I bought a bunch of cork rings so I can try my hand at making my own grips, however I was wondering how to do a split grip? Mainly, what are the black things on the end of the cork seen in this picture: [imgur.com]

I noticed most of my rods I own have these on the top of the grip as well, split grip or not.

They are called "Winding Checks" [www.mudhole.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2016 11:05AM by Robert Hummel.

Thanks

Clint,
When gluing up your rod, you slip on the butt grip, then the winding check for the tip side of the butt grip. Then, put on the next winding check with the flat side pointing toward the tip for the next grip. Then the grip, the reel seat, then the fore grip if you have one and then the last winding check.

Good luck

Make sure that you have each winding check facing in the correct direction. You want the flat side of the winding check facing the cork grip that they are trimming.

Thanks. Bought an ultralight blank and an ice blank yesterday. Going to work on my first rod hopefully next weekend

If you finish your cork well enough, and you don't like the appearance of winding checks (they come in a whole bunch of variations from the plain black vinyl ones to decorative metal ones), they may be omitted.

What I like to do on my butt knob is to use a 1/2 inch rubberized cork ring on the butt end and a quarter inch one on the other end of the butt knob. Looks good and is much much tougher than regular cork. EVA may be used, too, but I'm not sure EVA will last forever in the sun. Cork will.

One coat of gunstock oil will give good contrast between the corks. All personal preference

New question for an ice rod grip...

The butt OD on an MHX power noodle is .252, and their other ultralight rods are .145-.155. The smallest cork rings I see on Mudhole have a .25 ID. How do I go about making a grip for an ice rod?

I'd suggest starting a new thread for this question Clint, it may get lost along the way.

One idea to consider is to find a source of solid rings and drill slightly undersized, then ream as needed. Mudhole sells rubberized cork rings with and without a center hole. Give them a call, they may also sell real cork without holes.

For grips that are larger than the blank, I wrap the blank with dry wall tape to get a snug fit. The dry wall tape is very light, and the epoxy will percolate through the mesh giving a very good bond between blank and grip.
Norm

you can also buy rings with no hole , [ use a drill press an drill what ever hole you want it's up to you , then build what ever size grip you want ,
there very few grips pre made if any with that size hole , if you can find some MFG. that has a lot of ice fishing rods they might make them for there trade, there are a couple out there I think but I can't help,

William Sidney
AK

PS how would you ream the cork out sayt the grip is 7 to 10 inches long ??? the answer is ream each ring to fit an then finnish the grip on the rod , just an idea / question, or use dry wall tape like it was said before

William Sidney
AK