Good afternoon all, first post here.

I started rod building this winter, figured it would be a good hobby when I wasn't out fishing, and I was right. It's addictive.

This weekend I was out with wife and daughter and came back with two broken rods - inexpensive Shakespeare and BassPro models, nothing I built thank goodness. I'll spare you the long story on how they were broken while everything was being put away.

Before tossing anything, I decided to remove the guides so I'd have two extra sets around. Then I took a look at the reel seats and I'm wondering if anyone knows of an effective way to salvage those also, or is the epoxy bond truly everlasting?

Thanks for your thoughts,

Drew

Try a heat gun to loosen the grip of the epoxy and an oven mitt to twist and pull the seat off, assuming that you have removed the cork first.

unless they are exposed blank seats, so of those rod actually have a cardboard tube as a spacer between blank and seat, and its worth cut blank at front of seat. and back boil in water fro a while to allow water to start penetrating into the cardboard and set aside for couple of days. then should be able to take screw driver and force blank out. if not cardboard spacers it may not work, but costs nothing but little time water and electric to try

I would not even try to salvage them. New ones can be very inexpensive, and they are new. If those seats have plastic "hoods" to tighten the reel to the seat, they are going to fail some day, so just go new and you will have no doubts about the integrity.

X10 -
Pitch everything and start new.

Generally speaking it is not even worth it to save the guides on these rods.

Be safe

Drew

If you have a junk box I would save the guides just in case you or someone would need a guide replaced and if you are lucky you may have a guide that matches. Thr reel seats are not worth saving.

Thanks everyone. My brother in law beats the heck out of his rods and has already asked me to replace a guide or two, so they'll be handy for that. I'm leaning towards not trying to salvage the seats, but I have been looking for a reason to but a heat gun...

Thanks all!

Here is a rather inexpensive heat gun if you are looking . I have been using mine for years they work great. And they are on sale.

[t.harborfreight.com]

Tom

Broken Rods: I removed guides and Tip Top and thats all. However if the blank was not broken, remove the reel seats, I just use a dremel tool to remove it. Remove foregrip, handle and guides. And install new everything, based on condition of blank!