OK, having never built a surf rod before, I had a guy who wanted one and wanted cork grip the whole length of the handle. So how do I attach one of those plate surf seats? Or is that the solution?

Your options include a plate seat, coasters (kinda like hose clamps), tape, or Mudhole has adjustable reel seats for larger diameter blanks.

Plate seats are attached with thread...or some use tape so that they can be moved as necessary to fit the conditions.

I fished next to a guy on the beach last year that had no reel seat whatsoever. The butt was wrapped in cork tape on one rod, and his other rod had black heat shrink over cork tape. He used only the reel clamp (conventional reel) to hold the reel in place, and when I asked him why he had it built that way, he said he liked to be able to move the reel up and down the blank to find the sweet spot for his cast. I'm thinking to myself, wait until he catches something and the reel goes flying off the rod. He caught a 59lb Cobia that morning and the reel held up just fine. Maybe the guy your building this rod for wants to do something similar.

I'd try to talk him out of the idea (I don't know what he's going to gain by having cork along the entire grip), but if he sticks to it, I'd use a plate reel seat. I've used Fuji's LS7BB seat on three or four surf rods, and like it very much -- it holds the reel securely and has been pretty durable so far.

The reel seat does get wrapped on the blank and finished just like a guide. I would recommend that you use size D or even size E thread for attaching it, though, as the thicker gauge of these threads has worked better for me than size A. I doubt that the thicker thread holds the seat any more securely than Size A, but the thicker threads are more durable once they're finished, and durability is a big concern of mine when I build surf rods.

One additional thing I'd do if I had to put a plate reel seat over a cork grip: I'd take a couple of plastic poker chips, punch a hole in the center , and sand/scrape them until they fit on the blank and their circumference was the same as the cork grip. I'd use four or so underneath the plate seat, with cork in between them. The poker chips will be a nice decorative touch, but more important, they will prevent the reel seat from crushing the cork and loosening the real seat. I read about this technique in the Tennessee Handle edition of Rodmaker Magazine, and though I prefer mounting plate reel seats directly onto the blank, if I had to install one over a cork grip I'd use the poker chips as insurance.

Ditto on what Chris says about crushing cork. Been there done that and the the cork will not hold up to a plate seat working on it day in & day out.

Cork rubberized tape holds up well as does urethane rod grip tape.

One person I build surf rods for never has a reel seat installed - the rod is grip from butt to a point about where a foregrip would end. He tapes on his plate seat. I know, I know, but this is what he wants to do and they are his rods after all.

We tried, for his use, various grades of cord and made some to work, but he did not want to sit there and wind thread/cord on so we looked some more. Electrical tape does not work well for this - too much stretch. What we found out holds most firmly is the white fiber reinforced "medical" tape from the drugstore - it has no stretch and good adhesive that does not degrade into a sticky mess, and thus holds a plate seat firmly.

Lou

The old school method, Lou -- which will probably make you cringe but is the way the old timers did it -- was to use hose clamps to attach the reel to the rod. It might not be the prettiest method, but it does hold the reel securely, and is removable. I like my seats to be stationary -- I build the rods so that they work well where I put the reel, so I don't see much gain by moving things around -- but some guys do like to move the reel around while they're fishing, and for that purpose I think hose clamps probably work as well as anything.