The discussion on grip material caused me to make a few basic measurements to satisfy my curiosity. For what it is worth I came up with the following weights by weighing three 1 1/4 by 1/2 inch rings of the following:

3 standard cork rings - 5 grams
3 Anglers Workshop burl - 9 grams
3 Andy Dear Aransas burl - 17 grams
3 Andy Dear Burnt burl - 18 grams
3 turned Juniper rings (wood) - 17 grams

Stan Grace
Helena, MT
"Our best is none too good"

IMO, it's still worth it not to have to use poor quality cork!!!!!! We're talking grams, not ounces/pounds!! To light of a butt equals unbalanced rod with tip heavier than butt rod which results in fatigue/inefficiency, IMO!!!

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

Would be interesting to compare full length grips, same size, OD and inside bore, in all the various cork types, plus EVA and Hypalon. A couple wood types as well, maybe an American softwood, hardwood and then one exotic hardwood (rosewood, etc.).

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

Good to see I wasn't totally losing my mind or ability to read a digital scale :)

Scott Kinney
The Longest Cast Fly Rods
[www.thelongestcast.com]

i for one really like andys cork the weight is not at all in my mind.. i run 15 and 13 foot drift rods one with almost 20 inches of andys cork and i fish it all day no problem... and might i say balanced really well and best of all i did not have ti fill a bunch of pits.........its all in what someone wants and likes ...........(get of the computer and away from the rod bench it causes weakness makes you start weighing cork rings and stuff) go to the gym work out a little y'll never even know the differance then.............................lol.................

Sorry I don't have more grips at hand for comparison but I have two full wells all juniper grips turned to the specifications and templates supplied by the RodMaker article.. They have a 5/16 and a 3/8 bore and weigh in at 50 grams and 51 grams. I also have a reverse half wells grip with a 5/16 bore, turned to the small sized template in the same article that weighs 44 grams. These are fairly representative of at least one type of available soft wood. for 7" fly rod grips.

Stan Grace
Helena, MT
"Our best is none too good"

Andy just made for me 2 twelve inch sections ( for and aft grips ) of laguna burl aprox 1.35 OD The grips look great - Thank you Andy. Too heavy compared to what? If I was not going to use Andy's grips I would have install 1 layer of 1/8 cork tape, then 1 layer of 1/16 cork tape, then covered with X-Tube and the guides will all be triple wrapped,. I am then going to install a reel that weights 26 ozs. ad then load it with 400 yards of #20. To heavy when compared to what ? I am then going to put a bunch of 30 and 40 lb tuna of the other end. To heavy compared to what. HEAVY is a relitive term Andys burl cork may add about a 10% increase to my overall grip but they look good, feel good, and standup to heavy use and some abuse and does not feel heavy to me !. Most important though is that no one else in San Diego will have one that looks like it and add in a Acid wrap and that makes for a lot of conversation on long boat trips as well as potential rod business.

A Ford Pinto and a Benz 240 SL are about the same size but the Pinto weights less. Which one do you want.

It would be very interesting though if someone who has the different grip materials could weight and post the different weights as Tom mentioned above.

Food for thought - wouldn't CG-1 weight more than CG-3 ? CG-1 being denser with vertually no pits . Do you really want to use CG-3 it should weight less ?

Scott

Scott,

As to your last question - sure! The better the cork, the more dense and free of pits, the more it will weigh. However you'd be talking a tiny, tiny, tiny amount.

When I suggested weighing grips of the size and style from different materials, I didn't mean to infer that the heavier ones would be "bad" or the lighter ones somehow better. Sometimes you want a lighter grip and other times you can justify a little extra weight if the item is doing something else you consider important. But it would be nice to have just for comparitive purposes. I might be able to do something along these lines in RodMaker this year.

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

I can never remember having to add weight the the tip of a rod to balance it.THerefor a little more weight in the grip is benificial.

Freddwhy (Rapt-Ryte)

I find the reel does that job just fine (adding weight).

Putter
Williston, ND

J.Scott Mumford Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Andy just made for me 2 twelve inch sections ( for
> and aft grips ) of laguna burl aprox 1.35 OD The
> grips look great - Thank you Andy. Too heavy
> compared to what? If I was not going to use
> Andy's grips I would have install 1 layer of 1/8
> cork tape, then 1 layer of 1/16 cork tape, then
> covered with X-Tube and the guides will all be
> triple wrapped,. I am then going to install a
> reel that weights 26 ozs. ad then load it with 400
> yards of #20. To heavy when compared to what ? I
> am then going to put a bunch of 30 and 40 lb tuna
> of the other end. To heavy compared to what.
> HEAVY is a relitive term

It's also relative to the type of fishing :) Fly fishing rods in general are a lot lighter than what you are building. I think the whole rod + guides + epoxy + fish would weigh less than those stand up style rods!!!! LOL!!!! ;)

> Andys burl cork may add
> about a 10% increase to my overall grip but they
> look good, feel good, and standup to heavy use
> and some abuse and does not feel heavy to me !

So far I've put the burl on a larger rod (10 6weight) and I must say, the thing looks good, but man, that rod is a heavy pig. Granted I started out with a less than great blank which was heavy to begin with... BUT the in hand feel is much to heavy for my tastes, and I would think that a particularly discriminating buyer would feel the same. And no, this isn't a balance issue, but it really is indeed a heavy feeling rod ;)

But with that said, the burl cork from Andy is sooo nice I've been trying to come up with a way to minimize the weight. So far spray can expanding insulating foam doesn't work all that well, as it doesn't adhere to the cork as good as I like. If anyone has other ideas I'd love to hear them! :)

Andy's rings- beautiful, durable, and less expensive.

If you have a heavy blank to begin with and then lighten the grip/handle it will feel more cumbersome because of top heaviness. Image what that rod would feel like if it did have light cork on there.

To make Andy's rings lighter bore them out and insert flexcoat arbors.

The burl rings aren't for everyone or for every use. Any product no matter how high the quality will give us unsatisfactory results if we use it incorrectly.


For me they work well with all bass style rods, pike rods, musky rods, saltwater rods, and surf rods. If you are building ultra-light trout/panfish rods or lower weight fly rods maybe flor grade rings would be better (if a customer wants to spend that).

Would you put Flor grade rings on a surf rod? Match the materials to the specific task. That is why we are Custom Rodbuilders. Its often our, fault not the products, when we get bad results.


Dan Grulke

Dan Grulke Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Andy's rings- beautiful, durable, and less
> expensive.
>
> If you have a heavy blank to begin with and then
> lighten the grip/handle it will feel more
> cumbersome because of top heaviness. Image what
> that rod would feel like if it did have light cork
> on there.

Maybe... Remember I mentioned the *rod* was a heavy pig and that the in hand weight was less than desirable. It's actually pretty well balanced as is once a reel gets on there. If I were to go with lighter cork, I probably would reverse the reel seat and make a slightly longer fighting butt....

To put this in perspective, using the weights posted the normal cork would be 2.6 oz while the burl cork is 3.7 oz. That 1 oz is nearly half the weight of the rod itself....

>
> To make Andy's rings lighter bore them out and
> insert flexcoat arbors.

I've done that, but since I don't have a lathe, the results were less than "spectacular" :) I ended up with holes very much out of round, so when putting it together, things just didn't work out right :) That is definately more the user than the material at that point.

>
> The burl rings aren't for everyone or for every
> use. Any product no matter how high the quality
> will give us unsatisfactory results if we use it
> incorrectly.

True dat! Most of what I've done so far is to experiment to see if I can't come up with some way to use this product. So far with 2 choices no dice (one due to operator error, the other due to crappy materials). The biggest thing is that the rings themselves are so neat looking that there just has to be a way for it to be used so that it's not quite as heavy :) For instance that rod that I built; Everytime someone sees it, they really ooh and aah over how it looks. That burl with bit of tung oil really takes on a look that is not duplicated by any other product. If the aesthetics weren't so well recieved, I'd have given up on it long ago :)


> Would you put Flor grade rings on a surf rod?
> Match the materials to the specific task. That is
> why we are Custom Rodbuilders. Its often our,
> fault not the products, when we get bad results.

Just to be clear, I was in no way suggesting the material was at fault. The original post was to point out that compared to normal cork there are applications where the weight is undesireable. I'm still hoping to find alternative choices for grips on my fly rods, and because of the quality of the exotic burl, I think that figuring out a way to make it lighter so it can be used is defintely a worthy persuit! :)

-- Cheers
-- James