G'day Guys,

I'm planning to build lightish 3 piece 7' travel rod for tossing about soft plastics and maybe a few small hard body lures. The blanks I'm looking at are rated in the 8-15lb range. I'll be running light braid with fluorocarbon leader and my Daiwa Capricorn 2000 which hopefully will soon be upgraded to a Certate in 2000 size.

I'm thinking of building the rod with a split rear grip, reel seat downlocking and shortened to suit the reel and no foregrip so I can place my index finger on the blank for feel. I'll make my own custom cork grips from rings.

Is the Fuji IPS seat too light for this application and therefore should I go with an NPS seat?

I am sure there are posts elsewhere here about shaping cork to fit the IPS seat but I can't find them after searching for quite a while with different search criteria. Can anyone point me in the direction of previous posts or help with input on inletting a cork grip for the IPS seats?

Thanks

Jason

Mate go the IPS seat. Done right , it will suit what you are doing. Look at the Matagi site. Theyhave so beautiful IPS seats.

Jason,
Check out the Classic Custom Wood site to the left, the rod grip section, he has a tutorial there on the IPS grips.

As an alternative view - I don't care or the IPS seat at all, you can find it on production rods and lookalikes can be found on a junk rod from Wal-Mart. I LOVE the NPS seats. I built myself a 6' walleye/smallmouth jigging rod with the NPS seat, set downlocking as you described. Split grip, with only about 1" of handle material (burl cork/trim) on either side of the reelseat. It is an incredibly comfortable handle assembly. Everyone that picks the rod up really likes it - in fact I'm building one virtually identical for a friend now. Truthfully, reelseats are inexpensive - buy both and decide which one you want to use. Then, the one you don't use - well, darn it, you will just have to build another rod to use it on!! :-)

I agree with Rich. I have been using NPS size 18 seats for my own rods and it is very comfortable. I use one burl ring at the fore grip position (turned to suit) and two rings aft of the seat. I mount it down locking with a full length Flex Coat arbor. Four rings and a composite on the butt end and you have a very light grip that is comfortable to fish with and fast to build at low cost.

Guys,

Thanks for the input. As I have never seen or felt either seat in the flesh I might do as you suggest and buy both and then decide.

Chuck, re your grip arrangement I gather that your foregrip is then 1/2" wide (1 burl ring) and your rear grip 1" wide (2 burl rings). Is this right or are burl rings different thicknesses?

Mark, you are right, the Matagi stuff is very nice and I will probably use one of their seats in the future but I'm not quite confident enough yet to do so. I will however use their winding checks and probably their decorative butt inserts on this rod.

Thanks again guys

Jason

I love the NPS but I prefer it uplocking and a ramp or "winding check button" as a transition to the blank so I can lay my finger or thumb on the blank. Have to try it downlocking one of these times.

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!!

Jason, you are correct. I will try to posts some pictures soon. I'm stuck down in the shop and my wife has a bunch of friends upstairs for coffee.

I do mine much the same as this but my seat is positioned 180 degrees - [www.rodbuilding.org]

Chuck

Chuck,

Thanks for the link to the photo. I get the idea now.Looks good too!

Cheers

Jason

I finally had time to post some pics:

[www.rodbuilding.org]
[www.rodbuilding.org]

The EVA is on a Rainshadow ISB782 and the other rod is a Rainshadow ISJ781