Hi everyone,

I am fairly new to rod making (just over 2 years), and I am looking to make some grips for a few builds I am working on. I have made all cork grips in the past and shaped them on a lathe. The question is, I want to add some color to a cork grip I am working on and I was wondering what sort of material to use for this accent? I am assuming EVA foam would be where to start, however, what happens if I want to put a protective coat on the cork? Will the EVA react differently than the cork or is there a good technique out there? The accents wouldn't be too over-the-top, probably one or so disk on each end of the rod grip. Thanks in advance.

-John Mc

John,
Just forget about the protective coat of anything over the cork and you will be good to go.

Roger,

Thanks for the reply. Do you have a recommended thickness for the spacers? I have some 2 mm EVA foam I use for fly tying I was planning on using. Thanks again.

-John Mc

Poker chips make excellent spacers, lots of colors and very easy to sand.

John

Cork is water "resistant" but . . .

Cork can be colored or shaded with MinWax stain, Rite Dye, and maybe other dyes or stains. It sometimes takes more than a little trail and error to get the hue you desire.

My favorite protective coating for cork is TruOil. It requires 8 or more very thin and sanded coats (think French polish) to build finish depth. Spar varnish (long oil variety) and epoxy finish also work.

No idea how TruOil, spar or epoxy might work with poker chips or material other than cork.

I have used tru oil on gun stocks with some plastic and it always turns out great. I use very fine sandpaper between coats and out it o with my fingers with nitrile gloves then hang it up to dry.

I have used tru oil on gun stocks with some plastic and it always turns out great. I use very fine sandpaper between coats and out it o with my fingers with nitrile gloves then hang it up to dry.

Thanks for all the replies. Poker chips sound like a really inventive idea that would really make the grip pop. I will have to look into TruOil. Thanks for the techniques.

-John Mc

John,
If you work with poker chips, do yourself a favor and drill holes in the middle of a bunch of chips and bolt them on a threaded rod to use in your lathe as a mandrel and experiment with different sanding and polishing techniques to get the edges of the chips to look as you wish on your final integrated cork grip.

I have used various types of robbing compounds and buffers and buffing wheels to polish out auto headlights, as well as auto tail lights, and also polish out various metals and different woods.

You may find that the use of the same sanding techniques that you use for your cork, may not be the best thing to use to polish the plastic that you integrate into the cork grips. So, you want to experiment in finding the best technique and materials to get the look that you wish - both with the poker chips, Eva, and cork when all used together or by themselves.

It might be interesting to build an entire grip out of poker chips. After all, when you look at some of the commercial rod makers, some of them are using handles made of different kinds of molded materials like plastic, nylon and other things.
But, I would imagine that one could glue and machine poker chips just fine, if you used the right techniques. For example, normally when working with a low melting point like plastic, one normally has to keep the speeds down on a lathe when doing machining and polishing on the material to avoid heat build up and inadvertent melting of the material.

Take care

John,
If you work with poker chips, do yourself a favor and drill holes in the middle of a bunch of chips and bolt them on a threaded rod to use in your lathe as a mandrel and experiment with different sanding and polishing techniques to get the edges of the chips to look as you wish on your final integrated cork grip.

I have used various types of robbing compounds and buffers and buffing wheels to polish out auto headlights, as well as auto tail lights, and also polish out various metals and different woods.

You may find that the use of the same sanding techniques that you use for your cork, may not be the best thing to use to polish the plastic that you integrate into the cork grips. So, you want to experiment in finding the best technique and materials to get the look that you wish - both with the poker chips, Eva, and cork when all used together or by themselves.

It might be interesting to build an entire grip out of poker chips. After all, when you look at some of the commercial rod makers, some of them are using handles made of different kinds of molded materials like plastic, nylon and other things.
But, I would imagine that one could glue and machine poker chips just fine, if you used the right techniques. For example, normally when working with a low melting point like plastic, one normally has to keep the speeds down on a lathe when doing machining and polishing on the material to avoid heat build up and inadvertent melting of the material.

Take care

When working with thin plastics you also have to be very slow and deliberate while drilling to not crack the plastic.

There are all the gasket materials from paper, to cork, to rubber.different combos of cork/black rubber, the reds in the R. B. Meiser spey grips is red plumbers gasget. Thin black lines or spacers don't come faster than thin black paper.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2019 10:15AM by Spencer Phipps.

All of these will work for accents, you can use epoxy or Poly glues to insert in a grip. [www.texasknife.com]