I have a couple of threads where I talk about things that I think are a problem with the spinning version of the XO skeleton grip. Here is a link to a thread where I post some pictures and describe what i think the problems with the grip are. If you're considering purchasing and using one of these grips, you might want to take a look at that thread and then decide on your own, whether or not what I question about the grips construction, are problems. [www.rodbuilding.org]

Whether anyone agrees with me as to what I discuss in the thread are in fact actually problems with the grips design, doesn't really matter to me. I think they are, so I had to come up with a way of working around those problems. I am including links to a few pictures of what I came up with, which is really nothing more than a bridge between the grip, and the actual rod blank that will used in the construction of the rod. I think the pictures are pretty self explanatory, but I may as well describe what I did and why.

The first thing I did was determine how much of the rod blank I needed to cut off. One would think that how much you need to cut off the butt of the blank is determined by how long you want the finished rod to be. And in most cases that would probably prove to be true, but ....... you're sticking the blank of the rod in through the thread barrel of the grip, so the maximum OD the blank can have, can't be larger than the ID of the thread barrel. Which in my case, despite starting out with a blank that was 7' 3" long, I could only build a 7' 2" rod. No big deal, but something a person might want to keep in mind when choosing a rod blank for use with the grip. BTW, the ID of the grip's thread barrel, is .574"

The next thing to consider, at least it was a consideration of mine, and had a bearing on how long of a rod I could build with the blank I was using, I wanted the butt of the blank to butt up to the inside of the grip where the grip narrows. Once I cut the blank I started working on what I will call a bridge, between the grip and the blank of the rod. For the "bridge" I used a 5" piece of a broken rod blank I had laying around. I built up arbors using 1/8" masking tape to center half of the 5" bridge in the blank used in the rod construction, and arbors on the opposite end to center the bridge in the slender portion of the grip. This picture [www.rodbuilding.org] should pretty much show what I am describing.

This picture [www.rodbuilding.org] shows the "bridge" installed in the rod blank and positioned beside the grip pretty much as it will be, proportionately, when finally installed. You can also see the arbors I built up for where the blank will pass through the thread barrel. The part of the blank between those arbors and the cut end of the blank simply passes through the middle of the grip, and doesn't come in contact with anything.

The the blank section sticking out of the rod blank will be epoxied into the rod blank, and into the slender portion of the grip. The other portion of the blank with arbors will be epoxied into the thread barrel. This is a picture of what it will look like when done .[www.rodbuilding.org] I have a small EVA nub that will finish off the end of the thread barrel, but I haven't finished turning it completely down, nor have I reamed it to fit the blank.

I don't have any of it epoxied yet, but I can tell you this, it is and is going to be a very solid connection that I feel needed to be done to overcome what I see as short comings. The blank I am using for the rod is an MB 733 X ray blank with black mirror finish .


So that's it. Easy enough to do. Does one really need to go through the trouble? I think so. I'm glad I took the plunge and picked one up while they were on sale, but even though it wasn't that hard to do, I won't be getting another one unless there is a pretty major redesign. You shouldn't have to do stuff like this to a $95 component just so you'll feel good about using it.

Figured I'd add a couple of pictures showing how I handled adding a trim ring to add some color to the grip. The OD of the very butt end of the grip in its stock form, is 1.074" . I like using Alps TRB trim rings between the butt cap and rear grip on my rods that I use a butt cap on, to add a little color and I think a little more refined look. The OD of the Alps TRB is 1.040" so in order to have the surfaces of the grip and trim ring line up nice and even, I had to take some length off what would be considered the fighting butt of the grip.

Using a disc sander at work, I took off about .625" of length off the butt of the grip to get it close to where I needed it to be, and then some 220 grit sandpaper on a flat surface to sand it by hand to its; finished length

The butt cap that comes with the grip has a tenon on it that inserts into the butt of the grip. It's OD was very close to the OD of the grip in stock form. It would have been difficult to turn down to the right OD, so I made my own tenon insert out of a section of CFX foam core that I had left over from a grip I made a few years ago. The EVA butt cap I used was a bit too long for my liking so I cut .5" off it and sanded it down to get the OD I was looking for.

I still have a little bit of sanding to do on the OD of the butt cap before it's exactly the way I want it, but it's close.

Anyhow .... I enjoy this kind of stuff, so thought I'd share if anyone has similar aspirations to modify one of the XO spinning grips.

here are the links to the pictures [www.rodbuilding.org] [www.rodbuilding.org] [www.rodbuilding.org]

As expensive as these are, they should make them with removable ferrules (like the way rods were made a long tin3 ago. That way, if the rod breaks, at least the handle would be salvageable. Assuming the handle itself has strength, I trust that a bond that only covers the reel seat area would be sufficient. Those ferruled handles from years past were only about an inch and a half of connection, and they held up. The blank through at least the reel seat would seem the most sensitive.

Is that the reel lock nut that came with the handle? Nothing like the illustration of what they are selling online.

John, I've only seen one ferruled handle on an old factory Shimano rod I used to own. I didn't even know it was ferruled until I went to tear the rod down and rebuild it. The butt of the rod blank went into the reel seat pretty much the entire length of the reel seat, which was between 4 and 5 inches long. Also, they have telescoping rods that work more or less like a ferrule, but the overlap of the blank sections is about 4 - 5 inches.

I know the ferrule system can and does work, but I personally wouldn't have trusted having only 1 3/4" of the blank actually epoxied to the seat., so I came up with what I pictured and described above.

And no, that isn't the lock nut that came with the handle. The lock nut I have on it now is lock nut from a size 16 Pac Bay casting reel seat that I had lying around. The red backing nut is an Alps product that I picked up at Get Bit. There's really no need for the backing nut, but I like it because it adds a bit of color to the grip. I have a 2500 Shimano Vanford reel that's going to be going on the rod, and it has red accents in it, which is why I went with the red trim pieces.

For what it’s worth, I just noticed that the Megabass P5 7’11” flipping stick has a removable handle. The contact surface appears to only be 2”. I would think if 2” is enough contact area for a near 8ft flipping stick, then maybe a glued in handle only at the threads could be enough too. (I’m like you though, still a little uneasy on this.)

Adding a picture of the lock nut area finished off. [www.rodbuilding.org] I took .375" more off the length of the thread barrel because I didn't want any threads visible once the reel was installed. Both the red backing nut and locking nut / hood combination will pass over the EVA nub to allow putting on, and taking off of the reel.

I also weighed a few things.

The weight of the grip with everything on it ...... butt cap, trim ring at the butt, backing nut, and lock nut / hood combination, is 1.35 oz. The blank I am using is an MB 733 X ray blank with 7.25" trimmed off the butt, It weighs 1.6 oz. The piece of rod blank that I used as the connecting bridge between the blank and the grip weighs .2 oz. I don't have anything epoxied up yet, but I weighed the rod assembled, and it weighs 3.15

I'll be using Fuji T2 black titanium guides on the rod with the entire guide train weighing only 4.22 grams. Once I get the guides on and finish on the wraps, I'm thinking the finished rod should come in somewhere around 3.5 oz.

Even without guides and finish on the rod I am already noticing a bit of tip heaviness in the rod when I have the 2500 Vanford reel on it. The Vanford only weighs 6.55 oz. When I put on a 3 oz heavier 3000 Shimano Ultegra, I don't notice any tip heaviness. As this is going to be a rod I use for bottom contact baits, I'll be needing to add weight inside the butt of the grip to get the kind of rod and reel combination balance I prefer. I actually anticipated the possibility of needing to add weight, which is one of the reasons why I chose using a piece of foam core to make the plug and tenon used for mounting the butt cap. It's going to be super easy to ream the center bore to accept a weight.

David,

You did a marvelous job of revealing your thought process and how that translates to a practical application for a custom build. You worked this out from your initial observations and concerns with the XO grip (in another post) to a solution you find satisfactory....for now Thank you for bringing me along with you! The pics were very helpful, too.

Question for you: What went into your thinking when deciding the length of the extension into the skinny part of the XO grip? It appears you took it all the way to the beginning of the taper of the butt grip. Was this a strength or concentricity call - or both? Is the foam arbor in the butt end the stopping point? Did you consider extending into the foam arbor?

I like your solution for this problem because it helps the blank stay in line with the entire length of the grip. It also supports the blank at two points, not just one.

Was the I.D. of the skinny part a consistent 12 mm, or is that just a close proximity? I ask because I thought if the ID were a consistent value, then I could turn a foam arbor to use instead of tape (not that tape is bad). Guess I could try it out and see. (I see the value of using tape because it will stay put while checking the fit - whereas a foam arbor might slip off inside the tube and become hard to fish out.)

I hope you will come back again when you get things just the way you want them. Sounds like you are getting close!

Les, thank you for responding, I appreciate it. To answer your questions ......... I made the extension the length I did for both of the reasons you mentioned, to keep the extension concentric with the grip and blank, and for strength. I figured 2.5" into each piece would be more than sufficient. As the butt of the blank will be in contact with the inside of the grip as well, I probably could have gotten away with shorter sections of the extension sticking into the grip and blank, but as is evident with what I've been doing with the grip, I'm not really a "could have gotten away with it" kind of guy.

The foam arbor I made for installing the butt cap is just that. Just something to mount a trim ring and butt cap on, and something to hold any potential weight I may want to add to the butt of the rod. Had I been able to find a blank that I personally would find useful, that would have passed completely the grip, I would have used the same style foam insert to anchor the butt of the blank. In that scenario I would have probably made the foam insert about 3" long

As far as the ID of the skinny part of the grip being consistent. When determining the ID of that portion of the grip, I put gift wrapping tape around a bare rod blank and slid it into the grip from both ends until it stopped. I measured where the mark on the tape was and came up with 12.4 mm for both ends, so I'd assume that diameter is consistent the entire length of the skinny portion of the grip.

As far as the tape arbors go, I'm not too happy about using them. I have foam arbors that I may use to change out the tape arbors on the blank extension, but I probably won't. As far as the tape arbors that will be passing through the thread barrel, they'll definitely be staying. There is only a .030" difference in the OD of the thickest tape arbor, and the OD of the blank right beside it. The other arbors are even more thin. The butt of the blank barely fits in the thread barrel as is, so I'd need to find a way to hold a foam arbor while I reamed it to fit the rod blank, then epoxy it to the blank, let it dry, then sand it to fit inside the thread barrel.

An already long story a little shorter ....... too much work with the potential to mess up, just to eliminate 4 thin tape arbors.

I've gotten everything I'm going to do to it, done just the way I want them, so I'll start epoxying everything up tomorrow. One nice thing about using the grip of this type .......... you don't have to ream a rear grip. You don't have to smear Rod Bond on 10 - 12" of blank, And cleaning up the mess is much much easier. Making the blank extension is a piece of cake, comparatively.

John, if Megabass makes a rod with the type of blank to grip connection you describe, then you dang sure know it works and works well. They make quality products. And you're right, if the Megabass set up works with that small of a blank / grip interface, then surely the XO Skeleton set up that you epoxy in, is going to work just as well, or better.


But ..... just as with the XO Skeleton spinning grip, if I knew going in, that the Megabass rod had that type, and that small of a connection, I wouldn't buy one. Even if a friend of mine had one of them and had never had a problem with it, I still wouldn't buy one. I just wouldn't trust it.

David: I’m skeptical too, especially on a casting rod. It seems the rod torque would cause the blank to twist in a removable handle especially something that powerful and long. Somehow, as of what I’ve heard so far, they seem to be getting away with it. The removable feature would be really nice in the XO situation as, if the rod breaks, that expensive handle could be reused.

The grip section is one piece, I don't believe the blank is removable from the grip once it's glued in. there are no ferrules or clamping nut like the saltwater and old rods had to allow the old grips to be removed.

David

Great work on the build. There are certainly more than one way to build with the XO Grips.

With Edge, we are releasing a series of rods on the XO grips, with all of them (both spinning and casting) glued in only about 2.5 to 3 inches.

We have had them in our pro-staff hands for over a year, fishing for Salmon (twitching) to bass, to bull reds - without any issues. I personally have been fishing mine for about a year (spin) tape arbors and all, with the same results.

John,

"somehow, as of what I've heard so far, they seem to be getting away with it"

Frankly, we have done a lot of testing before launching the grips.

As a bit of small anecdotal info - think to ferrules of multi-piece blanks. They are very rarely over two to three inches, even in the cases where the rods are for things like tuna popping, etc. and ferrules experience A LOT of force and torque (and this is without glue) You don't see too many cases of rod blanks blowing up at the ferrules (at least when the blanks and ferrules are properly designed). Otherwise multi-piece/travel rods would be notoriously un-reliable.

Spencer,

You are correct - the blank is currently not removable from the grip - although we are working on one that is a "reverse ferrule" like our travel blanks, where the top piece can only go so far into the handle. It requires a complete re-tool (lots of mandrels) so it will be a limited series at first.

Aleks

XO Skeleton spin grip glue area.

Back in the 70s and 80 the Lew’s Speed Grips were very popular. They could either be glued directly to the blank or used with a ferrule to make them removable. The points is they held up remarkably well with an overlap of about 2” or less. Aleks make a great point about ferruled rods holding up extremely well even when large and powerful fish are targeted. I would have no problems with the 4” overlap afforded by the grip. I think it’s more than sufficient. It might be possible to ferrule the blank end with something like a carbon fiber insert that would fit snuggly into the end of the grip and would allow the grip to be removed or replaced if needed.
Norm

Alex, thanks for the response and the kind words about the build. It's going to be a super sweet rod, and I really love the looks of the grip. Even more so, (my opinion of course) after I blinged it up a bit.

And I agree with you when you mention ferrules working in instances that see a very heavy load. My thing is, some of the things you said in the thread introducing the grips, lead me to believe that it wasn't as it actually is. For instance, in that introductory thread you said you could add glue to the last 3 inches of the blank, and insert it past the reel seat area. Past the reel seat area. I don't know about the casting grip, but with the spinning grip only the thread barrel, which is ahead of the reel seat area, is glueable. The picture you inserted to this thread of the spinning grip clearly shows how much glue area there is.

I actually sent an e mail questioning the ID of the thin section of the grip to the NFC info e mail address before I ordered my grip so I could search out blanks that might possibly pass all the way through it. But never got a response. That's all water under the bridge at this point. It just wasn't what I was expecting when I ordered it. My searching for a blank that would pass completely through it should be a clue that I wasn't going to trust a 1.75" glue area. lol

And I think John was talking about the Megabass rod when he was talking about it twisting in the handle.

And yeah, what Norman showed with the reel seats, yes they worked and i guess worked well. Notice he mentions he would have no problems with the 4" overlap afforded by the grip. I would have been too. But it's not 4" on the spinning grip. It's 1 3/4" lol And yes, you haven't had any problems with your spinning grip. And I am sincerely happy to hear that..

I love the grip and this thread is just something I posted to help out others that may not have the same level of trust in how it's being used by you and others. Betcha my way is way more solid than yours? LOL

It's been fun working with this thing. I'll be starting to place and wrap guides some time this week. Like I said in the opening line ..... it is going to be a super sweet rod !!!!

David - I have not used these XO skeleton grips yet, but will probably try them. Your post was quite helpful and gives a lot of insight into how these grips are installed. I completely missed that only 1.75” of the blank was actually glued into spinning grip. Based on the picture shown by NFC on its web site, it certainly looked like about 4” of the blank was glued into the seat. From this picture and your mockup pictures, I assumed that both the spinning and casting grips each had an ID of 14.7 mm which ran the length of the reel seat, which in my opinion would give plenty of over lap I guess my assumption was wrong, and now completely understand your concerns about the length of overlap.
Norm

I built some of my very first rods with a ferruled grip and reel seat I think mine were made by Fuji, and I still have a couple of them on rods in the basement somewhere. Great pics, Norm! The spinning grips are very comfortable, secure, and the way the front half of the grip mates closely with the back half adds to the appeal. No threads exposed at all. No wobbly rod performance.

One point David made is that some of us like to trim the threaded barrel length to fit the end of the locknut and small trim ring for a 'no-foregrip-and-no-threads' look. This reduces the length of the glue up area. This got me thinking that there is a confidence factor that is separate from the it-will-work factor. The two are not mutually exclusive, just different. And I still like the concentricity help of the 'two-point-contact' concept; it increases my margin of error to get the grip and blank in line. Just my take for now and no commentary on the value and design of the XO.

I took several pieces of paper and sketched out ideas of how to anchor the butt of the rod at the point where the skinny part of the grip begins. I wanted an idea of how to get two points of contact between blank and seat and not have to make an extension of a diameter that would go through the 12.4mm part.

One idea was beveling the end of the blank so it would nestle down in the transition area. But the blank wall material is not thick enough to get much of a bevel length. Not much glue-up area, but could serve as another anchor point.

The other idea was to make arbors for the end of the blank that would contact the inner walls of the grip for an inch and a half or so at the transition point. This idea got a tad involved trying to figure out how to make the arbors fit snugly because of the taper. And, in the end, would these arbors be small enough to fit through the threaded barrel from the front end? Not hard to do, just takes some fiddling.

It ended up with me liking David's idea very well....and I could make the extension as long or short as I wanted.

Anyway, my thoughts. I'd like to try one of these grips and gain some experience with them.

One more thought...

The grip is 14.5 inches long with a glue-up area at the threaded barrel of 3 inches plus or minus. If I install a 7 foot blank 3 inches into the grip as Aleks picture shows, then the rod would become 7 feet 11 inches or so in total length..... Right? That is:3-inches of the blank glued in at the threads PLUS the rest of the grip length which is 11.5 inches +/-.

If I install the 7 foot blank all the way through the reel seat and grip area to the slender part of the blank where it will stop, then my rod length would be 7 feet 6 inches +/- without cutting it. Right?

I'm guessing here based on taking notes on David's measurements and looking at the pictures on the NFC site. (David, do you recall the length of the threaded portion of the grip? Also, the length from the base of the threads to the slender area?)

David said in his examination that the ID of the threaded hood (0,574") does not extend all the way under the reel seat area like it shows in the 'blue box' pictured on the NFC site. The picture seems to show a glue-up length .of about 4-5 inches or so.

I don't doubt Aleks and the pros experiences with XO grips on Edge rods. I'm sure they tested them plenty before putting them on the market for sale. I'm just curious if the glue-up area is really 4-5 inches and extends under the reel feet (like the picture implies) or only at the threaded hood area. Alek's picture shows the glue-up area only goes as far as the threaded hood.

Curious. Not critical.

Les, I will respond more later, but go to the very post in this thread, and click on the link at the end of the first paragraph. There are links to pictures looking down the thread barrel. You will see exactly why I say there is only 1 3/4" of glueable area.

Check back later. Oven buzzer is going off and if I don't get out there, the smoke alarm may be next LOL

Hey there Norman, thank you for the kind words about this thread, and glad it could give you a better grasp of what to expect if you decide to pick one or two of them up. And really, as nice as they are, I would suggest you do. Heck, despite what I said in an earlier post in this thread, I may pick up another one as well. Doing the mod to enhance the blank's connection to the grip, if one decides it's needed, or would feel better about doing something like I did, is not difficult at all to do.

The toughest part of what I've done to the grip was taking length off the butt of the grip to bring the OD down to that of the trim ring I added. And to use the trim ring you really don't need to build the foam tenon thing I did. I initially had the trim ring on butt cap that comes with the grip.

Les, as far as the measurements you're asking about. Hopefully these will help. Use this photo as reference [www.rodbuilding.org] From the rear of the nut / hood assembly to where the diameter of the slim portion of the grip becomes consistent. 6.5" The length of the slim portion where the diameter is consistent. 3.375" From the rear of the nut / hood assemblyl to the butt of the grip. 13.125" But remember, I took .625" of length off the butt of the grip to hit a specific OD.

Concerning the estimates of rod lengths if you were to stick the blank in until it couldn't go any further. The diameter of the butt would have some affect on length, but not that much. Figure with the grip as it comes from the factory, you'd have somewhere around 8" of blank stuck in the grip. So if you stuck a 7' rod that had a butt diameter of .570" or less, you'd end up with a rod that was 7' 7.5" +/- maybe an inch. It just depends.

And yes, Alex's picture shows very well, how much glue area there actually is on the spinning version of the grip.

And as far as my trimmed down thread barrel. With as much as I took off of it. I doubt anyone would think it was adequate enough to simply glue that area of blank to grip. My thread barrel is now only 1. 125" long.


And finally. I am not trying to scare anyone away from using one of these grips. If you're one that is into a very modern and clean look, they are very sweet. Would be kind of nice to have the palm swell a little more rounded down the side of the grip though. But it's very comfortable as it is.