The article on TN handles made me wonder if anyone has tried the following:

1). Drilling two holes in the reel foot

2). Using epoxy to afix a mounting plate to the underside of an all-cork or wood grip, and

3). Screwing the reel directly to the plate.

Are there problems with this approach?

Best,

Erik

I think it would work, but I don't know how you would countersink the screw heads so they weren't sticking up. I think that may be uncomfortable otherwise.

There is a reel seat on the market that is designed to directly bolt your reel to it. Here's what they look like:[www.rodbuilding.org]

While I agree that it certainly could be done, I don't know if I would trust the bond strength of the cork and the forces working against the reel foot with such small surface area. Wood or even bonding the plate to the rod blank might be more possible.

I think Erik's getting at that post a while ago that had a reel on plain cork, no tape, rings or seat at all. We reasoned that the foot was drilled and countersunk, and that there may be an arbor of some kind under the cork tapped to receive the screws. I wouldn't go with anything that was just glued to the cork or the blank from one side only. A wooden or metal arbor mounted to the blank just like a seat arbor, then cork fitted over it, with a recess for the reel foot.

Kinda defeats the Tennessee handle. Why not just use a reel seat?


<*)))><

Ted, Thanks for providing additional insight. The arbor approach seems like a sensible approach.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2007 05:12PM by Patrick Vernacchio.

To all,

Thank you for your suggestions. Ted, you were correct about what I had in mind. Art, you may be right about the dubious benefits -- I suspect I'll give it a shot on a test rod to see what compromises in comfort and sensitivity result! If it works (or even if it doesn't) I'll post the results.

Best,

Erik

Just thinking about the above, you might be able to acheive what you are after by doing this:

1/ Obtain a peice of aluminium tube with an ID just bigger than the rod where it is to be mounted and an OD that is somewhat less than the OD of your proposed grip. The wall thickness of the tube would have to be such that you could drill and tap it for the metal threads to go through the reel foot.

2/ Bore out some cork rings and then bond the rings to the outside of the tube.

3/ Drill holes in the reel foot and then drill and tap the tube to accept the appropriate size small stainless steel metal threads to hold the reel to the tube.

4/ Bond the tube/cork to the rod blank in the correct position.

With the above you would end up with no slip rings, the reel firmly attached, and still have cork to hold onto like a TN handle.

I reckon it would be a fair bit of mucking around though and I'm not sure what you would actually acheive. Would be pretty unique though!

Jason