I'm currently building an American tackle BU-BA 30-50 as a casting rod for throwing snook jigs and other big lures. I've decided on a Forecast 14" carbon rear grip and 6" carbon foregrip. The issue I ran into is the tennon on the rear grip is 22.5mm OD so I would have had to use a size 24 reel seat which would be way to big for my application and reel choice which is an Accurate Tern 2 300.
I cut the tennon off with a razor blade but the OD of the grip where it meets the reel seat is 27mm the reel seat I have is a size 20 with a 27.15mm fixed hood OD. So it's pretty much a flush mount. I would of liked to have gone with the American Tackle 3k size 18 reel seat but it was too narrow and the foam core of the carbon grip was showing.

I believe if I ream the grip slowly and evenly so that it's centered it should be a good match between the two of them. I'm just concerned that if it's even slightly off that it will not line up. Any thoughts or tips would be greatly appreciated. I haven't started fitting the grips yet just in case I need to go with another grip option like the 13" Batson Carbon Fiber rear grip that doesn't have a tennon and the carbon fiber covers each end of the grip the way most carbon foregrips are made.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/26/2022 09:42PM by Tyler Reinert.

If you go with the other type grip you won’t get a nice flush fit - you can sand it down a bit to help square it up but still won’t be as clean. You’ve cut the tenon off already so you might as well see it through - go slow and be as careful as possible to stay square - that foam will ream quicker than you’d expect

I believe the 20 mm seat would have fit your tenon perfectly keeping everything centered.

Spencer

The tenon OD was 22.5mm so I don't know how that would fir in a 20mm reel seat.

Use a larger and larger reamer as the bore opens up. Twist it rather than use a push-pull motion. This will help keep the bore centered.

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I assume you don’t want to use a trigger reel, since the 14” Batson CF casting grip you selected was designed to perfectly fit both a size 16 an 17 trigger reel seat. It was not designed to fit a DPS pipe type reel seat. This is the reason you are having problems. For your 20 mm pipe reel seat, use a couple of pieces of a 20mm polyurethane foam arbor to center your reel seat. I epoxy the arbors into the reel seat, and when cured ream to fit the blank. When reaming take your time and use a very gentle touch allowing the reel seat or grip to turn in your hand as you rotate the reamer. This constantly repositions the reel seat or grip on the reamer so the hole is more concentric. If you hold the reel seat or grip tightly in your hand while reaming you are almost guaranteed to have a non concentric hole. So take your time and keep turning the parts being reamed.

Norm

It's not uncommon for me to use an EVA trim ring when I trim a carbon grip with a sharp edge similar to your situation. I use it primarily to have something soft where my fingers are transitioning from the grip to the blank. In your instance, being slightly compressible, it will help hide any small fit and finish issue by trimming off the tenon. You could use an EVA inlay strip available from a couple sources, or even a sheet of craft EVA from from the craft store. The craft sheets are really soft, but since you aren't using it to build a full grip and desire a little compression, it's not a bad option for this task and can even add a little pop of color if you choose.

You will thin cut out a square larger than the OD of your grip, and then punch a hole in the center similar in ID to the blank OD where the piece will sit. When you assemble your grip, make sure to use some pressure to hold everything together. It's not a bad idea to glue the EVA piece to the grip material before hand (contact cement works well, but a thin coat of epoxy will work as well) and then glue the rear grip in place first. Trim the EVA close to the OD of the butt grip and seat, but don't give it a finish sand yet. Then when you put the reel seat into place, you can use some clamping pressure to compress the EVA slightly, hiding any fitment issues. Finally put a wrap or two of tape around your grip and reel seat and sand the EVA trim ring/bushing flush. The result will look like it was intended to be that way and will solve your problems. Again, it's always important to keep your reaming as true as possible, but this technique will buy you a little more wiggle room than mating the rigid seat and rigid grip immediately next to one another.

I Believe my 20 mm trigger real seats all have a pocket of around 23 mm for the tenon to fit in, self-centering the grip to reel seat. You did say it was a casting rod with a relatively small reel. Sorry if I mistook you were using a tube seat.

Thank you all for your advice. I believe I'll go ahead and ream the grip as carefully as possible to keep it centered using the advice Norman provided. And yes I want a slick reel seat no trigger. I measured the pocket ID of the size 20 reel seat and it's just under 20mm I guess I could of sanded down the tennon and made it fit. But I'll try and fit it without the tennon. If it doesn't fit flush then I will use a piece of EVA for a transition like Joe mentioned. Otherwise my other option is to use this rear grip for an upcoming grouper rod that will use a larger reel seat and turn some EVA that I've been holding onto and use that for my grips and then I can use the size 18 3k carbon reel seat I originally wanted to. Will have plenty of time to work on it while this hurricane passes over us here in FL.