What’s the best way to ream fighting butts? I’m gluing up cork rings and want to build some handles this weekend. It just always takes forever to read fighting butts by hand. Is there a faster way? I’ve heard of some people starting it off with a drill bit...

I use a rotary type rasp on my drill and run it forwards then backwards, I believe it's a 1/2 size and most of my butt's are .520 or bigger...I do need to fine a finer cutting one as the one I have is coarse.

I use the Dream Reamer and chuck it in my power hand drill. It woks quite fast, so care is needed, also, it should rotate in reverse, so as not to try and screw itself into the grip.

Well you could glue it together minus the cap drill it to size then take it and glue the cap on. That is how the carbon fiber fighting butts come.

You can totally shape it, ream it through, then finish it with a black rubber interior trim bumper from the O'Reilley's interior fastener display.

Daren,
It is much much much simpler to either ream or drill the cork rings to size, before you glue them up.

That way, after gluing up you just need to run a clean out through the glued up rings and you are essentially ready to put it on the lathe for shaping

To shape a grip that has already been presized to fit the grip, you simply build up your arbor with masking tape to match the taper of your rod. Shape the grip, pull it off the lathe, and glue it onto the rod and you are good to go.

----------------
p.s.
When I glue up cork, I use titebond III glue for adhesive. It works very well, but there is a drying time for the glue. Also, since the glue is an air cure, it does not like to cure on the inside of the grip.
So, when I make grips with presized cork rings, I will glue up the grip in a cork clamp. The clamp that I use is a threaded rod, with a washer on each end and thus makes the interior of the cork pretty air tight. As a result, the inside of the grip dries much more slowly than the exterior. So, after I let the grip dry overnight, I will remove the cork clamp. i.e. the threaded rod and washers. Then I just use water and a rag and brush to clean the glue out of the threads of the threaded rod. Then, I will put on a few wraps of masking tape onto the threaded rod and will use it much like a gun cleaning rod. i.e. I will run the threaded rod with the masking tape build up on the end to effectively wipe the inside of the cork rings to be free of any non dried glue. After doing this several times and verifying that the interior is free of glue, I will let the grip dry for 24 hours to be completely dry.

Then, I take the glued up set of pre bored cork rings grip to a pre built up masking tape and rod arbor for shaping on the lathe.

By the way, for quick reaming of the cork rings, I just use a tapered power reamer chucked into a drill to ream out each individual ring to match the location of that ring on the blank where it will be installed. Easy to ream out 20-30 rings in 5 minutes or so and will be ready to gluing and final work on the lathe for shaping. Many times easier to do this, than to use a full length reamer after the rings have been glued together.

Also, it is easy to keep the hole centered in the cork ring when reaming one ring at a time.

Good luck

I assemble the grip first using fiberglass layup epoxy (US Composites) on a 1/4" mandrel coated with wax. (Mine are all cored with foam but it will work the same if just made of cork). Then I take it to the lathe and form it. Then I break it free from the mandrel. Then I chuck the reamer (Forecast Dream Reamer) in my lathe (the metal part that screws into the handle) and progress up to the size needed. Bingo, done very quickly. Just make sure you don't go too fast. It can heat everything up causing the sandpaper to come free from the reamer, or, if you really heated it up, could cause the epoxy to soften.

I like doing it in on my lathe because it's very stable. I just keep it running until I've done them all.

The best reamers appear to be those Forecast Ultimate Reamers but I cannot afford them. What are they now...$300 bucks a piece or something like that. I sure would like to have them though.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2019 08:42PM by Tom Harder.