I would like to hear opinions on arbor material for tn handles or even reel seats. Is there advantage to dense materials such as wood, poker chips, or even nylon(lowes has spacers 1" OD diameter,1/2" ID, and 3/8" long). Or can this cause failure by not providing enough cushion while the rod ovals from flexing? Thanx

Dense materials? Not necessarily. But rigid and lightweight materials? Definitely. Look toward the lightweight but rigid brick foam, urethane foam, etc. You won't do much better.

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Will the rod blank flex enough for failure if these rigid materials are used?

Dean,
I really have not heard of any cases where a rod has had a problem because of flex lack in the grip.

The typical fishing rod has very little flex in the blank by the time it gets to the butt of the rod.

Tough to beat the poly foam arbors that are widely available for the rod builder.


Be safe

Thanks guys. The thing is I find myself wanting to build more at home, instead of going to my brother in laws workshop(lathe). The wooden discs I found were 1" in diameter, easy for vibronics handle. The nylon "arbors" are 1" also with a 1/2" hole. Blank has a butt diameter of .495. The carbon tube I have is .98 OD, requiring very little sanding with drill and mandrel made from a bolt and nut. Unless there would be an issue with bonding the nylon, seems like a no brainier to me. I wouldn't think two arbors 3/8" thick would add enough weight to the handle to matter, considering I'll be adding an 8 oz reel, nylon reinforced tape, tommy tape, and 150 yds of line. But this wouldn't be the first time I was wrong.

Oops double post.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/19/2014 09:18AM by Dean Bledsoe.

It's not going to ruin the rod by any means. Assuming this is a light freshwater rod, just keep the arbors short and their number to a minimum.

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Thanks Tom, your attention to this site is astounding.

If you do decide to try the nylon arbor, you may want to test just how well your epoxy bonds to it.

At a minimum, you will need to rough them up a bit to get a bonding surface.

I would think that you would get a better bond with wood

Thanks Fred. With all might I couldn't budge the blank, twisting or pulling. As a body man I sand everything, lol. Easiest handle I've done yet. I may post pictures with part number of anyone's interested.

Never do too much roughing - just degloss the surfaces.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

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I still find that arbors made from1/2" strips of fiberglass drywall tape smeared with epoxy paste are quick, easy to make fit exactly, and strong. Once I have them sized where they friction fit the inside of the reel seat, I coat them with rod bond and slide the reel seats down on them. They are very light are rigid, and work great.

Also, in my later rods, I would turn down the the ends of my cork grips to slide inside the reel seats. So I would have two arbors, and the cork on top and bottom as additional supports, Those rods have an excellent feel to them.

I also used the foam arbors, and they work just fine. But they are tedious to hand ream evenly. I ended up using a Dremel most of the time for best results.

In the end, use whatever you like, as long as it's well bonded. If it ever comes loose, you will hate it!

-TH

I still use masking tape and haven't experienced any problems. Trick is to use as much epoxy as you can over a greater surface area. In this sense, the masking tape acts as a centering medium. If you have enough epoxy at both ends of reel seat no water should be able to enter and make mush out of it. Keying the blank and the inside of the reel seat is essential to maximise bonds.