I got a ecs seat I installed 12-16 hrs ago. There must have been more play than I thought cause now I discovered the blank by the lock nut is not centered through the seat. It’s off by about 1/16. Is there anything I can do at this point to fix without destroying my grip and starting over? I built an epoxy ramp and it didn’t help to balance it out. The rod is for me so function will be fine but it bothers me.

I had no plan on adding any type of foregrip but that maybe my only choice.

Thanks

Jason,
I assume that you are in the middle of the build so that you have your grip and reel seat on but no guides?

If so, just take a dremel tool with an abrasive cut off tool and cut nearly down through the reel seat on each side of the rod. DO NOT CUT into the rod blank itself with the cut off wheel. Then, put a screw driver into the slot and give it a twist on each side of the rod. The reel seat will split and come off the rod. Use a bit of heat on the epoxy left on the rod and scrape off the heated epoxy with a razor blade held perpendicular to the blank and start over. The the end of your epoxy ramp, put on about 5 layers of masking tape to protect the blank and finish from the scrape of the razor blade and you will be good to go.

Just chalk up the time and expense as education and move on.

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p.s.
Over the years, I have tried a couple of times to do an adjustment on a mislocated item on a rod. I was never successful, so I no longer try, If I happen to make a mistake. Rather, I just remove the defect. Throw it away, and install a new part or piece and move on.

Jayson
What Roger said.
But - before reaming new arbor cut it into 4 equal parts and ream each separately.
Take great care to ream holes concentricly so arbor will be voncentric to blank.
If sest does not fit snuggly on the arbor.
Bush the arbor with thread until snug.
Then epoxy seat to arbor.
BTW - hope you are epoxying arbor to blank firsr.
Wait for epoxy wto cure. Then epoxy seat to arbor.
Herb

Herb, the ECS is an exposed blank casting seat. where the back end gets reamed to fit the blank. Right or wrong, I usually ream and fit the seat first (a good option is to glue it up and let the epoxy set before installing the arbor). Then I ream and install the arbor. You can get a little bit of movement in the barrel once the seat is installed, if the arbor is installed last you can tweak the reaming of the arbor to shift things back into alignment if needed.

Just my opinion, but I would not risk the blank with the removal of the seat just to fix a 1/16 of an inch eccentricity. It is not risk free and the eccentricity will not affect the function of the rod.

Joe Vanfossen Wrote:
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> Herb, the ECS is an exposed blank casting seat.
> where the back end gets reamed to fit the blank.
> Right or wrong, I usually ream and fit the seat
> first (a good option is to glue it up and let the
> epoxy set before installing the arbor). Then I
> ream and install the arbor. You can get a little
> bit of movement in the barrel once the seat is
> installed, if the arbor is installed last you can
> tweak the reaming of the arbor to shift things
> back into alignment if needed.

Joe,
Thanks for that.
Being predominantly a fly rod builder, I was not familiar with that seat.
Thanks for pointing that out.
Herb

Jason, i do not like to ream these seats for this very reason, they lose their center..i have a collection of these seats and select one that comes closest to where i want it on the rod..i don,t mind cutting an inch or so off blank to get the butt length i want, most times it,s less than an inch..

Thanks guys I’m just going to leave it as is. Going further I’ll just remember to verify fitment before I get to far ahead even if it means adding a masking tape arbor of 2 wraps. Worst case I can hide it more with a small fire grip of Eva. But as I said before in the end it’s for me and I’ll be the only one to notice

The ECS seats are exposed blank reel seats that are sized fit the blank, but this sizing is only in the back half of the real seat. The threaded front end of of seat is not sized to fit the blank but rather has the standard ID of 15mm found with most 16 mm reel seats. I use a seat that snugly fits the blank where I want it. I will use one that is slightly too small and ream it to fit the blank. Once I have the right sized reel seat, I glue a polyurethane foam arbor In the front part of the seat. When the glue has cured I will ream the foam arbor to fit the blank and then glue the reel seat to the blank. Doing it this way you don’t have to worry about splitting the foam arbor while trying to ream it to size. Works great and you never get the reel seat off center. What happened in your case is that you didn’t arbor the front half of the reel seat and front part settled during the curing and thus it became non-concentric to the blank. Since only rear part of the reel seat is glued to the blank you might be able to break the glue bond by heating the reel seat. If this doesn’t work then carefully cut off the seat and use a new one with an arbor glued in place.
Norm