Guys:

I tried searching the archives and couldn't come up with anything on this topic. Maybe it's too elementary. On the original lew's pistol grips, the orifice for the blank butt comes in a 1/2 inch diameter, and 5/8ths. My question of the day is how do you fit a blank that's not exactly 1/2 inch or 5/8ths inch in diameter into that grip? Do you ream the grip somehow? Tape the blank for thickness? Heavy epoxy?

The one handle I made like this when I built my first rod, there was an adaptor that went onto the rod blank and then that went into the handle and there was a locking nut to sucure the blank to the handle.

Right, they sold a series of adapters for each handle type (LA, NA, etc.) that were sized in 1/2mm's which you epoxied onto the blank butt. That adapter was then chucked into the handle.

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Kyle,

Your email addy is hidden, if you'll click on my name and shoot me an email, I can help with that adaptor. I have a whole box of them.

Bill in WV

Are you saying the blank/adaptor is not epoxied to the grip, just held in by the adjustment screw/chuck? Why were they made this way? Were they meant to be interchangeable? Did they fail often, requiring this for ease of replacement? Just curious...

They worked very well. The idea, and Featherweight used it before Fuji, was to provide one handle that could securely hold many different rod blank butt sizes. The way they accomplished that was to keep the outside of the adapter/bushing the same (to fit the handle) and vary the inside diameter to fit the respective blank. The connection was by collet action which is quite secure.

The Featherweight style had a shaft/shank on the bottom of the adapter that was sized to fit the handle. The upper half was sized in 64ths for fitting to a wide variety of blank butts.

I found that the Fuji type, owing to not involving any metal, had just a little "give" to it and thus tended to stay tight under just about any and all conditions.

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Fuji also made a “glue in” type of handle, where the adapter bushing was epoxied to the blank and then epoxied into the handle bore (1/2”dia.x 1 ¾ deep). It was lighter than the “chuck” type and more stable. I never had a failure.

I believe that was the BL handle. It was the lightest of the bunch.

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