I'm going to build a little 2wt. fly rod from a Rainshadow 6'6". I bought a couple cute little cigar grips, but because the butt end of the cork grip is only 13/16" in diameter, any reel seat with an uplocking insert is too large to fit any counterbore I would make in it. Can anyone recommend a reel seat (wood insert) that would work for this, or should I just abandom the cigar idea?

(All this talk of cigars makes me wish I were out on the stream today puffin' on a sweet Romeo y Julieta Belicoso.)

Cigar grips usually go with downlocking reelseats or slide band seats. With the lighter, shorter rods I like to get my hand back as far as I can, cigar grips are great for this.

Maybe a section of Andy's burl and sliding rings for the seat???

Try a PacBay machined hood reel seat, there is no cutout in the cork. Blunt one end of the cork foregrip to match the O.D. of the ajoining machined hood, On the other end make it look like a cigar grip, they come with rosewood incerts, Babinga is also common as it is a rosewood substitute especially back in the 50's when there was a great demand for rosewood.

I just built that rod with a struble D-2 with the .360" bore. Simple and elegant. I also took a regular inletted rgip and cut the inlet off, reducing the length by about .5", as well as sanded the grip down some to reduce diameter. Sand the butt end of the cigar grip down to the size of the trim tab - I believe it is about 1" in diameter but don't have the rod to measure exactly.

Bill

I put a cork and rings seat from REC on a short 4wt, wood and sliding ring seat from REC on my 3wt, and Struble D2S on my 2wt. They are great for small, light rods. Any downlocking seat will work.