So I'm needing to cast some urethane arbors, cores for CF grips on Ice rods. I'm looking at pourable urethane through US Composites. My question is do I need 16 pound urethane or will 8 lb suffice. Is it a bad idea to pour urethane directly into a real seat or CF tube? I really appreciate the years of experience and knowledge on this forum. You guys really save me from a lot of mistakes.

8 will do it. Never tried pouring it directly into a reel seat or tube, you would have to figure out the mix, or waste a lot the foam.

8lb is as hard as you'll need for about anything related to fishing rod use.

You can pour directly into a reel seat or tube, but you have to allow expansion and the amount of expansion has a great deal to do with how warm the area where you're working. You'll get more expansion in a warmer area than you will in a cooler one. The best cores are usually poured in a warm area so you get maximum expansion for the weight involved. If you do a test or two, you should be able to dial in roughly how much you need to pour into any given size handle or tube without having excess spillage. If you come up short you can always add more in a second batch with no loss of strength.

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Scott,
I certainly agree with Spencer and Tom that 16lb is overkill and 8lb will be more than adequate. Heck, 3lb foam is more than enough as the major impact strength comes from the (CF) skin. USC is a trusted, reliable source and has served the composite industry for many years.
My question is what exactly are you attempting to gain by pouring your own arbors within the reel seat or CF tube? While an admirable concept, concentrically drilling and reaming the center-bore after-the-fact may prove to be quite difficult, especially with the non-concentric hoods of the seat. With all the different foam arbors available already center-bored, that may be a more feasible solution. And that is coming from me who can notoriously take something simple and make it difficult, involved or complex. But I am here to learn.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

The carbon skin is terribly thin and won't offer much impact strength. It's the core that matters. In our tests using the grips in rod holders and surf spikes, 8lb was sufficient to withstand any denting whatsoever. 4lb saw the carbon skins crushed by the same use. Some use 6lb for freshwater only applications. I think the 8lb has proved to be the best all around density for a wide host of uses.

Many builders assume that the foam core, carbon skinned grips are akin to the old carbon Tennessee Tube handles where you had a thick carbon tube support on a couple or three arbors. Those were very thick tubes. The carbon skins on the foam core grips are only about 0.013" thick. They have little strength on their own. The magic of these grips remains the core, not the skin. The core isn't there to support the skin, the skin is there to protect the surface of the all-important foam core. We're done many of these grips and didn't use a skin at all - just painted or flocked the core. It's the core than matters.

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I am with Tom & Mark on this, I see little to be gained, and foreseeable problems by doing this yourself! The commercially available options are numerous and inexpensive.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/27/2021 02:34PM by Phil Erickson.

Tom,
You and I have had this discussion before and, apparently, continue to disagree with each other. 8lb foam will dent with one's fingernail; it will not after a CF skin is applied. One can easily break / snap an 8lb X 8in long foam core but virtually impossible after skinned with CF, FG or Aramid. Granted, the latter has more to do with flexural strength but both serve to show the skins are what supply the ultimate strength, not the core. I do agree that obviously a denser foam will resist deformation better than softer to some degree, but we are talking about a fishing rod handle, hopefully not something subjected to being run over by the truck. The very first rod I built 7 years ago employed a 3lb foam core skinned with CF / Aramid sleeving, long before learning you had already “invented” it years prior.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

Thanks Mark. I wasn't thinking about the problems I'd encounter trying to drill my center bore after filling a seat.
I know there are prefab options. I was thinking about doing a little experimenting.

Scott,
Nothing ventured = nothing gained. I commend you for experimenting outside the box; you are thinking and that is what really matters. While your “pour-foam” inserts certainly have merit, as stated earlier, concentrically drilling / boring / reaming would be a hurdle to overcome. Just don’t stop thinking, experimenting and asking questions.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

Mark,

Yes, we had indeed invented these grips many years prior. If you built your first one only 7 years ago then you came to the idea only recently. Remember, we published an article on the process a full 15 years ago and had grips in use well before that.

Andy was utilizing carbon skins to improve the cosmetics and marketing of some very poor cork grips he had obtained from either Cast-A-Way or All-Star. I forget which. The idea was to turn a poor cork grip into something the public would view as high-tech due to the carbon component. I had been flocking the urethane cores about the same time and even did some with an aircraft/marine paint that proved more than sufficient to protect the core surface. Andy wanted to continue with the carbon skins, not because they did anything better, but because they would be more effectively marketed to the public. If it's carbon, it must be high-tech.... right?

Because you're still new to these grips, there are a lot more variations you may wish to try in terms of covering the core. You could, of course, just use them bare but they are a bit abrasive to the hand. This was and is the primary reason to skin or cover them with something in terms of functionality. For marketing purposes, the thin carbon skins are hard to beat.

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I tried making a skin and supporting it with two bushings like you would do a common carbon TN handle tube. No way to get any shape and the hardened skin could be crushed between two fingers. Just way to thin. My experience is that the skin will not work without the core but the core will work without the skin. For use in rod holders I just use shrink tubing over the cores. I have also done surf rods with cord wrapped over the cores in a 3-grip style surf setup.

I've used the white polyurethane foam reel seat arbors for ramps off the front and back of a spin seat, paint them to get uniform color, then coat after installation on the rod with wrap epoxy, usually 2 or 3 coats of thin, and I've never had one crush. I don't use rod holders.

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That's why we do this rod building thing, right? Anyone can buy a close representation of what they want for a rod. We work to come up with more creative ways of delivering exactly what we or the client is looking for.