I thought I had a back issue of Rod maker on how to glue those little pieces of pie shaped cork together. Couldn't find it. I will be using epoxy, but what do some of you do to hold the shape while they are drying. Thanks as always Scott

I glue up EVA much smaller than pie shaped cork using Contact cement, which is the most evil-ist adhesive invented, lol. All those fancy dress shirts coem with pins, just poke it all teh way through, hold the head of the pin to apply glue, and stick the pin into a piece of EVA while you glue up teh rest of the pieces.

I use a tie strap to keep them round and 6" adjustable clamp to keep them flat.

I use Rod Bond as the adhesive and a rubber band to hold the pieces in place. I also use a 1/4 " metal dowel with a fine wax coating as a spacer to maintain a center hole and help maintain proper spacing of the cork pieces.

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

What I do is drill the ring out to 3/8"(or whatever size you need) before I cut into wedges. I have a piece of 1x 4 wood with a 3" piece of 3/8" (again, what ever size you need) All Thread rod sticking up from it and apply my adhesive to the wedges and arrange my pieces around it and use a cable tie to cinch it up and then just slide it off and set aside to dry. Keeps them round and works pretty good (for me). I usually pull a piece of ordinary wax paper down over the rod on to the wood to keep the glue off of the wood base. I also set my glued up rings on a sheet of wax paper to dry as the wax paper will pull right off.


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!!

You guys are glueing individual ring up, or are you building a long pie shape and cuttign the ringss off that?

I do individual rings!

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

I do indidual rings but to get even alignment., I slice my rings in half to 1/4" thick andf glue 2 different halves together (light ring/dark ring) and then cut them into wedges, flip every other piece over and glue up. That way all of the pieces will line up perfectly into a checker..

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!!

That's a LOT of work, yikes. If you do it the other way, gluing long pieced of pie and slicing rings off, you can get equal pie shapes as long as the Inside diameter is the same and when you glue it together the inside Diameter lines up.

Billy,

That sounds ideal but how do you get the long wedges and glue/clamp them? I can't quite visualize it. How do you slice the rings identical thickness?

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!!

Billy,
I would probably use your method if I were using hypolon or EVA but given the dimensions of cork rings that are available to work with as well as the jigs for slicing, individual rings are probably the easiest to work with when using burl cork or cork.
Mike's method of slicing and splicing really saves time over all.

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

Two ways I do it.I use the inside of a spray paint can cap(small diameter part is perfect)drill a hole so you can push it out or use a car worm type heater hose clamp.

Freddwhy (Rapt-Ryte)

I use Mike's method which I learned from him with one exception; when gluing the cork rings, I use Weldbond's Universal Adhesive. It dries clear and if you clamp the pieces tight enough you won't see any glue lines. I like the Weldbond because you can use water for clean-up. I also use it to glue the grips to the rod. The only time I use epoxy is for gluing the reel seat to the rod.

I use a 1 1/8" forsner drill to drill a hole through 1/2" UHMW . I then cut a 1/4" slot in one edge to form a clamp. I have drilled
for a bolt through the slot but finger clamps work to.
Steve

Contact cement would speed up teh process and make all the clamping uneccesary. Press together firmly and you're all set. To slice rings off put it on a Mandrel and use a razor blade in a vice grip on a tool rest. With Foam, just use size D Gudebrod, for paper thin trim rings in foam, use size A NCP Gudebrod, less "kerf". With the contact cement, just don't apply too much and there won't be any glue lines.