per inch of rod length. So, a common casting cork butt length of thirteen inches would lead you to multiply your change per inch of .0063 (rounded at the fourth place for convenience) by 13, the length of the cork, giving you a change over 13 inches of .0819. Subtract this from .750, leaving a diameter of .6681, 13 inches from the butt of the blank. multply by 2.45 to convert to centimeters, and you get 1.64, convert to mm by multiplying by ten and you have 16.35 mm, the I.D. of your blank through casting reel seat, positioned at the desired 13 inches. Sweet, huh? I figured it all out on my own, with the help of a musty old machinists manual. Oh, and I have a digital caliper. ahem. Levi

So where the heck do you measure the blank at? I'm OK with buying two or three seats for the first time and a rat tail file...I'll learn a lot after doing the first one. Right now I am thinking center of my desired cutout location, but what I don't know is where do the reelseat manufacturers consider the correct measuring point to correspond with their sizing procedures? I already have the blank, but I can see the advantage of ordedring the seat and blank together.

Steve Buchanan

Steve's Custom Rods

Don't spend $20.00 !!

here is all you need. measure the blank where it will go, then get the smaller size and ream it out for a perfict fit. When you get seats get several sizes so you have some around

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RodMaker Volume 8 #5 - The RF Lite Reel Seat. Again, making your own is as simple as picking up a copy of the magazine and following the detailed instructions.

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Steve,

Although I am not nearly as experienced a rod builder as many of those who have already responded, I felt compelled to jump in any way. I faced your exact situation very recently. I do have a digital caliper which I feel is one of the tools necessary to build rods. I had the blank I was going to build on and knew just about where the reel seat was going to be mounted. I simply measured the blank at that spot and had the vendor bore out the insert to the specs I wanted. They did this for $4.00 and it was well worth it to me. I was concerned that the fit had to be perfect so that the blank fit snug against the insert where the blank was exposed. I went with the REC SMX780 reel seat and while they are a bit pricy, they are a very nice reel seat and finish off a custom built rod beautifully. Just a tought...

Jim Smith

I used to just tell my supplier that I needed an ECSM (Fuji exposed blank seat) with X-colored hood (gold, silver, gunsmoke, black) to fit the blank. Then, I'd ask him to send me one size smaller, and one size larger. That way, no matter what his best guess was, I was covered. And, since I knew that I would be building more bass rods in the future, I knew I would eventually use them.

Since I've started modifying these seats a little, I've quit even bothering with the multiple sizes. I just grab one that is smaller than the blank diameter I'm putting it on, then ream it out till it fits tightly.

In short, you really don't need the calipers for this job (though they're good for all sorts of other things). Just tell your supplier you need several. After building a few rods, you'll have plenty of seat in stock for whatever project comes up.

I use Rainshadow/Forecast textured blank through seats. I measure the blank where I want the "through" part of the handle to rest. I call a supplier from the board and say "I need the _ _ mm reel seat". The blank never comes out to an even number that corresponds to the reel seats (they are in .5 mm measurements only). I get the size that is the closest and then either build the blank or reem out the seat. I don't know if this is the "chosen way" but it works for me.


Dan Grulke