I like the look of the burl cork mixed with regular cork like the TKR rod in RodMaker Magazine. I'm about to build a fly handle with burl rings on the ends of the full wells and fighting butt for a customer. My fear is that it will chip and look poor after a few hard uses. Any tips or commentary? I see St. Croix and other manufacturers using the rubber particle cork as accents. Can you buy specialty rings in this or other materials that provide the contrast of burl but hold up better?

I have made hundreds of grips with "burl" cork and have never, to my knowlege, had one chip or flake apart. They are very durable. For the record, the rod you refer to in the photo is about 8 years old and has been fished pretty hard in the salt. I just did a small clean up on it to make it presentable for the photo.

There are different kinds of "burl" cork. I have seen some that appeared to be pressed from flakes of material. Other types seem to be compressed from smaller bits and pieces of material. I suppose the particular type of "burl" and how it has been made determines how durable it is.

True burl cork is a rarity. It has been some years since I have been able to get any.

I am sure the rubberized cork is even more durable, but am unsure where you can get individual rings. I imagine some of the board sponsors may be able to help you there.

Tom Kirkman
RodMaker Magazine

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Angler's Workshop sells the rubberized cork disks - these aren't bored as they are most often used for butt caps. I use this material for the butt caps on fighting butts on larger fly rods- works very well and I think looks better than EVA.

Andy

I'm in build rods in Monterrey Mexico. Due to the trouble of importing, I try to buy everything I can in-country. I found that the matarial used to make cork gaskets works very well for dressing up handles. I found it in sheets 24" X 30" X 1/4" I made a punch out of pipe to cut out the disks and power reem them. I use a rubberized version of this for but caps. For longer handels I use two.