Several years I built a spinning rod for my wife - she must have a custom rod butt because of physical difficulties.
Included in the St. Croix kit I bought was the manufactured handle and a tapered plug apparently for covering the hole in the butt ring.

Question 1 - How do you trim this plug to fit the handle after the handle is installed on the rod? The rod will extend to within 1/16" or so of the outer edge of the butt cork ring. I would like to maintain the full 1/2-inch dcepth of teh plug and insert the excess into the rod blank. Any suggestion appreciated.

Question 2 - I plan to use a signature butt ring on my custom rods - the butt ring will be turned from mesquite wood which is signaficantly harder than oak or most other hard woods. Mesquite is tuff on carbide tools and virtually impossible to work with most starndard tools for more than a short while.

My question, will the butt end of the mesquite ring need a butt cap of some type or should a rounded edge be enough?
All my work will be for fresh water - primarily bass and crappie rods. Am I adding too much weight to the butt of the rod?

A glorious praise - there was vitrually no rain runnoff into our area lakes for two years or more. Numerous towns in our area were sweating what we were going to do for water. Both of our local lakes were small mud holes, and Ballinger was purchasing water from Abilene. Last weekend we received a rain the put the Colorado river out of its banks in two places above two lakes. Our local lake #1 is fed by a large creek and is running over to Lake #2. Lake #2 is nearly half full and still filling. God really does look after his children. End of sermon for today.

Rex,
A couple of thoughts.
When you use a plug for filling a hole in the end of a grip, one can use a band saw to cut the plug close, and then use a sander to sand flush.
Here is a picture of a sander that I built with a cross lock vise attached to hold the rod grip perpendicular to the sanding disk while sanding.

[www.rodbuilding.org]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/04/2012 09:29PM by roger wilson.

2. Normally when I am planning on using a plug at the end of the rod, I will leave the blank about 1/2 inch from the end of the butt cap. This allows one to fully insert the plug and not have to worry about having the plug hit the blank.

3. If you use a wood cap on the end of the rod, it is fine for the end with no futher covering. Sure you will get the edges scratched a bit, but that is just part of standard rod use.
If you like, you can put a rubber cover on the very end of the rod, to shield the end of the cap if you want. But that tends to defeat the purpose of a butt cap.

4. Normally, the weight of a butt cap is not an issue with a rod. As a matter of fact, for most rods, a bit of weight at the extreme end of the rod just means that you have a more balanced rod.

5. Sure Mesquite is hard. Sure Mesquite will dull tools. That is what sharpeners are for. Keep the sharpener handy and when a tool dulls, sharpen it.
That is why I have several belt sanders beside the lathe. It is only a few seconds on the belt sander to resharpen the turning tools.


Good luck
Roger.

p.s.
If you have further questions, just drop me an e-mail
hflier@comcast.net

Thanks for reply. It is seems phenomenal to me that experts following this forum are so willing and so prompt in sending out answers. I hope to be able to share with someone in the near future about something that works for me. I may publish a book titled "What Not To Do In Rod building". I am accumulalting a great deal of knowledge in this area.

Thanks again