Hey guys,

Just got my parts to build another rod for my close friend(present for him since we won our redfish/trout tourney.) And I ordered the new Mudhole inked series skull pattern reel seat, and it is going to look pretty neat on this white MHX jigging blank I ordered. The reel seat came in three different parts, the hood, inner grip piece--which is the skull picture, and the screw-lock piece, and also an arbor underneath. My question is: Do I pre-glue these pieces together on the actual arbor, since none of them conjoin properly, and then glue the arbor to the blank? I'm a little confused on this part since they are all seperate pieces, and not one solid part. If I don't glue them on to the arbor, I fear the pieces will spin.

link to said reel seat: [www.mudhole.com]
Thanks for your time,

Mike

Hi Michael,
This reel seat consists of a fixed hood, a movable hood and an insert. You can buy a skeleton reel seat (the fixed and movable hood) from many vendors.I make my own inserts and I glue the parts together before placing them on a rod blank. The most important thing is to be sure the hoods are aligned so the reel will fit properly. You may need to either ream out the insert or shim up your blank with thread, tape, etc to make sure the reel seat fits your blank. I hope this helps.

Mike Blomme

Yes Michael, that helps a lot! That was exactly what I had in mind, but I wanted some confirmation first before I started gluing together.

Thanks,

Mike

When I've used similar reel seats, I always glued them all up on a polyurethene arbor first and once dried I ream out and fit to the blank. I clamp them using an old spinning reel to keep everything lined up right.

If you have an old discard reel, cut off the foot of the reel for this use and for aid in aligning guides and tops relative to the seat. Works better than the reel for aligning since it is lighter and the body of the reel isn't there to impeade vision.

Michael,
You can glue up the pieces onto the arbor. You can glue them to the blank, and arbor, one piece at a time, or especially if you use slow drying epoxy you can glue up all of the pieces, arbor, front, middle and rear piece all at the same time.

The one thing that I do, when ever working with skeletal reel seats. I use a piece of masking tape on the reel side of the seat. I cut a piece of tape that fits over the underside of the ring - reel side. Before fitting the tape on the reel seat pieces, I will put a heavy mark on the tape in pen. Then, I will very carefully center the mark on the reel seat.

Then, after all of the pieces - including the arbor are in place and all pieces coated with glue - it is simple to align the heavy pen marks on the tape for perfect reel seat alignment.

Keep an eye on the pieces as the glue dries to be sure that nothing shifts. Also, when gluing a skeletal seat in place, it is really necessary to clamp the reel seat, to be sure that all of the pieces are tightly placed together.

I am generally working from the butt forward on the rod. Again, because, I use slow drying epoxy, I generally do all of the handle and reel seat and fore grip in one glue up batch of epoxy. I also have a clamp ready so that as soon as all of the pieces are together, I can place the clamp on the rod and get is just firmed up. Then, I touch up the alignment of all of the pieces - tighten up the clamp - and then use alcohol on a tooth brush to insure that all extra epoxy has been cleaned up, while the epoxy is still able to be brushed away with the alcohol coated tooth brush. Don't wait for the epoxy to harden to clean up, because you are just asking for trouble. Touch up the clamp to be sure that all is well, and then, leave the rod standing vertically, while the glue dries. Every couple of minutes, double check the handle to be sure that no excess epoxy has oozed out to cause an issue in the future.

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If you are using a faster drying epoxy, you really need to do the glue up in separate batches. i.e. one batch for the rear grip - glue up, clean up and let dry.
Then, the reel seat, glue up, clean up - clamp and let dry.
Finally, the fore grip - glue up, clean up clamp and let dry.

Remember, with a multi piece reel seat, it is very important to clamp the reel seat during the drying process to insure that you have a final excellent product.

If you check in the photo section, there are some pictures of excellent clamps. One of the easiest to use and nicest handle - reel seat clamp is made from one of the long bar clamps with the quick squeeze to clamp mechanism. Make a clamp piece that can be attached to each clamping surface and that fits around the blank when clamping and you have one quick one handed easy to use clamp.


Good luck
Roger

Clamps as follows:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

and:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

I use the old reel method. Get everything lined up then put in the reel feet. cutting one off an old reel is an excellent idea. I place the rod on my stands with the reel feet down of course and let dry. I like to put a wrap in the exposed section so sometimes that acts as a bushing.