What is the best way to get rid of old cork grip and reel seat?
I was trying to rebuild old one and had to put a lot of effort to remove.
Any easy way to to that without demaging rod?
please advise...

If you have access to a rod lathe, install the rod and sand the cork off, just about right down to the blank surface, stopping just shy of sanding into the rod blank.

Seats can be spiral cut and then split off rather easily. A dremel tool with a cut-off wheel can make short work of this, but do not cut into the blank and do wear eye protection.

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thank you, Tom
i will try.

I faced this issue a short time ago, because I had two rods that needed the reel seat replaced. When I posed the question, many solutions were offered. The one I went with, which worked great, was to just cut the seat and rear grip right off, blank & all. Then build a new grip and seat assembly on an extension that fit inside the exposed blank, and glue it back with Rod Bond. That far back in the blank there will be no change in action, and no one can ever tell that the blank had been cut in two. I thought it was a good solution, because it eliminated a lot of hard work, and also eliminated the risk of damaging the blank trying to remove an old reel seat.

First, I stick a fork in the cork & twist.
You will notice that quite a bit of the epoxy breaks off with it.
Second I make two lengthwise cuts on each side of the reel seat & pry off with a screwdriver.
Usually it is just a matter of light sanding & maybe some heating of epoxy with a hair dryer to peel off.
Don't go crazty, as you are just going to cover it up again anyways.

If you decide to cut off the reelseat and cutt the blank into, my I recomend you make your cut a a slight angle, say 10% . This well assure you of alagining up the 2 rod sections . I would also put a 2 inch plug inside the rod centered where you made the cut
Good Wraps Bob

I have an old pair of pliers that I used for crimping castnet leads. It will remove cork rings in minutes.

To use; just clamp it on a ring that you want to remove then twist. You can remove individual rigngs without really disturbing the others. It works for removing rings when creating a split grip from an exixting handle. After the ring is removed, judicious sanding will remove the glue. C2

I just cut the glue ring and twist the cork ring with a small pair of channel locks. cork just rwist off.
Good wraps Bob

Did anyone try the reel seat cutting with a dremel on a casting rod? I'd like to replace a casting reel seat on a rod with a spinning reel seat, turn it over, and put a new set of guides. I'm kinda scared to go into the reel seat with the dremel tool. I'm 2 afraid that i'll mess it up.

Thanks all of you.
I will try different ways mentioned above and will post result.

Andrei Just take your time cutting with a Dremil.and you should be ok. You can also use a fine tooth haxksaw. Even if you cut into the blank you can put a small plug inside the blank where the cut is an glue it inplace, The new reelseat well cover over it.
Good Wraps Bob

Thx Bob....i still am afraid of doing this considering my dremel goes up 22000 rpm....but i will since i don't like the rod the way it is:(

Well if you don't like the rod anyway, use it for a practice peice
Good Wraps Bob

Use a dremel tool with a cut off whell to cut if off.
If you are worried about going too far, just cut at an angle to the rod, and work slowly. You c an take it off in small pieces to insure that you are only cutting to the inside of the reel seat, and not hte blank.

To take off the cork, I do as one of the other posters suggested - use a regular pair of slip joint pliars, and grip the cork in the back part of the pliars where the teeth are big and are normally used to hold pipe. You can pull the bulk of the cork in a heart beat.
Then, I use a heat gun and a straight edged razor blade to take off the rest. Heat an area of the former reel seat, and scrape perpendicular to the blank. The heat will soften the epoxy and the blade worked perpendicular to the rod will quicly scrape off any remaining residue with little effort.
In general, it should take no more than 10-15 minutes to start with a rod and have the butt section of the blank down to clean blank. The real key to this effort is heat to soften the epoxy and the razor blade scraped perpendicular to the blank.

Roger