Roger,
I was probably making long, two-handed casts when you were still in school. Or maybe not. Thanks for the tip though.

Jim,

My personal rods have preformed grips for the most part. I haven't built any for myself since I started tinkering with grip turning a year ago. The section behind the reel seat is ~3"-3.25", and I need all of it to support my hand. If I switched my grip to one finger in front of the trigger, I'd need about 3.5"-3.75". My butt grips range from 2.5"-3.5". I like the 3.5" butt grips the best, but find that the 2.5" ones are comfortable enough to live with.

My style is more finesse fishing than power fishing, so I use mostly smaller diameter blanks, and I've often thought about building my grips on a larger diameter tube to cut weight in the design, but I haven't convinced myself that the reduction in material is worth the extra material changes associated with the arbor required to mate the tube and blank. It's amazing how much lighter the grip sections are when you ream them out for an RFLE compared to small diameter drop shot blank.

I too believe that Fuji had the idea of using at least 2 fingers in front of the trigger on the SK2.

Joe

Joe,
Grips are a whole new, interesting subject. I also used pre-formed grips, but I cut them down substantially to suit my preference. As my preference evolved, I noticed the grips began taking on the shape similar to that of my hand in a relaxed state with fingers curled. I noticed that my thumb/forefinger formed a larger “diameter” than my little finger/palm (hope that makes sense). My cork grip lengths are right around 3” and the small tapered end is almost the same diameter of the blank.

I mostly “power fish”, but I don’t think my blanks are especially large diameters because the higher modulus blanks tend to be a bit smaller diameters and I also cut blank lengths down to my desired length, losing diameter (and some power, but gaining leverage). I think it’d be tough to reduce significant weight by building the grip on a larger tube and then adapting it to the blank. The larger tube, having a larger surface area (+ mass), is likely to cancel out any weight advantage of the reduced grip’s mass.

There is considerable weight in grips and although weight at the butt end can help with the rod’s balance (more for long rods), it can have a negative effect (however slight) on the rod’s performance because of its overall weight. I try for the minimalist approach until I reach the point of diminishing returns.

I guess that’s one of the reasons I was drawn to the SK2 reel seats. Considerably lighter than I was using, but they didn’t work for me. Function trumps lightness. For guys that do like split reel seats and “palm” their reels (2 or more fingers front of trigger) and are weight conscious, the Sk2’s can offer them an advantage.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2013 10:36AM by jim spooner.