I messed up the rear portion of the split grip of the rod I am working on. I had already glued the rest of the handle on before I realized that it was messed up. Am I just out of luck or is there a way that I can remove the old grip and slide a new one up from the butt of the rod blank?
Thanks,
Ben Eipert

Ben,

I would turn the old cork grip down, evenly, and then ream the new grip so that you could slip it on from the butt up, using the old cork as an arbor.

Chris

Ben,
The idea that Chris has to turn down the old grip is a good one, if you have the ability to turn the rod, if not, then remove the old grip.

It is very simple, just use a pair of simple pliers. Put the pliers on the largest size and clamp down on the grip with the rounded jaws on the inside of the pliers and chew off the old grip with the pliers.

It goes very quickly. Normally a couple of minutes to remove the old grip down to the glue. When you get down to the glue, use a heat gun to the cured glue and then use a sharp scraper, razor blade or heavy knife scraped at 90 degrees to the blank to quickly remove the heated glue from the blank.

I then, just use masking tape to build up the blank so that the dimensions of the blank are equal from the butt of the rod to the front of the grip. I use 1/2 inch masking tape with 1/16th inch spaces between the rows of masking tape. That way, after applying glue, and filling the spaces with glue you will have a good solid foundation to adhere the new grip to the blank.

It should be under 20 minutes total to remove the old grip, put on arbors, and glue on the new grip if the grip has been bored out to the correct size.

Good luck

The pliers that I use for grip removal are common slip joint pliers:

[www.google.com]

Thanks for the help!

I have used boiling water. This was a case where I had used Gorilla Glue instead of epoxy. Wear rubber gloves to protect against the steam. Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

Harry,
I have never tried it, but I wonder how it would work to use a deep fat fryer and cooking oil to remove a grip.

With a fryer and peanut oil, you can easily get the oil to 500 degrees. This is nearly double the temperature of boiling water. I would suspect that the hot oil would do a very good job to soften the epoxy for removal.

If you want to try, let us all know how it works out for you.

Be safe

Sounds like that cooking oil might harm the blank

I usually get a knife and just cut them off

Bill - willierods.com

Bill,
Yes, but it might be interesting to take an old broken rod and do some testing with the hot oil.

I know that folks look for things that might work, and I have never heard of any one using hot oil for grip removal.

Be safe

There was an article on RodMaker last year that detailed how to remove and replace both butt and foregrips without removing the reel seat.

.................

Hello Ben.

I believe the article that Tom is Talking about is in 16-3 on pg. 24.

Tight Wraps.

Bob,

New Bern, NC.

Carbon fiber prepeg is cured below 300 degrees, anything approaching the prepeg cure temp is a no no.