Emory the front threaded portion on most fuji ecsm seats does need a shim of some sort. The barrel on fuji seats have an i.d. of about 16mm. Please recheck your weights, although I do think a handle with the tubing will be a little heavier than cork.

Stan,
One or both of us is full of prunes. I just weighed 3" of Texilium, 3" of 1" diameter cork and 1" foam shims with the following results.
3" Texilium 0.330 oz.
3" cork 0.260 oz
1" Foam shim 0.100 oz

So if you add the weight of two foam shims to the Texilium the total is 0.430 oz or a total of about 65% heavier than the cork.
Both the shims and the cork had holes that were about 5/16" in the center. I neglected the weight of any epoxy which I think would probably tend to be a little less for the cork

If you read my post i said I hadn't included the weight of arbors and I also measured 1.25" cork. I just double checked my weights and they are correct. The bottom line is cork will be lighter but I can live with the little added weight for the bling factor.

Stan,
That 1/4" difference in the diameter of the cork must be the difference in our measurements. I think that I would argue that if the Texilium is 1" in diameter then 1" diameter cork should be used for weight comparisons. The extra 1/4" diameter of the cork obviously makes a significant difference.
Only you can judge what the bling factor is worth. Personally I think that the Texilium makes excellent grips for boat rods but for any rod that will be used to cast with where weight is important the 65% increase in weight is too much for me and I will stick with cork.

Stan, you're gonna get a hernia.

Thanks for the input guys. I agree with Emory that the Texalium is heavier, especially after shimming and some additional epoxy. Personally, I will never build another texalium for myself. I have never had colder hands while winter steelheading than while using my tex. handled rod. That rod is reserved as a summer boat rod.

BTW, I have already started the project. I did have to include a 3.5" cork grip behind the rear skeleton to get a proper angle for casting. But with the exposed blank between the skeleton and no foregrip, I do have 3 fingers on the bare blank. I like it. I did have one weight drawback using the skeleton - a little additional epoxy is needed to get a bond that I can be comfortable with. There is not much surface area there for bonding.

The guides are not all on yet, but with rod, reel, and line I am at 10oz - should end up at 10.5. The rod will be plane jane, but I'll make up for that with a little extra bling on the reel.

Drew

Drew post some pics when you are done.