I ‘m taking my rod building to the next step. I’ve turned a lot of my own reel seats and have worked a little with cork grips making modifications or resizing them, but I haven’t yet built one from scratch. I don’t think it will be too hard to build cork grips, but the one thing that I can’t seem to accomplish is to produce the clean sharp edges and lines I want.

Anyone have some advise?

Also, What kind of glue is best to use?

Thanks,

David Cockerham

This has been covered in RodMaker several times.

You need to buy a coarse file or "4-way" tool and press the file up against the ends to square and true them. You'll be left with a hard, square edge. Take a piece of 220 sandpaper and just knock the sharp edge off.

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Always use a sandpaper block with the sandpaper affixed to the block. I use rubber cement for mine, and they do come out with nice sharp lines.

I use rod bond most often, but have also used devcon epoxy. I turn mine on my drill press and use sandpaper or sanding screen to shape the grips. A flat file squares the ends nicely.

I always use Titebond III for cork glue. It is water proof and strong.

J.B.Hunt
Bowling Green, KY

Jay Hunt Wrote:
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> I always use Titebond III for cork glue. It is
> water proof and strong.


+1

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Thanks Tom, but what is a “4-way” tool?

David Cockerham

It's an inexpensive file/rasp, round on one side and flat on the other. Two grades of teeth. Great tool for many rod building applications. Should be able to buy one at your local hardware store for about $5.

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another vote for Titebond III.

George Forster
Fort Collins, CO

I use Titebond III as well. One thing to keep in mind using Titebond is that it is corrisive on your mandrels. Be sure to wax your mandrels before gluing and stacking your cork, and to remove them from your gluing mandrel as soon as you can. Titebond is usually set up withing a couple hours. When you put them on your turning mandrel, be sure to give them a wipe clean right afterwards, although once the titebond has set up, it's usually not too much of a problem with corrosion.

Harold

David,
In addition to gluing cork rings together by themselves and turning a handle, you can also ream them to size place them on a rod blank, then glue and clamp them onto the rod blank at the same time as you glue the rings together.
As long as you know what you are doing and have a steady hand, this method saves quite a bit of time, because you only have to glue once, and it is much easier to ream a perfect fit of a single 1/4 or 1/2 inch ring for a particular spot on a rod blank, than trying to ream an entire handle at one time to fit a tapered blank.

If you do use this method, then, because you are gluing to the blank as well as to each other, you likely want to use some sort of epoxy. 5-minute, 30 - minute, 1-hour, rod bond devcon - etc.

But, if you do use this method, you need a "rod lathe" so that you can spin the entire handle and blank at the same time without having bounce in the blank and without harming the blank.

If you do use epoxy to glue your cork rings together - you will find that the glue line for the glue is typically much harder than the cork itself. As a result - for the initial cuts, to remove the glue line and to get the cork to the general size - the use of a Stanley plane, or other very aggressive rasp works very well. It is essential to be able to cut through the glue line - without gouging out the softer parts of the cork handle. This is why the flat Stanley Surform Planer works so well for the initial glue removal as well as rough shaping.
Then, it is also a good idea for much of the handle shaping to use a hard surface behind the sandpaper. A sanding block, a piece of wood etc.

Once a handle has its final shape, you will find it more convenient to do the very last finish sanding with a loose piece of paper partially looped around the handle for the perfect smooth handle surface.

But - again, be careful, - if you are using more than one type of cork in the handle. For example, if you use natural cork in part of the handle and rubberized cork in another part of the cork- it is important to keep a backing board on your sandpaper when you are doing any handle shaping. This is necessary because rubberized cork is much harder than natural cork. If you put an unsupported piece of sandpaper on a piece of rubberized cork to remove cork, you will find that you have really sanded away a significant amount of the natural cork at the natural cork - rubberized cork boundary.

Enjoy the work

Roger

Titebond III also. Instead of waxing the mandreals I wrap with teflon plumbers tape.

David,
I use Roger's method exclusively and get, I think, nice results. All his instructions and warnings are right on - but I would underscore his cautionary note re materials of different hardness. I use the Flex Coat cork lathe and the result can be seen in the photo area under grips and "Winters Work So Far".
Also, Roger Seiders (from FC) and I worked out a system whereby you can attach the male ferrule of the butt section of a multi piece rod to the drill without risking damage to the blank. And using this method you can turn the entire upper and lower grip on a fly rod. A longer lower butt section may present a problem though. If you end-up going this way let me know and I will send detailed instx.
Regards,
Herb
PS - The Japanwoodworker (Google them) has some wonderful rasps for the job of cutting through harder material. One is a small red handled half- round 1/2" (wide) rasp that I use the most for cutting and contouring. I think it is about $30 and it keeps its edge a very long time. Don't use it on the cork however. It cuts too fast and leaves a rough surface. But for the harder material like exotic cork composite and burl wood it is indispensable.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2010 08:02AM by Herb Ladenheim.

Sorry for the dupe post
Herb



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2010 08:00AM by Herb Ladenheim.