Jason:
I would suggest you take a piece of #2 leader wire and haywire twist it to the end of the spring as a safety measure. It would be ugly to recreate the story of the old woman who swallowed a fly. You could rotate the wire leash with the shaft of the worm as you screw it into the tape plug, and if the worm pulls off the shaft you will still be able to exert 28 pounds of pressure to pull the worm and the plug out.

Roger that would mean he wold have to cut the blank a 10 to 15 degrees, remove the item, find a plug, glue parts in place and wrap over the cut. We did not find out if this section is a male or female section. In any case I may be wrong but I do not think it would work. Do to the fact the are we are talking about is to close to the end. Please explain your reasoning. you can send me a email balcomberods@aol.com

Good Wraps Bob

Jason when all else fails take vary small piece of dry ice drop it in the hole at the same time have a hot towel wrapped around the area of the blank where the crap is stuck let set for 5 seconds tap the rod and the junk should fall out

Good Wraps Bob

Did it work?

Okay update time.

I tried the tool I made earlier with the spring glued to the end of a graphite shaft. The spring broke off the end while using the tool and then the shaft broke right after that. I though this tool would work but it was not up to the task. scratch that.

So i bought a huge magnet from the local hardware store that could supposedly lift 95 pounds, well come to find out the magnet could only lift about 4 lbs. I thought I could place the magnet over the screw and just slide it out. The magnet was a joke and obviously was nowhere near strong enough, good thing I kept that receipt.

The good news is that I was able to get the screw out! I used a cleaning rod for a .22 rifle, i simply slid the female threaded end over the screw and tightened it up and just pulled the screw out along with a small amount of tape. That part is done!

The only problem is the tape really does not want to come out! I have been able to grab the tape with a threaded rod but i cannot pull it out the threaded rod just pulls out. I can get a really good grip on it, just cant get it out. The tape is about 2 inches farther down now, any further and nothing I have will reach it!

Also the tip section is a female at the thick end. The tip is not hollow, I even cut about 1/8" off. cant see anything that resembles a hole, looks solid. I don't want to cut any more so anything with the tip is out.

So right now I have more alcohol on it to soften it up more and try again tomorrow.

Jason.........keep us posted, this is better than a TV comedy program!

Well you got the screw out, that's good. The tape you could probably leave. The screw every one was worrying that it would cause blank failure.

Bill - willierods.com

pour some denatured alcohol or mineral spirits. That tape will release in a heartbeat (especially with teh mineral spirits).

Something I forgot to mention earlier is that the masking tape arbor is only 1/4" wide (this means vertically its only 1/4" deep), its pretty narrow masking tape. I was able to remove a bit more tape today. The rest of the tape feels very loose in the blank but I still can not grab it. Unfortunately the tape has slid down really far into the tip section, its now about 12" from the tip and I can not reach it anymore.

I will continue to wrap and finish the rod, I am sure that this springy material thats left will fall out eventually if soaked some more in alcohol.

Just had another thought-you would have to be careful in executing this one, but you may be able to dislodge it, especially after all the softening/etc that has gone on, by using inertia. Point the tip up and carefully tap the big end of the blank onto a table-many times at a fairly low energy level. It may move a little each tap, it may move only after a lot of taps, but be patient and keep doing this many times. Be careful not to get impatient and hit it so hard it damages the end of the blank. If I were to do this, I would wrap the end of the blank with fiberglass tape to support its structure, so it wouldn't tend to expand with the impact, and recess the end into a hole in a wooden block to make sure it was impacted symetrically and not just on one edge of the blank which could damage it. After all you have already done, if this doesn't bring it out, maybe it is not going to come out.

Can you replace the tip section with a new one? Call Loomis?

good luck, Mick