Is there any down side to buying realseats a little smaller in diameter than the blank, then reaming them to fit. Or is it better to use tape or graphite arbors?

Thanks in advance!

The wall thickness on most seats isn't very much, so you risk weakening them, but the biggest drawback would be the size of the seat. Then of course, if you're talking heavy duty and/or surf rods, you'd definitely be weakening the seat. It may split where it's thinnest, at the rear.

I've read from one of the posters here that they ream every seat they can to fit. Maybe they'll speak up as I can't remember who they are. I usually don't do that & go the FlexCoat arbor route instead.

Jay

I'd never use tape, unless it was fiberglass drywall tape saturated with epoxy. I will often use thread/epoxy arbhors, but the latest and greatest thing out is the new full length arbhors. As for reaming, some of those woven graphite reel seats have only a very thin tube that does not even run the entire length of the shorter individual components that are placed over the suporting tube

The only reel seats that I like to ream to fit are the exposed trigger seats. I stock the smaller sizes of each hood color and just ream them to fit. This cuts down my stock on hand.

All others, I use arbors underneath.

Putter
Williston, ND

What I have been doing is ordering wood inserts (for Fly-Rods) and ordering them with a smaller ID than the OD of the blank. My thinking was by eliminating the Arbor all together I wind up with a reel seat that better transmits feel from the rod to the hand (if there is such a thing). I never seem to run into a wall thickness issue, I was just wondering if my thinking had any merit?

Thanks again

I agree with putter. Except for the exposed trigger reelseat by Batson, I never ream my reelseats. My other seats I arbor
Good Wraps Bob

Never reamed a reel seat , always use bushing or the new arbors. They work great !

Tight lines and Good Wraps

Rich

It is pretty easy to split a figured wood insert by drilling or reaming.

Denis... Regular off-the-shelf masking tape, used properly, is an excellent choice for reel seat bushings. (The "nay sayers" are folks who have never tried to boil off a fly reel seat that was installed with regular masking tape bushings and a quality epoxy. Put the reel seat in a pot of boiling water for 45 minutes and it still won't budge.) Some other feature of the rod will fail long before the reel seat ( the reel seat, applied with tape & epoxy, will outlive the useful life of the rod.) Remember that the tape is simply forming a series of internal "dams" for the epoxy. The epoxy does the work. Regards, Vance