Greetings to all from an amatuer rodsmith and first time poster. I have been reading posts for some time now and have learned the most about this great craft from all of you who are gracious with your help. I am hoping you can help me with a recent project utilizng a Super Stcker Rod Handle Kit. The kit (starting from the butt toward the tip top) has a rear cork grip, a plastic piece beginning the reel seat, a tapererd cork piece holding the top hood of the seat, and finally the foregrip. I have reamed all cork pieces with a hand tapered file but am at a loss for how I will ream the first plastic piece that holds the rear reel hood. I assume I will need to us a drill press increase the I.D. and afterwards use a small amount of tape toward the tip top to account for the taper of the blank. Has anyone ever installed one of these kits? HELP. Oh yeah, thanks for the help!

Jason Hyatt

I hate to state the obvious, but you answered your own question. You need to either drill it close and arbor it with tape/thread or use hand tools for a perfect fitting. If you have reamed the cork, you can ream the plastic. Sometimes buidling a rod actually takes a bit of work.

Size it the same as you did the cork, it just takes longer. You can get it closer by drilling, but it's soft and easy to get off center and grabby of your drill bit if your not careful with the nylon/graphite material it's made of.

Thanks for the advise. It seemed obvious but I wanted to be sure. Also, do you have any advise on getting the center cork piece to level? As I test fit all parts with a reel attached, it seems like the tapered cork with flat edge needs to be sanded down some more to make the reel fit inside the two hoods. At this point, it will never hold a reel. Hmmmm. Jason

Put it all together, than put some masking tape on the black parts to protect them and sand the cork to match up. It will accept a reel without it but you'll have a cork depression where the reel's foot has been.

Thank you so much! I will let you know how it turns out.