I'm having some difficulty getting a really clean transition from my butt cap and my reel seat to my grips (split rear and front) that are finished with Rod Armor. Can someone recommend a method that would allow me to get a seamless (or at least really smooth) transition between them? I'm just using a regular rubber/vinyl butt cap and a standard Fuji trigger reel seat and they really don't mate up to the Rod Armor very well at all. Should I use a different butt cap? Should I install the reel seat before installing the "amored" grip? Any pictures that anyone has showing how they made the transition?

The way that I did the installation of the rear split grip was that I wrapped the grip areas with cork tape and then put the rod armor on that. After that was done I put the reel seat on and snugged it in place as much as possible and did the same with the butt cap. I then installed the front grip the same way. The transition from the reel seat to the rear grip looks ok but the transition to the front grip looks terrible as does the transition to the butt cap.

This is only the 4th rod that I built (11 1/2 ft. surf rod) and I really like how it turned out and how well it works but I need to fix the grips because I really want to keep this rod for a long time but the transition areas are bugging me to death. I would also like to keep using the Rod Armor as it is very comfy.

Have you tried epoxy ramps ? I don't think I would do that on the butt cap, but for mating the areas around the reel seat , epoxy ramps work for me.

Mark Ganrude Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Have you tried epoxy ramps ? I don't think I
> would do that on the butt cap, but for mating the
> areas around the reel seat , epoxy ramps work for
> me.

I haven't done anything like that next to the seat. I was hoping that someone had a technique for getting the grips to snug up really tight to it so that I didn't have to do any epoxy work. I did do ramps between the split grip and on the front of the front grip and they turned out really well.

I believe I would have installed the Butt cap over the end rod armor and finished with a short wrap.

I did like Barry said. I slid the butt cap over the Rod Armor, and finished with a short trim band/epoxy to complement guides and butt wrap.It turned out great. I also did this up against the reel seat on both the rear grip and foregrip.