I am building a 9' 8 weight and i am sure its gonna break sooner or later. Is there anyway i can salvage the reel seat? One of my friends said you can stick the butt section in boiling water and you can sometimes save the seat if you used five minute epoxy. Is this true?

Why are you sure it's going to break sooner or later? I've got plenty of rods in that weight range that have held up fine over the years.

If you know you are hard on your stuff and will break it, then I'd suggest not using really good hardware on the rod butt. Use the cheapest preformed grip and reel seat that you can get by with so that when it does break you aren't out much.

Yes heat can break the bond of most epoxies. But it's a lot of trouble to go to and just building a new one from scratch is quite a bit easier. That's the direction I'd go. If you know you'll break it then make it disposable to begin with.

Most of the time if a rod breaks it is the tip that breaks and not the butt. If you buy the blank from a reputable manufacturer then you should be able to buy a replacment tip for the immediate future. That way you would only have to rewrap the guides over to the new tip and not have to build a new butt section.

You can drill it out, or I use a heat gun to salvage reelseats.. You may have to refinish the wood insert.. If you use a aluimun reelseat then that will be a piece of cake to save.. Thanks Dave

Cut the guy some slack, hes right everything breaks sooner or later

Actually that's not correct. I have rods that have been used and fished hard for 20 years. Yes, anybody can break a rod, but usually only abuse or hard impact will cause regular breakage of equipment. I have yet to break a rod (except for those I break on purpose to test various things for the magazine) within the realm of fishing. And I have taken some falls and hit some rods among other accidents.

One of the things a guy needs to decide when he is buying or building a rod is what is more important - great durability or high-performance. If it is the former, then drop back a bit and get a tougher, although heavier and less senstive rod. If it is the latter, then buy the best but be prepared to care for it like any high quality piece of sporting equipment deserves.

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