I bought a Loomis IMX slate 5wt blank a couple of years ago as my first build and know i want to rebuild it because i know I can do a better job. The guide spacing's not too great, neither are the wraps and I also got some epoxy under the reel seat hood!! Not the best of builds but it's caught me plenty of fish! I've got some REC SF recoils spare which I was thinking of using but need to find a suitable reel seat which isn't gonna break the bank as it's only gonna be a back up rod to my Sig V.

Any suggestions on a seat to go on this blank and any advice that will help me remove the old seat and guides very much appreciated.

Thank You.

Daniel,
To remove the reel seat you can either use a dremal tool or what I use is a band saw. I take the rod and place it on the stand and get as close to the blank as I can and start to cut straight down the edge of the blank , make sure you don't cut into the blank. You are cutting the reel seat so you can then take a screw driver and split the reel seat off of the blank. I am assuming you are taking off all of the guides. If you are leaving the guides on the blank then you can just cut the reel seat in half and then cut down the sides of the reel seat and peel it off. Then just slide on the reel seat you are going to use and then splice the rod back together with another blank slipped up inside it. Then glue the reel seat. Now if you have metal parts on the reel seat you will have to use your dremel tool to remove the seat. If you have any other questions feel free to contact me at Neal's Fishing Products.

tape up the barrel of the reel seat near the epoxy effected hood and get out an exacto knife and chip away at the offeding epoxy, next time do this within two hours after glue up as the expoy is much easier to deal with before it rocks up, some denatured Alcohol will also help in the post glue up clean up. Watch out removing guides on a matte fin blank its pretty hard to get the old residue off with out leaving a blemish, a rag with denatured wraped around the blank over the old guide placement helps. Now if you used color preserver and a gloss finish blank its much easier to leave things intacted. **Note removing loomis production rod guides is the worse as their thread epoxy is rock, they must not use CP. I only did this once.... ONCE, I avoid it now and certainly would not adjust the spacing afterward