Hey guys, I'm curious what the proper way to order these reel seats are, they come in half mm sizes. Do I order the size closest to where the front seat measures on the blank and ream the back seat till it fits, or do I order the size to the rear size and make small arbors with tape till they are snug and have little gaps (that will be covered by checks I guess)

Jody,
Use the method that works best for you.
I personally don't like to have arbors on an exposed seat, so I buy reel seats that are a bit smaller and then ream them to size for the perfect fit.

Best wishes

Get it a little smaller and ream to fit,
Norm

The threaded barrel of the Minima reel seat will need to be shimmed. I usually use a piece of a 16 mm polyurethane foam arbor and epoxy it in place in the tube. When set the arbor can be easily reamed to fit the blank. With the split reel seat you will need a winding check for at least one end of the threaded barrel, if you go with no foregrip you will need two winding checks. There a number of ways to cover the open end of the threaded barrels. Here are three types of checks I have used.
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The rubber ones are easy to use because you can order them on the small side and they will stretch to give a snug fit. The hard nylon or metal checks may need to be reamed to fit if bought to small. For these types of checks it’s better to order a little larger, they will be held in place via a thread wrap. Hope this helps.
Norm

Order them by the size of the blank where you want the back portion of the seat to land. The thread barrels are not sized to fit the blank. As Norman mentioned, you have to arbor them to fit the blank. I used the same foam arbor that Norman mentioned for the thread barrel. Glue it in thread barrel and let it set up, then ream it to fit the blank. Trying to ream it without having it installed in the thread barrel first, will most likely lead to a split arbor. Depending on the blank you're putting it on, there isn't going to be a whole lot of arbor left inside the barrel once you've fitted it to the blank.