I am rebuilding a few rods that my dad built in the early '70s. He used very nice lamiglas honey colored blanks and made very nice cork handles from rings. I was able to clean and refinish the blanks using som techniques I learned here....using scotch-brite pads...a dull knife and applying Lumiseal. The blanks look great...Thanks to the very helpful folks here.

The hoods on one reel seat broke so I set out to remove it. It was a stamped brass seat. I applied heat very gradually and had a heckuva time getting it loose. It would NEVER have come off by itself. There was a watertight seal at both ends and what looked like a cork or wood full arbor between the seat and the blank.

Has anyone ever seen this? Are these arbors available??

Thanks in advance,
Joe

Good morning Joe,

I have not seen any cork arbors being sold by any of our sponsors. Cork is relatively expensive to be used for an arbor. Burl cork is less expensive. If you have a means of sanding down with a lathe or power wrapper, you can build your own from cork rings. However, Pac Bay, Batson, and Flex Coat all make urethane arbors that are light, inexpensive and easy to work with. Most of our sponsors on the left will carry one or more of these arbors. If the gap between blank and reel seat is not too large, string, or thread can be used as an arbor as well. Some people use tape of one kind or another. Good luck with our project.

Mike Blomme

Cork arbors were common for many, many years. Nothing at all wrong with them.

...............

Most of the cork arbors used were a very low grade typically not used as handles. As mentoned above there are many options today that will work well, urethane, graphite , cork and or tape. All work well.

Tight lines,

John Hernandez

I have been using tape arbors on my new builds but after seeing this arbor in action I think I am going to go with the urethane or graphite or some other full type arbor. It seems obviously superior to me. My dads 40+ year old rods have been in constant use in heavy saltwater applications and have really held up. I only hope mine stand the test of time too.

My education continues. Thanks all.

All the fore mentioned materials for arbors are or were great in their time. wait till you come across ones made out of paper and cardboard

Good Wraps Bob

Bob Balcombe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> All the fore mentioned materials for arbors are or
> were great in their time. wait till you come
> across ones made out of paper and cardboard


I have Bob......a reel seat broke loose on a store-bought rod I own and I found a wad of soaking wet cardboard under there. I was surprised to say the least.

Joe,
Often in a batch of cork rings, you find some rings that you would rather not use as a handle due to the lower quality and excess pits etc.
So, it works to save these rings to use as arbors if you like. Sand them down to the size of the inside of the handle and ream out the inside.

Roger