I have an old trolling rod and the metal reel seat has come loose. The butt and foregrip are tight but the reel seat rotates easily It has a metal gimbal and a wooden butt. How is the best or easiest way to fix it?

If it is a two piece rod, the best way to fix it is to take the butt section of the rod, cut off the guides in front of the fore grip, cut the fore grip off of the rod, slip the reel seat off of the rod, reglue the reel seat, glue on a new fore grip, retie and coat the rod guides and go fishing.

Shy of that, you can drill holes in the reel seat and inject glue into the area under the reel seat, but this is far from my favorite way of repairing the issue.

The other way to do it is to remove the gimbal, remove the rod but, slip off the reel seat, reglue the reel seat reglue and or replace the rod butt if necessary and reglue and or replace the metal gimbal depending on whether you can remove the metal and butt without damage.

Be safe

James

If you are up to a wild Idea (has worked in the past), take a tube or PVC pipe and slip it over the handle. Seal one end of the tube with duct tape over the end of the reel seat, attach the other end of the tube to a shop vac or vacuum pump if you are lucky enough to have one. Turn on the Shop vac or vacuum pump and as the air gets sucked through the other (open) end of the reel seat apply thread finish or some other thin consistency adhesive around the open end of the reel seat and let the adhesive get sucked in between the handle and reel seat..While the adhesive is "loose" twist the seat back and forth to help the adhesive move through the gap and to final position the seat before the adhesive sets. You should be able to feel some resistance as the adhesive gets pulled through. It should not take much adhesive to bond the seat to the handle. It may get messy but cleaning with DNA during the process will help.

This method is very cumber-sum and labor intensive but with a little persistence it should do the job.
As I said it is a wild idea and worth a shot.
Good Luck
John

If you try John's idea -- a very good idea at that; the idea can be implemented even better if you happen to have a vacuum pump handy.

Do what is needed to seal the end around the end of the vacuum pump hose and apply the vacuum.

A good vacuum pump can generally develop quite a bit more vacuum than a shop vac can develop.

But, be cautious, you do not want any adhesive inside the vacuum pump. So, if you do decide to use a vacuum pump, out a buffer in between the vacuum hose and the pump.

You can just take a quart glass jar and install two hose ports on the lid of the jar. One port goes to the rod or the item you are pulling the vacuum, and the other port goes to the hose for the vacuum pump.

This way, if any adhesive gets sucked into the vacuum line it will end up in the jar and not in the vacuum pump.

One example of a vacuum pump:

[www.harborfreight.com]

An example of a manual pump and reservoir:

[www.harborfreight.com]

Do what Roger said the first time.

Rod finish is a poor adhesive, I wouldn't use it.

Thanks for all the ideas.

if you use the drill hole method , use slow cure epoxy , so it has some time ti get into the area you want to the epoxy into , I use a deep fry turkey injector to put it into the holes

William Sidney
AK

Odd , no were was it mentioned what type of material the front grip on the rod. I do this type of work every day. Details can make the difference in answers you may receive. Hope it works out for ya, you got a lot good help.

The front grip is hypalon, I was planning on using pro glue epoxy if I drilled the seat. I think I am more leaning towards taking the front grip off and doing it right. The vacuum idea still intrigues me though.

Have slopped a screw driver under of the lip of the foam to see how much gap or open void you may find. . Been pouring rod finish epoxy down reel seat repairs for many year , I suggest you tape the bottom of the reel seat some seats have very little actual contact with the arbor and epoxy may run out the bottom. Ive flex coat filled more than a few reel seats with this method and haven't had problem yet.