My understanding is the crafty cutter is no longer available. Does anyone have a suggestion for another inletting tool for hidden thread hoods?

I saw that Mudhole came out with their version, but it’s already back ordered. I use a drill press, but it’s tricky lining everything up.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying different ways to inlet. My favorite way THUS far is shaping my grips on a mandrel and then using a modified hole saw for the inlet. I learned the method from herb L. (He will probably chime in on this post) and also had help from the guy at pelagos fly rods.

Basically, you’ll need three hole saws, one that you will chuck in your drill and run at high rpm’s against course sand paper filing it down to the desired size. I had a whole lot of trash cork from my learning how to do grips to experiment on to get the hole to be the perfect snug fit I desired. I may have had a caliper to aid in measuring the hole saw size at the time but I can’t remember if I used it or not. I use a lot of alps reels seats and the three I use require the same size hole circumference and depth. I measured from the tip of the teeth and marked the desired depth with a sharpie and did this all around the hole saw, leaving little dots to help get me a straight line to then mark with duck tape. The tape serves as a marker to know where to not go pass.

I’m jumping ahead to the final touch here for a second, but sometimes out of caution, I’ll not go quite deep enough in the cork on purpose and use a spare alps reel seat hood I have laying around and lay it face down on the back of some sandpaper, trace a circle on the sandpaper and cut it out with a razor blade. I’ll then glue the sandpaper to the reel seat hood and arbor up a shaft to stick in the hood and I can fine tune the depth of the recess that way.

It may seem like overkill but before I started building rods, I had a few high end oem rods come loose where the grip is recessed so it’s a thing I’m afraid of happening on my own rods. No one wants squeaky cork right where they may be hold a rod.

The other two hole saws you don’t file/grind down. Get one a couple sizes smaller than the modified hole saw, and then one a couple sizes smaller than that. There will be a remaining “stump” of cork you will need to get rid of after your initial hole. Mark both those hole saws to the desired depth as you did initially and drill them out. Once it’s small enough, the remaining cork stump will break away.

I don’t prefer to shape cork on the blank so I always shape my grips first on the mandrel then do my recess as the final point. Ever since doing my grips this way they have always been concentric. I’m sure other builders may do different things and those may be better to you but I’ve had much success with this method that herb taught me and sort of modified a few little things. Maybe down the road I’ll do it differently. If you have any confusion reach out and I can try and talk over the phone with you because sometimes it’s hard to type out everything and get the point across.

Good luck!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2024 09:49PM by Al purvis.

Reverse cutting spade bit. Easy and accurate.

Wow. I never even thought about using the reverse drill bit. Maybe that's why the crafty cutter got discontinued - there were simpler ways just under our noses!

Mike left something out that is worth mentioning. In fact the upcoming magazine issue has a short article on using the reverse spade bit for inletting cork grips. Remember you will be running the bit shank through the grip and pulling the rear of the cutting bit into the rear of the grip. Since the rear of a spade bit is tapered from the widest portion to the bit shank you will have to bore deeper than the depth of the seat hood. This will leave a somewhat large opening in the cork ID which won't be supported by the rod blank. The easy way to get that support is to allow your gel epoxy to gather on the downside (bore end) of the grip which will fill that void and provide the necessary support.

..................

Thanks for the info

Thanks for the info

How does this method stack up against the competition?

[youtu.be]

I need to inlet some cork and am planning on trying out this method; I’ll report back my results later this afternoon unless I can come up with a better way this morning…

Harry

That method works fine as well, but you have to add that ring to your grip and then shape it a bit. If you're not willing to do that work then the reverse spade bit allows you to obtain the same thing without having to any grip or ring shaping.

...........

Al Purvis has it correct.

The MODIFIED HOLE SAW has it over all others - neat amd concentric.
I use REC RSLL seats.'Their Hood OD is 0.933"
So I bought a 15/16" hole saw. The saw 's teeth are of the cross-cut variety.
So I simplly files down the outer teeth until I arrived at the proper hole diameter.
Then I use three smaller hole saws to get rid of the interior cork.
After reaming I am left with a wafer thin piece that I break off.
Really the neatest results. Other tooks shread the cork.
Herb

PS - helps if you replace the piolet drill bit with a 0.25" plain steel or aluminum rod.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/2024 12:35PM by Herb Ladenheim.

Al Purvis has it correct.

The MODIFIED HOLE SAW has it over all others - neat amd concentric.
I use REC RSLL seats. Their Hood OD is 0.933"
So I bought a 15/16" hole saw. The saw 's teeth are of the cross-cut variety.
So I simply file down the outer teeth until I arrived at the proper hole diameter.
Then I use three smaller hole saws to get rid of the interior cork.
After reaming I am left with a wafer-thin piece that I break off.
Really the neatest results. Other tools shred the cork.
Herb



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2024 12:01AM by Herb Ladenheim.

The reverse pilot bit leaves a nice smooth cut. Using the proper RPM on the drill makes all the difference in the world.

.........

Speaking from experience with a Crafty Cutter - make sure your drill/lathe has the proper speed (3500+ RPMs) The higher the speed, the cleaner the hole... I found out the hard way my cheap Harbor Freight cordless drill was NOT the appropriate tool!

If you want to use a drill bit, I have found that the Forster bit cuts the cleanest hole (at least it does for me).

We do have an inletting tool coming out! It’s slated for April. Here’s more info and you can click “email when available” on the page to be the first to know when it’s here!

[mudhole.com]

Regards.
Team Mud Hole Custom Tackle
Web: [www.mudhole.com]
Email: sales@mudhole.com
Toll Free Phone #: 1-866-790-RODS (7637)

Stay Connected with us:
FaceBook: [www.facebook.com]
YouTube: [www.youtube.com]
Instagram: [www.instagram.com]
Tik Tok: Tik Tok: [www.tiktok.com]
Twitter: @mudholetackle

[flexcoat.com]

Could these methods also.be used to create custom thread hood covers for the Fuji kdps, etc...?

I find the shorter cork offerings for the kdps 16 to be lacking.

Have you all thought of the fact that most recommended tools above do not match your requirements to port for your reel seat hood's O.D. without altering the cutting blade?
And - as said - unless you are using super hi RPM's - the cork will shread.
Herb

Herb Ladenheim Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Have you all thought of the fact that most
> recommended tools above do not match your
> requirements to port for your reel seat hood's
> O.D. without altering the cutting blade?
> And - as said - unless you are using super hi
> RPM's - the cork will shread.
> Herb


I’m starting to realize that when I started looking after the reverse bit tip.