Anyone tried the new make your own reel seat bushings from Penn State Industries? I was thinking about using these to make bushings for my reel seats so I don't have to use calipers all the time.

Here's the address to the bushings. Going to order some forstner bits for inleting wood for grips and thinking about getting some of these. But trying to not waste my money if these have already been tried without success.


[www.pennstateind.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2012 11:41PM by Ed Casteel.

I am a little confused by your post, how do you see these replacing reel seat bushings?

He's talking about bushings to make his own reel seat inserts. You can make busings from any piece of scrap wood or acrylic and not spend the extra cash on the delrin inserts that Pen State sells. Take a piece of wood or acrylic, drill a hole the diameter of your mandrel then turn down to fit the OD of your seat inserts.

Lance

Not replacing reel seat bushings...using these as bushings to turn the reel seat insert to the correct diameter of the reel seat skelaton.

Good idea on the acrylic...have scrapes laying around that I have no use for that will work just fine. Thanks for what now seems and obvious answer, yet I couldn't figure it out :-(.

Ed,
I had to look at the pictures to understand exactly what the product was.
In reality, it is a round piece of plastic with a hole in the center that will be fitted to the mandrel on which you would normally turn your arbors.
Then, use the lathe and a turning tool to reduce the end of the plastic to be the size that would match the size of the inside of the reel seat.
Of course, when turning these pieces for each end of the arbor, you would use your caliper to track the progress and to insure that you stop at the right time.

When done, simply use the bushings on each end of the arbors being constructed.

Go ahead and start to quickly turn the arbor down to the desired size. With the bushings on each end of the rough stock, it will allow you to cut very quickly, but yet not cut too far by insuring that you keep your turning tool off of the bushing and that you keep the arbor to a size a bit larger than the bushing.

But, finally, when you get close, it will still be to your advantage to use your caliper to insure that the full length of the arbor has been turned to the correct size.

Basically, you are paying 8-15 dollars for two pieces of round nylon that you turn down with your lathe to form a master template size.

They should actually work very well, if you do a lot of arbor making for your rods. I do know that when turning, it is nice to have a rough guide to allow me to use a coarse cutting tool to quickly reduce the work piece to near final size without having to use a caliper to get to that point.


So, in summary - Yes, I would think that these bushings should do the job for you very well, if you should choose to use them.

Of course, if you wanted to be creative, you could make the exact same things from the branch of a tree. Just pick up a branch that is an inch or so in diameter - center drill it and turn it to size.

Actually a pretty good idea and it appears to be a quality piece of turning.

Roger

Ed,
Excellent choice of material to use the acrylic laying around to create your own bushings.

Take care
Roger

Wish Pennstate would make metal bushings for common reel seats like they do for pens and many other items.

What about weight ??

The plastic metal and even the acrylic would be heaver then the flex coat bushings

IMHO Plus they are so easy to shape
The acrylic would make very nice Bushings/inserts and look good with a little polishing

Bill - willierods.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2012 10:25AM by bill boettcher.

Bill,
Don't misunderstand the post.
The post was about making bushings to be part of a lathe system to use to make arbors on your lathe.
These bushings, whether metal, acrylic, or something else would not go onto the rod.

Rather, these bushings are simply guide tools to be used when making arbors for a reel seat.

The actual arbors could be made from anything. They could be made of poly, graphite, cork, or some other lightweight material.

These bushings that are the subject of the post are simply an aid to quickly shape the actual arbors on a lathe of a material that is chosen by the rod builder.

Take care
Roger

Wow,

Yeh...that's what I meant. Well said and clear.