I am building a split grip with the Winn Grips. I need some ideas on how to ream the butt grip to fit the rod. The hole does not go all the way thru and I have been drilling the hole larger and then using a dermal tool the enlarge it. I drilled thru one last night and now I have to purchase a new grip $$$$$. Any thoughts would be very helpful. Phil

You need to buy or make some reamers and ream it out

Bill - willierods.com

Phil,
measure the depth of the hole. Mark that depth on your drill bits that you will be using with a sharpie. Hold the grip in the palm of your hand. Take a hand drill and start with a drill bit just slightly larger than the factory hole. While holding grip tightly in your hand drill with the slightly larger drill bit being careful to follow the path of the existing hole. Stop when you get to the mark you made on the drill bit so you don't drill through. Move up one or two drill bit sizes at a time and take your time drilling out the EVA. Dont skip too many sizes of drill bit as the bit will begin chewing up the EVA instead of a clean hole.

This technique works well. You just have to take your time.

If you want you can use the one you drilled though Just put a butt plug on it

Bill - willierods.com

The EVA is very soft........................

Winn grips are NOT EVA ! They are polymer material that is much different then EVA. They are not easy to drill or ream. I have not had the challenge that Phil has, as I only build fly rods, and have found that 60 grit sand paper on my reamers works best.

I use forstner bits in my drill press. Just make sure that your depth is correct. It makes for a clean hole.

I use a drill bit on them that is nearest the size of the blank. However, I run the drill in reverse and it works just fine (for me anyway) without having to worry about chewing up the inside of the grip/but or getting the hole off to one side or accidentally drilling through the bottom of the butt grip.

In the future, you might consider a switch to new Anglers Resource WINN Grips. We designed the butt grip with a tenon and cap to eliminate the exact problem you're having. We have a 2 3/8 inch butt grip and new 4 1/4 inch. Both accept the same cap and both are designed to accept new Perfect Fit trim rings with no sanding or turning. Slap on some epoxy, slide on, clean up.

I'll second the difficult to ream part. I've installed exactly one Winn grip; a full length rear grip 8" long. It had a tenon on each end. One just perfect for the matching Winn butt cap, and one too long to fit the reel seat. When I trimmed it the razor blade went through the tenon so easily I had the idea that this thing is going to be way too soft to last very long. I was wrong.

It was so hard to ream I gripped it so tight that I stretched the skin, leaving it wrinkled. Had it been going on a rod I would be shipping out, I would have not used it. Since I was working on a personal rod, I decided to go ahead with it, just to see how it fished, and how it would wear over time. So far so good, but it hasn't been a long test.

Be very careful how you grab and grip one these things while reaming. I know I'll be drilling them out from now on. A set of those long, reverse sharpened drill bits are on my list of things to buy.

Gary that's exactly what we use to cut to rough size. Then a touch with the right size reamer and we never slow down.

Instead of marking the drill bit with a Sharpie as a depth indicator, simply wrap the drill bit with masking tape so that the forward edge of the tape matches the depth you want to drill. 10 - 15 wraps will build a big enough shoulder that pretty much eliminates the chance of going too deep.

Jim Ising Wrote:
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"Both accept the same cap and both are designed to accept new Perfect Fit trim rings with no sanding or turning. Slap on some epoxy, slide on, clean up."

I found the grips but could not find the Perfect Fit trim rings. The only place I have seen them is in the AR catalog.

Thanks

Jim Ising Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
"Both accept the same cap and both are designed to accept new Perfect Fit trim rings with no sanding or turning. Slap on some epoxy, slide on, clean up."

I found the grips but could not find the Perfect Fit trim rings. The only place I have seen them is in the AR catalog.

Thanks