I have a blank that arrived with a decent nick about 10-12" up from the butt. It isn't worth it to return it. If I go with the complete tuff-butt the nick would have an aluminum sleeve over it. Only concern is am I adding way too much weight for the class of the rod.

Russ in Hollywood, FL.

The Tuff-Butt is intended to ease installing or removing a rod from a rod holder under pressure. If you plan to use the rod in a holder, I'd be using a tuff or slick butt of some description, and not EVA or Hypalon. Those style butts can be had in hard nylon, which won't add as much weight as you might think.

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

The tuff-butts as fare as I am concerned are way to heavy
A slick butt and reel seat are a lot lighter

Bill - willierods.com

I install Stuart Tuff-Butt (full assemblies) on 20, 30, 50 lb class rods for charter captains fishing the Chesapeake Bay all the time. These (the ones I build) are used for trolling so they are in rod holders 90% of the time (obviously longer than the Captains would like them to be). I've seen them loaded up with Penn 320's, Penn Senators, Okuma convectors Avet reels as well as a variety of other lever and star drag reels.

How the rod is used is the factor for me, too. I'll give you two examples:

1) I built a wireline rod for trolling bunker spoons. The thing is Heavy Tackle; the reel, by itself, when filled with 100 yards of wire line, weighs probably five or six pounds. And it is being used to troll metal bunker spoons that weigh over a pound apiece. The rod is a beast, so what difference does throwing in a Stuart Tuff butt make, weight-wise? Not much was my answer, and I like the looks and durability of them, so I used one.

2) I built another trolling rod rod, but instead of trolling bunker spoons, it was designed to troll Mann Stretch-type lures. This was a shorter, lighter blank than the bunker spoon rod, with a lighter reel, braid instead of wire, etc. For this, using a Tuff Butt would really have been adding too much weight, so I used a nylon slick butt and an aluminum reel seat. The finished rod is still no featherweight, but unlike the bunker spoon rod, it is light enough to fish with it, if you wanted to.

So it really depends on what you'll be doing with your rod. If weight matters, then don't use a Tuff Butt. If it doesn't matter, then you can use one. For trolling rods, even in the 30 lb. class, you can probably get away with using one if you want to, because weight matters a lot less on trolling rods than it does on other kinds of fishing rods.

Well it isn't a trolling rod although it may see some use as such and will reside in a rod holder at times. Biggest reason to consider it was the nick in the blank. The rod is very fast, and it is a composite, so chances are it won't flex much down that low. The nick looks like what you would get if you put a pipe cutter on it and rotated it 135 degrees or so. The guy kinda wanted an aluminum reel seat but also wanted a rear grip too long to put the nick under the reel seat. For those reasons I considered the complete stuart tuff-butt system.

It is sounding like it would weigh too much for what I wanted to be a 25-30# class bottom fishing rod. The blank is no light weight at 4.7 ounces but I don't wish to go overboard trying to fix something that may never be a problem.

Russ in Hollywood, FL.

Can you put a sleeve over the nick either alum. or fiberglass from an old blank that can also interact with the rear end of the reel seat as a bushing? I'm not sure how close you are but a sleeve that covers the nick and is a bushing in the rear of the reel seat might do it.

The most important question that has not been asked is this...Exactly what is it that you're calling a "nick"? What blank are you using, how deep is the nick, and how long is the nick?