I have two conventional rods that need the foregrips repaired.

The first is a 12 inch hypalon that has become loose starting about three inches from the reel seat. I remember reading somewhere that I can shoot rodbond down the inside of the grip with a syringe. I just can not see how I can get the rod bond down that far into the grip with a syringe spout large enough to allow the rod bond to flow.

The second looks like cork tape material that has multiple torn areas. The grip is about one inch in diameter. I thought about just getting shrink tubing and slip over it. However, I have never used shrink tubing and don't know how I can slide it in place - i.e. from the back end over the reel seat or over the guides.

Any suggestion would be much appreciated.

Terry,
Perhaps the best thing to do would be to see if you could loosen the rest of the grip.
If you could, then you could slide the fore grip up the rod, reapply rod bond and slip it back down for a good bond.
Roger

Terry, If you have a syringe with a needle large enough to shoot the rodbond, inject it (the rodbond) through the hypalon several places around the blank and twist the grip to spread the adhesive evenly between the grip and the blank. It probably wouldn't hurt to then wrap the grip with some sort of elastic to compress the grip somewhat while the rodbond cures.

Thanks for the advices. I tried to move the hypalon but the winding check is still stuck to the blank. So, pushing it up is not going to be an option for me. What size bore needle would allow the rodbond to flow? I can get up to 14 gauge hypodermics. However, I am concerned that such a large bore would actually tear the hypalon since these needles have a cutting surface. There are also blunt needles but I can only get about a 20 gauge.

Also, any advice on how to fix the cork tape grip?

Go to a Vet. abd get the largest hosre or cow Syringe with a needle they have. Also you well have to warm the Rod Bond so it well flow freely. Remember the bond is thick and heat well shorten its working life. What is wrong with your cork tape?

Good Wraps Bob

Thanks Bob. There are multiple areas on the grip that are ripped.

You have 2 options, One is to remove old tape and replace it with new tape. The other is to replace the tape with cord. Then of course you may want to replace the whole grip system with ether Cork or EVA

Good Wraps Bob

On the syringe you might look at using one of the big flavor injectors used to inject marinade.

Bob, How does one go about changing the whole grip with EVA without removing the components? That would be my prference. This rod has turbo guides in spiral configuration, a DPS grip, and foam cork with what looks like X-flock for the rear grip.

John, the marinade syringe is what I initially thought of, but I figured that I could not get the epoxy down in the lower part of the grip.

Shoot through the grip. The little holes the needle makes won't be an issue unless you pump in too much epoxy and it squeezes out of the holes, which will make "hard" spots in the grip.

Hope you get it fixed.

-TH

You may try this, heat some water boiling, wher the grip meets the winding check take shap razor bland a and cut a ring around the winding check and for grip. now pour the boiling water over the grip and using a flat bladed insturment force it und the grip tring to break the bonding agent. Pour more hot water over the grip try and roll the grip forward. (it may roll over its self) Now force the glue under the fore grip now force the grip back in place. You can try and do the same process with the but section. If you happen to tear the grip you can repair this with contact cement. I hope this helps.

Good Wraps Bob

Terry,
If you don't want to remove the guides, you could always cut off the back grip, the reel seat and the fore grip and winding check.
Then, clean up the blank, put on a new winding check, new fore grip new reel seat, and new back grip - all working from the butt of the rod, rather than the tip of the rod.

If you take off the winding check and or hook keeper, you can take all of the components and slip them up to the first guide.
Then, you can build up the blank as necessary to fit the new components.
Then , apply your epoxy and slip everything back down the rod as in a new build.

On the other hand, if this is as long rod, it is likely a two piece rod. If so, then it could make sense to simply cut off the one or two guides that are on the butt section, cut off the fore grip, winding check and hook keeper and butt wrap if in place and replace with new.

I have tried things like injecting epoxy under grips in the past, and as in your case where there some rips - etc. they never come out to my satisfaction. In the end, I would always remove and replace components as necessary to make the rod like new.


Take care
Roger

Bob and Roger,

Thanks for the advices and instructions. It sounds like there is no great easy solution.

The rod with the hypalon is an all graphite offshore rod with aluminum reel seat. So taking down everything would be a job in itself to repair the foregrip. It would make sense to me to first try the injections, etc... like Bob described. If that doesn't work, then I'll start removing components.

The other rod is also an all graphite offshore rod but with a Fuji reel seat. I am thinking about replacing the front and rear grip with EVA - they are both corktape material.

I wonder if I can split the EVA, put it inside a heatshrink sleeve, slide on the foregrip and epoxy, then shrink it down. The rear grip EVA can be slid on and secured with epoxy. Is that reasonable?

Terry,

You never mentioned whether these were custom rods with decorative wraps or off the shelf rods. If the latter then replacing everthing from the butt is fairly straight forwad and easy. You just have to drill them out big enough to fit over the butt of the blank and slide everything up to the first guide, shim as necessary with drywall mesh tape and epoxy in place. Job done!! If the former and you want to save the wraps, then you have a good idea with splitting the grips then using shrink tubing to hold till the epoxy cures. The only problem I see with this method is you may have epoxy squeeze out that you can't get to, to clean with DNA, and will have some careful sanding to do.

Hope this helps

Bill in WV

Terry, for the fore-grip you might want to try using a different type of epoxy. The Devcon type has a lower viscosity than the paste form of Rod Bond. you can use a quarter inch dowel (or something like a pencil) to shove down between the grip and the blank. This will leave a void for the epoxy to 'run' down. Once the void is filled, you can work the dowel around by holding the bottom end by pushing on the lump in the grip and rotating the top end. I know that Rod Bond is a superior product for what we do, but I think the Devcon will hold just fine. You can heat it to make it flow better but this excels the cure rate. they sell the one hour cure and this my give you more time once heated.

I'll start again with the caveat that I'm no expert...

It seems that, barring ornate butt decorations, the easiest way to handle a damaged foregrip is to remove guides blocking removal of that foregrip from the rod (I'm assuming that there are at most two guides on the base section of the rod). Remove the foregrip (in one one many ways) and replace it by sliding on an intact new foregrip, then reattach the guides or replace with newer guides.

Thanks for the all the advices. Both rods are custom built with fairly intricate decorations that go pretty far up the rods.

The rod with the hypalon has decorations up to and incorporated into the stripper guide's wraps. I think that the stripper guide size is probably a 25 size, and the next is probably a 20 size.

The rod with cork tape has the same type of decoration, plus it's a spiral-wrapped rod with the blank pattern-colored to match the wraps.

I do want to try to avoid messing with removing the guides if possible, since I really don't have the time before my next trip to undertake such a project.