I'm working on a rod for an acquaintance and it has an end cap I'm not familiar with. It's a handle kit that came with a St. Croix blank he bought for a baitcast rod. The rear grip has the normal through hole for reaming of course, but there's no change in the size of it where a normal end cap would epoxy on. Instead, it just has the hole, and it came with what I can best describe as a small trapezoidal (but cylindrical of course) plug, or peg, that seems to be meant to be stuck inside of the bottom of the handle flush with the bottom. Hope I'm describing that correctly. What am I supposed to do with this thing? Just ream out the very bottom of the handle more than the rest of it? I have the handle reamed out to the proper diameter to be applied to the blank now. Any more reaming would be overkill on the whole handle, so I guess I'm just supposed to ream the very bottom of it out a little more, then put that plug under the blank when I slide the handle down onto it to make sure the blank keeps going into the handle and doesn't stop at floor level? Any advice on this procedure would be appreciated.

Epoxy the plug in place and sand flat when it dries. You almost can't tell there is a plug there.

Drew

Kyle,
I have built a lot of rods using this method.
Build up a rod handle, including the butt cap.
I then use a plug cutter to cut a plug that is larger than what will be the butt end of the rod blank. I sand a taper onto the the plug so that about 1/2 of the plug slips nicely into the hole.

I go ahead and glue up the reel seat, fore grip and rear handle. I make sure that the end of the rod butt goes no further than the end of the handle and not the butt cap. After the handle and reel seat are dry, I will go ahead and glue in the plug. If necessary I will sand it a bit more so there is a perfect fit on the plug to the butt cap.

After the plug has been glued in, I will use my chop saw to chop the plug close to the butt cap. Then, I clamp my handle into my cross vise that is bolted to my disk sander. Then, I crank in my disk sander until I get a perfect end on the rod handle. As long as the plug has been cut with a ring that is of similar color and construction as the butt cap, there will be no visible joint on the butt cap.

Good wrapping.

Roger

Here is a picture of the cross vise sander that I have built from a 3600 rpm pump motor and an 8 inch disk sander.

The cross vise is used to clamp the rod handle at 90 degrees to the sanding disk, so the butt of the rod has a perfect 90 degree face to to the handle:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Here is an example of a plug cutter that is used to cut the plugs to insert into the ends of the grip:

[www.homedepot.com]

Take care
Roger

For the grip you have, you can:

Cut off the rubberized ring(s)
Install the grip less ring(2)
Glue the rubberized ring with the plug installed in the rubberized ring hole

EZPZ and you'll never know the difference


That's why I stopped using those grips.

Thanks for all the help guys. It's a goofy grip system for sure.

I "shave" the plugs down with a razor blade to just slightly larger than the hole on the end of the handle. It doesn't have to be perfectly round, just push it in until it's tight. Cut off the remainder sticking out with a razor blade and sand it flat.

When I use St Croix or other brands of handle kits like this I also don't bring the blank the whole way down to the end of the handle, I leave a 1/4" or so of space at the butt end of the handle without the blank for gluing in the plug.

Rog

Install the handle like normal but do not push butt of blank to the very end. Glue in the trapazoidal plug. wait til dry and cut off and sand. no need to cut your plug as it comes supplied. No need to cut off any rings. The st Croix handles are actually very easy to install .

Rolly Beenen
Rovic Custom Rods