Finished my first attempts at making carbon fiber grips using the CFX carbon fiber grip kit, that Mud Hole offers. One grip I would term a success, the other grip, pretty much a failure.

The failure was a small 3/4" long fore grip I made for a drop shot spinning rod I'm building. I'm building it with a split rear grip using an 2.35" CFX fighting butt, and an 2.25" CFX fore grip that I mounted backwards to use it as the rear grip. I wanted the small carbon fiber fore grip to complete the look. The fore grip I made is acceptable I suppose. It's a little too long, and one of the edges where it would have butt up to the trim ring on the reel seat, isn't as crisp as I would like. As a result, I'll try making another one, or I'll make a small fore grip out of EVA. The butt cap is EVA, so having a small EVA fore grip certainly won't look out of place.

The success is the full rear grip I made, for a casting rod I'm building. Total length of the grip is 9.5". I turned a tenon on each end. One to accept the butt cap and Alps TRB trim ring I am using, and the other to accept the Alps TRC trim ring that fits into the rear of the reel seat. As I wanted the ODs of the grip to match those of their respective trim rings, I did some measuring on a scrap CFX grip I had on hand. I determined that when all was said and done, I needed the OD of the foam core to be .050" smaller than the ODs of the trim rings I was using. .

Other than the weave being a bit crooked in a couple of places on the grip, I am very happy with the outcome. The OD's of the grip and trim rings match up almost perfectly. The difference being .003 - .004" smaller than the trim rings. When I was planning building the grips, I took into consideration two coats of epoxy and a single coat of Perma Gloss as top coats for the grip. I went that route on the split rear grip for the drop shot rod I mentioned earlier, and love the look. I thought it would look sweet on this casting rod as well. But now I'm not to sure. The rod is going to be a pitching and flipping rod, and as that type of fishing is an up close and personal kind of fishing, I think the stealthy look of the grip as it currently is, is kind of fitting. I figure I can always top coat it later while its on the rod if I want to.

Anyhow .... I'm pretty happy with the outcome, and building the grips was very satisfying. I don't know how many more of the grips I'll end up building, but based on the reactions to some pictures I sent, a couple of my tournament fishing buddies may want me to build them a couple of rods with carbon fiber grips on them.

I want to use this opportunity to issue a personal and public thank you to Phil Erickson for his help. He and I exchanged several e mails about the subject of carbon fiber grips, and he provided me with his personal process, answered every question, and he provided me with some solid suggestions for what I was trying to accomplish. A very sincere thank you Phil. Much appreciated.

Below are two pictures I uploaded to the photo section of the site. Believe me the grip is nothing special, It's basically just a shorter version of a stock CFX grip offered by Mud Hole. But like a proud papa ... it's my first one so I had to take a couple of pictures. lol

[www.rodbuilding.org]

[www.rodbuilding.org]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2017 05:37PM by David Baylor.

Wow, looks great to me . Can't see how you can do any better than that .

Thanks Herb, much appreciated!!!

I'm pretty critical of my own work, so while I am more than happy with the outcome for my first attempt, I know I can get it at least a little better.

Agree with Herb, I can picture myself going thru a fortune in materials to get a good one! Love the look though. Reel seats look good with them.

I cleaned up the small fore grip I described in my initial post a little bit, and now I'm pretty happy with it. I was able to sharpen up the corners where the fore grip butts up against the trim ring, with some 320 grit sandpaper. Besides inexperience, I think part of my problem was two fold. One, is the size of the piece itself. You'd think a small piece would be easier to work with, but that was not the case. That little bugger took a little work to get the carbon fiber sleeve tight.

Two, and this really falls under the heading of inexperience .... after pulling the sleeve from both ends to tighten it, I clamped the sleeve at the wider end of the fore grip, first. In hindsight, I should have secured the sleeve at the smaller end of the fore grip first. That would have meant that I would have been smoothing and tightening the sleeve uphill and over a lesser angled corner. I think that sharper than 90 degree corner hindered my ability to get the sleeve to fully tighten on the grips vertical end.

One more thing I think may help in the future, is using 1" sleeve versus 1.25" sleeve. While the diameters of the foam core are well within the range the 1.25" sleeve can adapt to, I think a smaller diameter sleeve may work a little better on something like this.

Below are links to a couple of pictures I took. If anyone looks at them I have a couple of questions I hope you may be able to help me with? As you can see in the pictures, I've already top coated the fighting butt and rear grip. Prior to the second coat I scuffed the surface of the first coat lightly with a grey Scotch Brite pad. I wiped any potential dust off with a dry cloth. After applying the second top coat I am noticing a cloudiness to the finish on the rear grip that is not in the finish of the fighting butt.

My questions ..... what may have caused it? And what can I do to fix it? I have a feeling I'm going to have to sand it down to pretty much jump street, and start all over again. I will be applying a final top coat of Perma Gloss, in case that has any bearing on any suggestions I may receive. Any suggestions provided will be much appreciated.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Thanks Lynn, much appreciated sir!! And I'm sure you could do just as good if not better. It's definitely something I hadn't planned on getting into, but now that I have it has me wanting to try some other new things. For instance I'm thinking of doing a Tiger wrap between the rear grips of the drop shot rod in the pictures I just posted. Of course whether I do or not depends on how well my practice Tiger wraps come out.

And yeah, I think the MVT seats are sharp looking with any kind of grip, but it really looks good with a carbon fiber grip. Since taking that picture I've gotten my thread barrel trimmed down, and the little EVA nub I use to close off the end of the thread barrel. I won't be using the winding check at the end of the thread barrel in the picture. The trim rings are Alps, and the winding check is from Mud Hole, and when you get it in the sunlight, the colors don't match.

Anyhow .... thanks again !!!

Ya can't do too many practice tigers, and I hope you keep track of what thread you have where better than I did! Sometimes you think something should look good and it doesn't and something won't look good and it does. Some swearing may occur.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/12/2017 06:07PM by Lynn Behler.

Great job. It looks really good.

Thank you Lance, I truly appreciate the compliment.

One a note to itself ............ I was kind of hoping I'd get some comments on the cloudiness of the rear grip on the drop shot rod pictures I linked. It almost looks like a blush caused by high humidity. But I don't have that same cloudiness on the fighting butt of the drop shot rod, and I put the second coat of finish on, one after the other.

I'm going to sand that grip down to almost starting over, and re top coat it.

Anyhow ..... can't figure out what caused the cloudiness on one piece, and not the other ....... oh well (shrug)

Thanks again for the comment :o)