I am new to the open water rod building world but have built quite a few ice rods. However, turning a full custom cork ring handle is something I am both excited and nervous for.

I am building a couple rods with custom cork rings handles and would like to turn them directly on the blank. I know using Titebond III is ideal for gluing rings to create a minimal seam, however, that won’t work in this situation. Has anyone used the Titebond Polyurethane Glue to apply to both cork rings and the blank? It looks like it has a very strong strength rating and should sand down well with minimal lines but I don’t know if it will bond as well as a 2 part epoxy. If not, looks like I’ll resort to the Flexcoat Rod Builders Glue.
Any advice is much appreciated.

As fare as I am concerned i never turn a handle on a rod
I glue the rings together When dry ream to fit an arbor Then shape measure for fit with seat or any other When done ream to fit the blank

I think this is a lot easier then on the blank

If it gets messed up Now what -- Think about it ??? What do you do

Bill - willierods.com

Bill - I agree, however, I sm concerned about my ability to team a straight hole! If I do it in the blank I feel like it will be easier to ream 1 cork ring at a time.

The other reason is because I will be turning it down very thin as this customer wants a very small handle. I don't have an exact measurement but it is for sure less than 3/4 inch. At this point in time I am open to any and all suggestions

I understand
I have had to make larger reamers just to ream out cork to fit a LARGE butt on a blank
If you use a drill to ream ( be carefull ) and go slow Keep the cork turning as you ream Check the hole often
I have turned cork where the final thickness was HECK 1/8 Mested up some and had to add cork and then reshape and ream

But

If you can hold the rod so you do not have any problems with the tip And you are sure you can do it on the blank ?? I do not have a real lath to fit and hold a long blank STEADY !!! Home made lath
Give it a shot Be careful

Bill - willierods.com

If your gonna turn the cork on the blank, just use the epoxy glue and clamp it good after glue up. The glue lines will be minimal if clamped. I do use the polyurethane on some things that are hard to bond to, but it's messy.

2-part epoxy will be the easiest route for you to take if you want to go about the process this way.

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

I like the new West System G_Flex for gluing cork and seats. It is a 1:1 ratio and is very flexible.

I only turn my grips on the blank. Never had to re-do. but if you do screw-up simply turn the whole thing down to ALMOST the blank and re-glue other cork rings.
What are you using as a lathe?
Herb

@Herb - I will be using my power wrapper to do it. Unfortunately I don't have a lathe or power drill set up. I've used it for ice rod handles and it seems to work pretty well. I guess this will really out it to the test.

Nate, I'm new to the rod building world but I have turned my own grips on the blanks and on threaded metal rods on my power wrapper so take my input with a grain of salt. I've noticed I get perfect centered grip when I turn my grips on the blank versus on a threaded metal rod. Perhaps I need better practice reaming the handles on a drill bit? But either way do what you're comfortable with.

If you ever chose to turn a one piece rod that's over 6 feet long and you're not a fan of butt caps, drill a hole about the size of the blanks butt hole on your butt/bottom ring and when you glue it, align it with the blanks hole. Now when you go to turn it, stick an old piece of blank or threaded rod in there and stick the end to your clamp head. Make sure it's in there snuggly so it doesn't spin around when sanding. Use masking tape to to help fit snuggly and scratching blank.. Once you're done turning your grip, use a plug cutter to cut you a piece of cork big enough to plug the hole. Epoxy the plug and use a Dremel or any kind of sander to sand the plug down. Remember to spread your stands evenly to prevent the tip from whipping all over.

Back to your original question, I've always used the rod builders epoxy and clean the excess epoxy before allowing the cork to dry. Works good for me so far.

The problems with turning handles on a rod winder are first it turns the wrong way for a lathe and second you have no tool rest.
Sanding out high spots is hard to do without a rest of some sort. If you can overcome these issues, you're aces.

Something to know is that epoxy is a @#$%& to sand. It doesn't sand as fast as cork, it plugs up your paper, and it melts.

In this case, I would prefer to glue the rings up on a 1/4 inch threaded rod, using Elmers wood glue. Cork is wood. Why not use wood glue?

I'd use fender washers and nuts to clamp it while it dried.
If I didn't have Batson reamers, I might glue the cork up as a number of short pieces, that could be joined later on the rod.
In a couple of days, I'd wind the cork off the threaded rod, ream the handle to fit the blank, then epoxy these items together.

Lastly, I'd cobble up some scrap wood into a tool rest and sand the handle into shape using a block under the paper so that I could remove any high spots.
This would avoid melting the epoxy.
.

Nate,
Just flip the wrapper end for end and you have solved the wrong-way issue. Will your rod have a fighting butt? If so you can turn the while thing at once. Send me your email and I will send instx.
Cork in not wood. It will not absorb glue. Use epoxy.
Herb

Thanks Herb. I will send it to you. I will have a rubberized fighting butt cap that I put on. My plan was to turn down the handle to march the contour of the cap and than glue it on once the handle is finished to my liking.

@Garry - why do you say it turns the wrong way?

Nate,
A couple of thoughts.

When I first started building, I learned from a shop that used only on the blank grip turning. They had a custom rod lathe set up that used a 1/2 hp motor driving a 1/2 inch keyless chuck that held the rod.
Basically a tapered solid piece of material was inserted into the chuck and then the end of the tapered solid stock was inserted into the butt of the rod blank to hold.

Since the lathe used a fixed speed fast motor; it was essential that the rod blank was well contained and all wobble avoided. Also, it is necessary to have the rod holders in the correct position to stop harmonic vibration.

If the rod holder is located in the incorrect spot and the blank turned at high speed; the harmonic vibration can destroy a blank in a few seconds.

I made rod holders using a 3-skate board bearing setup with two bearings on the bottom and one bearing on the top. The solid steel skate board bearings supported and contained the blank. But, since the steel bearings could damage the blank, two wraps of masking tape were placed on the blank at the rod rest locations to avoid blank damage from the bearings.

You bring up glue. For all of the cork glue up and gluing to the blank, 2 part epoxy was used. Some folks did several glueups using 5 minute epoxy. Others, like myself prefer to use 30 minute epoxy, so that the entire rear grip, reel seat, arbor and fore grip can all be placed on the blank and glued up in one operation. As much excess glue as possible is removed from the pieces before the glue begins to set.

For the first rough turning, we use a Stanley Surform file. This is a coarse rasp, that quickly cuts through the epoxy glue layer that is next to impossible to remove evenly with sand paper. But with the use of the Surform file, it easily cleans up from the surface of the cork.
Then, coarse down to fine sand paper is used to shape and form the grip.

The rod shop used motors that turned at 1750 rpm. However, I find that a faster spinning object using a lighter tough and finer grit paper sands more quickly and easily. So, when I built my own full length rod lathe, I used a 3600 rpm buffer motor. I found a surplus motor for $35 and it works just fine. There was a 1/2 X 20 threaded shaft on the end which made it trivial to screw on a 1/2 inch keyless chuck.

I used it for many years until I purchased my own wood lathe, which I now use exclusively to turn grips. It is easier to use the wood lathe, and by turning the grip separately, you can start over easily if you make a mistake and you are never in danger of damaging a blank from turning the blank at high speeds.

Nate,
A picture of the skate board bearing rod rest that I used on my high speed full length rod lathe.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

This is a picture of a cordless drill motor that I salvaged and mounted for use on my power wrapper to handle the power requirements of doing light grip shaping on a blank mounted grip.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

All the lathes I have seen turn counter clockwise, to bring the work to the chisel.
Every rod winder I have seen turns clockwise.
This makes sense for winding thread onto a blank.
However, I see this as backward for use as a lathe.

Some folks suggest twisting the drive belt into a figure 8.
Others will have you turn the winder end-for-end.
You might be able to just move our workstation to the other side of the machine.
Do what you think is best.

Contrary to the beliefs of some folks, cork doesn't grow in the necks of wine bottles.
It is the bark of a tree.
When a tree is disassembled the resulting products are generally called "wood."

This is what Mudhole has to say about glue for cork rings.
Carpenter's Wood Glue (8oz)
Price: $5.99
Cleans up easily with warm water before curing.
*Great for gluing up cork rings. *
Grabs fast but can be repositioned.
Easy water cleanup, safe and non-toxic. 8 oz.
Sounds good to me..But what do I know?

Gary,
I agree on the use of wood glue to glue up cork rings, if it is NOT used to glue the completed grip to the blank.

I go to the local store and purchase titebond III wood glue. Water proof, cures in a reasonable amount of time, water clean up, but water proof; once it cures. It also sands more easily than epoxy.

I take the cork rings, coat them with titebond, assemble them into a cork stick and put a clamp on the stick from end to end. Then, with the cork rings tightly clamped together, I use a fairly wet cloth to wipe down the sides of the cork to remove any residual wood glue.

This means that when the glue has cured and you are shaping it on the lathe, there is NO glue layer or line on the outside of the cork stick that needs to be cut through and removed.

One thing to note:
Wood glue requires an air cure. This is in contrast to epoxy which is a chemical cure, not an air cure. So, when gluing cork rings together and clamping them, let them dry over night. Then, if they are on a mandrel, remove the mandrel, and if just clamped, remove the clamp on the ends of the cork stick and let the cork stick dry overnight. This will let the inside of the cork hole to dry and cure. If you don't do this, the inside of the cork ring will still have glue that has not set, even after several days, since the glue on the outside rings, seal the air from the inside of the lower rings, to enable curing.

In contrast, when I glue rings directly to a blank with epoxy and then clamp them tight, I am always left with some epoxy on the surface that needs to be cut off when turning the assembled handle. For this task, I use a Stanley surform planer which is actually a coarse rasp that cuts quickly through the epoxy. One needs to do this with caution, because once through the epoxy, the rasp could easily go quickly through the entire grip. So, a light touch is needed when using the rasp to remove the epoxy layer on the cork.

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If I need to do some grip touch up on my wrapper, I remove my normal small DC drive motor head stock and replace it with my converted cordless drill motor head stock. The additional power of the DC cordless drill does a great job in turning the rod to shape cork if needed. Since the motor is DC, it is a simple matter to flip a switch to reverse the direction of the motor for doing the lathe work in either direction.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/2015 10:18AM by roger wilson.

Nelson unhide your e-mail so I can send you pictures of my set up, or e-mail me at Valentinem7@aol.com, I turn 90%of my cork on the rod

Mike - I just undid my email, please do send photos as I have a couple more rods to build in the coming weeks and any tips will help!