I am in the process of purchasing the components to build a spinning rod for my son's birthday. It will be on a 6 /12ft ML fast action All-Star blank. I am used to building fly rods where cork is the "normal" handle material. I have a couple of questions. First, does anyone have any experience with the Martix handles offered by American Tackle? Is it simply a matrixed graphite tube that you attach to the blank with ??? What about the WIEBE SPIN KITS? What is the difference between EVA foam grips and Hypolon grips? Pros and cons of each material? Any other options or things that you've found sucessful?

Thanks in advance for your assistance with this project.

Jim Smith

EVA and Hypalon make up are respectively identified on the Glossary page here. The Wiebe Spin Kits are not likely to be available. The Matrix handle is great, easy to use and fairly light. Cork is always hard to beat. Plenty of good pre-fab cork kits around such as the St. Croix packaged kits, which are sold by several of the sponsors to the left.

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

Custom Tackle still has the Wiebe handle kits listed on their web site.

I don't think their web site has been updated in a couple years

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!!

Jim living in south west florida the bulk of my business is with spinning rods. I would recomend you use either cork or eva. My first choice is cork and I agree with Tom if you are inexperienced with cork or time is a issue or even if you don't have the tools a preformed grip especially the ones as he said by st. croix are a great alternative. Eva is not hard to work with if you know the secrets. Slide the grip down the blank as far as it will go comfortably. Mark that spot and slide the grip back up the rod a little and apply your glue all the way from the line to the point you wish the grip to rest. Afer that you slide the grip down using the glue as lubricant. After it is in place stretch it out so as to assure no bubbles spaces or creases. once thats done use acetone to clean the excess glue and allow the rod to dry atleast over night. As far as the matrix handle system goes i have never used it but have used just the matrix tube as a ring in a skelloton real seat and it is light weight and looks cool for a kid. Good luck let me know how your kid likes it and anymore questions feel free to email me at broderick6@comcast.net

Mudhole has a palming reelseat from American Tackled which I use a lot....I do it without anything at all except a winding check in the front of the reel seat and one in the back of it. I am a split grip guy tho and I have sold a ton of these.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Steve Buchanan

Steve's Custom Rods

Thank you all for your responses and recommendations. I ended up going with a fairly nice aluminum reel seat and cork grips which I am familiar with and can customize a bit on my lathe. Thanks again for your willingness to share your knowledge and experience on this terrific website.

Jim Smith

I got a Wiebe from Custom Tackle last year after I bought the last at Bingham's. Angler's Workshop has the pieces to make up a Wiebe style spinning or casting grip. Eva is lighter in weigh than Hypalon. The Matrix grip uses the lower grip as the reel tensioner, it just spins up on a large threaded portion that the Matrix grip is bonded to. The reelseat is bonded to the blank.