Is there anything wrong with this?

I'm extending a freshwater blank from 6' to 6 1/2'. Butt dia is approx .375. The only thing I could find to use for an extension was a piece of scrap graphite. The big end of the scrap would slide over the butt of the rod the exact amout that I need it to (approx. 6x butt dia.) but now the taper at the bottom of the extension is opposite. In other words the very butt of the blank will be smaller than the blank diameter at the joint. I've taken care to get it straight as possible and I think it looks pretty good. The joint will be directly under the reel seat which will have a flex coat arbor inside it to fit the connection and make everything even out there. Does anyone see any problems with extending a blank with the taper going away from the joint toward the butt end?
Thanks,
Greg Marshall

Well the stiffest part of the rod will not be at the butt. Maybe it will work and maybe it will not. Depends on if the piece you choose is strong enough to do what it needs to do in that area. If it were me I would keep looking for something that runs the taper in the same direction as the blank.

Nothing wrong with it Greg............so long as the butt extension is not thinner in wall than your blank.

In saying that, I assume your rod ( at 6' 6" ) will primarily be used single handed and the extension join will be inside your reelseat or behind it.
It will handle double handed casting too, provided the butt extension is stiff enough.

It seems to me that you will only have contact at the ring where the two cones meet as opposed to along the surface of the two cones where they would lie against each other if the two cones tapered in the same direction. That may or may not be a problem.

Shimmed to keep it concentric and epoxied ................no problems
! have a 10'2" conventional O/head that was deliberately built with a 22" reverse taper butt ( at considerable expense ).........it is still there 30 yrs later & has never given a minutes trouble.
Engineered correctly ...........no worries..............go for it Greg.

I have retrofitted many of my older pistol gripped rods by adding extensions. They've worked out really well.
On those that I didn't want to remove the existing guides, I used a piece of scrap rod blank for the extension that had the proper inside diameter to fit to the outside diameter of the blank where I had removed the pistol grip. I used the large end of the tapered extension (which later facilitated building the new handle). I.E. the large diameter end (butt end) of the extension was fitted over the butt end of the rod with the same amount of overlap that originally inserted into the pistol grip. In order to stabilize the fit, I wrapped thread to fill the gap created by this type of joint. After using rod bond to mate the two pieces, I then made a reinforcing wrap over the end of the joint (approx 1/2 long). It was then a simple matter of building the new grip on the extension. Since the taper was "reversed", it allowed the new foregrip, reel seat and rear grip to be reamed, fitted and slid into place.

Greg,
There is nothing wrong with it, but from an engineering standpoint, it really doesn't make sense to do it this way.
As one of the other posts suggested, there will only be one small point where the two blanks contact each other.

I assume that you are saying that the section of graphite is too small to fit over the blank and have the tapers overlap each other correctly?

It would really be a lot better if you could simply keep looking in scrap bins or whatever, until you located a piece of tapered blank that was large enough to fit over the butt section for a nice fit.

Doing it in reverse will work, if you shim out the inner blank with tape or what ever to minimize the glue and the shimming will also keep the extended butt section in line with the rest of the rod.

Best idea, however, is to keep searching until you find a piece of blank that is a better fit for the blank you are extending.

Note:
I make a point of keeping some - not all - of the broken rods, tip and butt trimming pieces in large pvc tubes so that I can work through them to find the right piece of blank to extend or repair a blank. The tubes keep the pieces in place and relatively easy to sort through to find the right section.

Good luck.
Roger

As Roger says it does not seem right from a engineering stand point. The correct way is to fit the extension piece over the blank sliding it down to where it measures 6". This way the taper of the new piece fits snugly over the rods butt. --- Or for the 6" you can find a scrap piece that fits inside the butt of the rod and has a proper taper. More secure. Clean the mating surfaces well and rod bond. Even add a reinforcing thread wrap.

Bill - willierods.com

Thanks guys,
To clairify, the joint will be under the reel seat and nearer the trigger end. It is a thicker wall than the blank, that's why I chose it. It is a tight fit, as a matter of fact, I could not get a size 00 thread wrap around the top end of the joint and still get it to slide on. One wrap of tape was almost too much.
As far as contact being made in only one spot, wouldn't that be true of most all joint extensions not matter which way it goes. I mean, unless the taper of the extension is exactly the same as that of the blank, isn't it still only going to contact at the butt of the blank or the tip of the extension, whichever tapers quickest? Wasn't that Tom's point of thread wrap "bushings", so to speak, in his article on blank extensions in RodMaker - to make the most contact as possible?
I searched hi and lo for a piece of scrap that would do the job the conventional way but just couldn't find one with the beef that I was looking for.

Again, thanks guys for the input. This is a great board.

Greg Marshall