I have a customer that wants me to convert his cork grip handle with sliding rings to a fixed reel seat handle. What is the best/easiest way to remove the cork on the rod? Should I be careful and use a razor blade and cut it off in sections? Then once cork is off litely sand the blank brfore putting on new cork??

Hi Gerald,
You should be able to carefully cut one side off and then peel most of the rest off. Heat with a hair dryer to soften the epoxy and you should be able to scrape most of the rest off. You can then carefully sand the rest off in a drill powered lathe or similar. If the guides are still on and you are doing it from the butt end you will need to build the blank up with thread, especially for the foregrip, so you can get the new cork to fit snugly. Shouldn't be too difficult.

ESFNEM Col
Port Kembla, NSW
Australia

Gerald,

You have a couple other options as well.

1. If working from the rear, and if you have a way to turn the rod for sanding, you could take the whole grip down to the same OD. Then slide components on from the rear without having to build up arbors. Best of all, you don't have to deal with dried epoxy cleanup. That has to be one of the worst tasks in rod building. I'm still trying to find a technique that works well for me.

2. If working from the tip, you can take a razor blade and carefully cut through the current grip where the reel seat will be. This way you only have to remove material from the seat forward. You can then reshape the rear grip as needed and add a new fore grip, if needed.

Joe

I's build a handle like the G Loomis classic trout rods. Cut the grip at the length you need for the rear grip, install a spinning skeleton reelseat with cork insert with an OD similar to the original grip diameter, and finish with a new fore grip made by installing a grip piece, cut to length, that copies the old front end of the original grip.