I have a couple of custom freshwater bait casting rods from the early 80s. These were built on Fenwick blanks by a friend of my late father. I have had one for years but it's old school, single handed pistol grip. I've long preferred 2 hands and I think there 's probably more than one reason you don't see these old pistol grip anymore. One of the rods has a Fuji Speed fit grip that has a ferrule on the rod that fits into the handle. The other is similar but I see no obvious label and the handle clamps directly on the blank. For purely sentimental reasons I'd like to fish these again to bring back lots of memories of fishing with Dad. However, i really don't like these handles. Is there a way to convert either of these to 2 handed handles? I haven't seen any handles after a cursory search.
Thanks

In my humble opinion, I would extend them from the butt rearward were I to attempt this at all. I think they are better left as is and remembered as they were. Fuji very quickly moved on from the ferrule in front of the reel system. ( lighter, stronger, faster ) was the motto back in the Lew Childre days, and they soon discovered that the blank thru to the butt was a much better way to build rods.

There's a stud, (for lack of a better name), under the pistol grip, slip a piece of aluminum tube, the right stiffness, over the stud and build whatever grip you like on it.

Michael,
A quick clean way to accomplish this is to simply take a saw and saw off the grip, right in front of the grip and reel seat.
Then, extend the shorted blank as needed for the grip and reel seat you would like on the rod and enjoy.

But, as others have said - I personally would leave the rods as they are and just enjoy the memories of them that way.

If you want another rod, there are plenty of blanks around to let you get the blank that you wish and build a new rod on the new blank.

Good luck.

With rods having sentimental value, they would probably not be recognizable with everything that would have to be done to convert what are likely 5 to 5 1/2' blanks into usable two-handed casting rods.

I'd vote for leaving the rods as is and using them for fishing styles that they are better suited to like vertical jigging and making short precise casts around cover, etc. or retiring them to the wall.

Does anyone know if Fji ever made a 2 handed grip for this system? Based upon the feedback so far and my own preferences, I'd rather not do anything too drastic to the original handles

Fuji did offer a two-handed offset casting handle for several years.

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