Has anyone come up with a good solution for turning a number of cork reel seat inserts for a skeleton spinning real seat? MH has the AmTak skeletons on clearance for a great price - I've been on the lookout for the lightest possible reel seat option for my ice rods, while still bringing the look of custom burl cork work to the rod. Ideally they would become part of my rod lineup, so I need to be able to accurately produce a fair number of them. Am I stuck with a sanding block and calipers? I would assume a lathe duplicator would tear the heck out of the cork - has anyone tried it?

A burl cork insert wouldn't be the lightest possible reel seat option. Burl cork is way more durable than cork when it comes to turning.

yes I understand that. I turn a ton of cork - about 95% of it is burl. I'm using burl cork for the look and have customers that want a reel seat incorporated instead of my standard tape on/silicone band handle. So, trying to see how to efficiently make the inserts.

I've used a copy-duplicator and you're correct, it's more trouble than it's worth on cork.

Here's an easy way to turn a bunch, however, at it won't take much time. Work with a long cork stick. Enough to perhaps do as many as 4 or 5 end to end. Turn to the barrel OD and then go in and turn your shoulders. Part off. This is a lot quicker than doing them one at a time.

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Rick,
Do you want an exposed reel seat or do you want the reel seat to be buried in the cork?

If you want an exposed reel seat, it is simple to simply make a cork tube to fit between the reel seat and the threads.
Forget about any thing in front of the reel, so that you only have to turn the rear grip.

If you are making al lot of grips that are the same, Simply make a template that fits exactly on the cork to use as a go no go template.

When doing this, I prefer to make this template out of plastic. Get a grip perfected and then use that grip as your master. Then, work on the piece of plastic, until the template is a perfect fit on the grip.

Then, when turning the grip, use various grades of sand paper starting with 80 grit and go quickly to 400 grit. Frequently checking with your template tor a perfect match.

p.s.
I have tried using a lot of different things to turn cork but have found nothing any better than sand paper. Just use the appropriate grit for the stage of turning that you are doing.

Any sort of turning chisel, simply rips up the cork.

Best wishes.

I've only made 5 cork grips thus far, but I've used a tool rest and chisel to turn all of them down. I have yet to have a problem with the cork getting ripped up to any great degree. It gets a little rough, but nothing troubling. At least not to me.

I get it close with the chisel and finish up with various grits of sandpaper to get it to the OD I want, and to do any shaping. It's worked great so far.