When you guys drill the holes in the sides of a reel seat, How do you manage to not get rod Bond on the area where the holes are. I am having a issue when I slide the seat over the arbors the rod bond gets on the blank and in the drilled holes so it looks bad. You can see the rod bond from the holes... Hope this makes sense

Thankx
John

If this is putting on a new seat -- why are you drilling holes in it.

The arebor gets glued in the seat FIRST. When dry reamed to fit the blank.

Holes ???

Bill - willierods.com

I think he is talking about the holes in the sides of the reelseat. From the ones I have seen, it is not the blank itself that is showing through the holes but another decorative tube, so I would think it is glued into the reelseat first then the whole thing on the blank.

Are you talking about seats such as the one on the last issue of RodMaker? If so I think I can help you.

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A window seat. I have not done one yet but I would think gluing the seat together cleaning off all excess. Let dry then put onto the blank.

Bill - willierods.com

John,

I'm guessing that the arbor is cut into sections, reamed, and one section is glued in the front of the reel seat and another section is glued in the back of the reel seat. The location of your holes will determine how large of a section of arbor you can glue in (otherwise it will show through the holes). I've seen the seats done like this with the exposed blank left plain, tiger wraped, marbled- there's not shortage of ideas to choose from.

jeremy

John:

Don't forget that you can colour RodBond with pigments. I did this in a exposed blank reelseat. After applying the reelseat with coloured RodBond, I cleaned up the cutout with Methyl Hydrate(Methanol), and it looked like the seat was a perfect fit with no glue lines.

Chris Richer
Iroquois ON

Tom; Could you elaborate a little as to how you did that , the one in the last issue of Rodmaker ? I really like the idea, looks great. I think that's the one John is talking about.

J.B.Hunt
Bowling Green, KY

Yes Tom, That is what I am talking about...

John

Dry fit 2 arbors to the blank. The arbors should be short enough so that they won't show when the seat is mounted. Once you have them reamed/bored to fit each specific location on the blank, number them fore and aft, and then mount them in the appropriate positions inside the reel seat from either end. Just put a little epoxy inside the seat at either end and a little on the arbors themselves. Let cure and then mount the seat to the rod blank. This way no adhesive ever gets pushed into or past the side openings.

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I normanlly make my arbors out of masking tape..... So what do you suggest for an arbor becasue there is no way to mount the tape to the inside of the reel seat first????

Thankx John

Move to the Flex Coat arbors, or the common brick foam arbors. I think once you try them you won't go back to masking tape.

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Thanks Tom, excellent idea. I like it.

J.B.Hunt
Bowling Green, KY