Has anyone installed the North Fork Composites Soft Touch split and full carbon fiber grips? I have 4 NFC rods to build and ordered the Soft Touch grips to go on the rods. I have my idea of how to install the grips just thought I would ask the experts. By the way I do not post much but read almost everything posted here on this forum. The people here have a wealth of knowledge and do not mind sharing it with others.

Thanks Pat Haley

I'm far from professional, but I'll share my experience.

I just installed their split grip earlier this week. Mine did not come with the EVA trim pieces for the inner parts of the split grip. I only received the fore and rear grips, an arbor, and the butt cap. I emailed NFC about the missing trim pieces that were pictured on the website, they replied within a day, and maybe 2 days later the trim pieces showed up in the mail. Once I had all of the pieces, it was pretty simple with some planning, I'll bullet point it. I'd love to hear a more experienced builder point out my mistakes or offer a more efficient way of doing things.

1. Reamed out the arbor and two inner EVA trim pieces. EVA butt cap did not need reamed. Dry fit everything to verify it felt right. I marked locations of arbor/trim pieces with chalk so I knew where to apply epoxy and where final resting positions would be. Took everything off and wiped the blank down with alcohol to clean it.
2. Slid my two inner EVA trim pieces down the blank, then my fore grip, followed by the arbor of the fore grip.
3. Epoxied my arbor, let it dry.
4. Epoxied my foregrip over the arbor and epoxied my foregrip EVA trim piece at the same time. (I also had my reel seat dry fitted at this point to make sure everything lined up.) Let it dry.
5. Epoxied my rear grip trim piece, then my rear grip over it (easily slid over the butt end of the blank), and finally epoxied my butt cap into the rear grip all at once. Let it dry.
6. Felt there was a pretty big void space where my reel seat and fore grip met, even through the edges touched. There was just going to be a large hollow area between the blank and where they touched. I cut a piece of EVA foam foregrip that I had lying around, to a width of about 1/2". I reamed and sanded to fit snugly in between my fore grip and reel seat, just to fill that gap. I epoxied it into place, right under the union of my reel seat and fore grip, just to act as an additional arbor. I was sure to epoxy the blank and the outside edge my make shift arbor so it'd hold to the inner parts of my fore grip and reel seat. I epoxied my reel seat into place at the same time, and let dry.
7. Installed a rubber winding check I had laying around in front of my reel seat.

When all was said and done the reel seat, fore grip, trim pieces, rear grip and butt cap matched up seamlessly. I worked on it over the span of about 4 evenings, only working a half hour here and there, but it's just a hobby and I do it at my leisure. I'll humbly say that just holding the blank in my basement, the grip feels pretty awesome! Super light, nice touch to it. I'm very, very happy. I have a full grip ready to go that I picked up during their big holiday sales. I'm excited to see how it works out, but it should be a lot easier than the split grip.

Good luck to you!

Jason,

Thank you for your feedback and instructions - Perfect!

P.S. the arbor that goes inside of the grip is just so that the blank can be centered...it does not need to encompass the full grip.

Pat - feel free to email info@northforkcomposites.com and we can send out some instructions as well.

The grips have a flat taper for the first inch on the split grips, and 3 inches on the longer grips.

This means that you can cut the grips shorter, and they will still match up perfectly with your reel seat.

There are a lot of options for trim rings, end pieces, etc...we include everything you need with the grips.

Thank You,
Aleks

Thanks Jason and Aleks for the reply. Aleks an e-mail was sent.

Pat Haley