I turn almost all of my grips from rings, but was wondering if anyone modifys pre-made cork grips much. For some cases it would be a lot quicker, and cost effective (in case you haven't noticed from my other posts, I don't have a real high paying customer base).

I know a lot of pre-formed grips have a lot of filler. Any tricks to shaping them without them coming appart too bad?

Thanks,
Marc

Once you begin sanding or reshaping them, that filler is going to come out. And when it does, you're often left with a pretty poor looking grip. Of course, you can always refill the holes and pits.

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

Marc, I have done this and you are right - pre-made grips have alot of filler in them, so it's kind of an adventure to see what the grip will look like when you shape it to what you want. I've had good luck, and I've had bad luck - to the point of throwing out the grip due to it being a total piece of garbage.

That being said - I just got done doing this for a buddy of mine who is on the PWT. He wanted 4 long jigging/rigging rods with 10 1/2 inch rear grips and try as I might, I could not talk him into split grips or anything cool. So, he wanted boring old cork grips (for warmth and so he didn't have to worry about beating up the rods, he is fishing bigtime walleye tourneys and gear takes a beating) Anyways - I bought some closeout cork from Utmost Enterprises - they have 5 1/4" cork foregrips that are about 1 1/4"+ at the biggest point - a buck apiece. Glued them together, glued on a rubberized cork ring for the butt, then mounted them on a mandrel and turned them. I had to shim the ends of the mandrel a bit with tape to stop the cork from spinning. I ended up with 4 cork rear grips that look as good as you find on any factory rod - which isn't saying much IMHO. I didn't like them at all, but he loves them :-) So yes, it can be done, but be prepared with your cork filler.

Right now, he's fishing in South Dakota in 30 degree weather with 20mph winds - they cancelled day 1 due to icing concerns on the decks of the boats. Can't wait to see how the rods performed in THOSE conditions!!

Good luck.

Rich

If your customers don't want to pay, then don't sand the preformed grips. End of your problem.

I've sort of found a way to deal with the "filler" problem - and in general, the quality problem with preformed grips.

We start with 320-grit paper and work up through 400, 600, 800, and 1500 papers, and then to 0000-steel wool. We use a tack-cloth to get the residual dust off. Now, the idea is not to shape the grip - we just finish the surface, to a "velvet" smoothness. If the customer doesn't want a straight grip, we try to get one that's a shape more to his liking. Doing it the way we do, we don't get many "chips" in the surfaces.

For really custom shapes and sizes, we offer to build from individual rings, but at roughly four times the cost.

Uncle Russ
Calico Creek Rods

I re-shape pre made grips on my wood lathe. The filler does tend to "dissappear" from the grip if you sand alot. I just refill the remaining grooves and holes when I get the grip to the shape I want. Elmers makes wood crack filler that comes in a squeeze tube and also comes in different colors - a few are very close to cork colors. I smear some of this in the cracks with a spatula and very lighty sanding cleans the up the grip. Works for me!

Rog