I was on a fishing trip this summer with my husband to the north fork of the Lewis river . It was hot , flys were hatchin , and fish were eatin and my husband was catching fish off of dry fly's . I was casting into a particular pool when I realized my tip top was moving all over the place , the darned thing had come loose , at the worst possible of times my fly rod was out of comission . I fiddled with it a bit and it came completely off . I didn't have a lighter or anything else to make a temporary fix with at the time . Thankfully my husband was able to get it on with a snug enough fit so I could fish with it for the rest of the day until we got back to camp . At camp I heated up the tip top and slid it back on to tip of my fly rod , there was enough epoxy left to hold it there . In the morning I was ready to fish again .
My fly rod has had no problems ever since , except just recently on a trip to the Deschutes , I noticed my tip was loose again . How can I fix this ? Does the five minute epoxy have a tendancy to melt in hot weather , or did my rod builder use something else ? What are my alternatives ? Thank you in advance for your advice .

More than likely the builder used hot glue to mount the tip top. This is actually a common method of mounting the tip top on lighter rods. You could either use more hot melt glue or use five minute epoxy. The five minute epoxy would probably be fine for a fly rod as the tip top is likely a wire loop (snake) style tip top. I do not recommend it on lighter rods if you have a ceramic tip top as these can be cracked and need replacing. the epoxy mounted tip tops are harder to replace. To use the glue simply buy some of the glue, many tackle shops have it in a tip repair kit, and slice a thin slice off the glue stick. Then, slice this thin round strip into many small strips, fill the tip top with these. Insure that the tip of the rod is clean and heat the tip top to melt the glue then just slide it on the tip of the rod. Be ready with a towel to wipe off excess glue and the repair will be done. Don't get the tip of the rod too hot as this can cause damage. If you feel uneasy about doing this yourself then I recommend you contact a custom rod manufacturer (click on TackleWorks to the left) or somebody who has done this before to get assistance. It is not likely to cost you much at all to get this fixed.

I would bring it back to the builder and have him clean it and glue it with " 5 minute " epoxy! In hot weather that glue stick stuff gets soft and that is what happens! You will have no problems with 5 min.

I've had 2 of my tip tops loosen the past month? And I use 5-minute epoxy, and I do extremely lightly sand the tip area (like 1 pass with scotchbrite around the blank) I think I need to clean the inside of the tip better, or use more than a drop of glue. I hesitate to load the tip top with epoxy because I rather teh epoxy bond break before the tip of my rod (in case of something "odd" happeneing, like the tip top gets stuck in a pile of rods and I'm yanking it to get it free - odd)

I take a pin and bend it just slightly to scratch the inside of the tube of the tip top. I then take the pin and put glue on it and insert it into the top to make sure there is enough in it

Carry a small tube of cyanoacrylate (super glue - a.k.a. CA) on your fishing trips. If your tip guide loosens, pull it off, clean the rod tip and inside the tip guide as well as possible, and put a drop of CA on the rod tip. Position the guide, and in 1 minute you're ready to go.

It's handy to carry Flex Coat Tip Top thermal adhesive while in the field in your tackle, a cigarrette lighter....it's a quick and fairly permanent fix anyone can do to reattach the tip top.

Rich Garbowski
Richard's Rod & Reel

thanx for the info guys , I bought the five minute epoxy and put my tip back on with that , not too clean of a job but I'm sure I'll get more practice in the future :)