This is going to hurt--I am building a 3 wt. St. Croix Legend Elite. I glued on the maniform handle 180 degrees off from the reel seat- I woke up in the middle of the night thinking "Did I do that?" Checked first thing in the morning and sure enough- Everything setup perfect with one exception. Now my fly reel is going to sit on TOP of the rod- should make for interesting campfire discussion.I'm thinking I need to cut off the old brand new handle- sand it down and put on a new brand new handle. There are no guides or Hook Keeper on the butt section just the reel seat and the handle. The reel seat is glued onto masking tape wrapped around the blank and the handle is glued onto the rod. The Epoxy is Flex Coat rod building mix. I think the handle removal will be easier than the reel seat removal. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated. I'm still hoping that I will wake up and this will just be a bad dream!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2016 01:17PM by Dan Murphy.

Just wondering The tape has gaps in it so the glue goes onto the handle AND the blank

Bill - willierods.com

Yes I put three "rings" of masking tape to fit the Reel Seat onto the blank. The tape probably stands out from the blank about 1/8" I put on a liberal amount of epoxy and so I'm sure some was squeegeed off the tape and into the space between the tape rings. The handle did not require too much masking tape- just a little bit at the head otherwise it's only epoxy between the handle and the blank

At this point it will be indeed be easier to remove the cork grip and install a new one.

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Thanks Tom

I ended up belt sanding off the old Brand new Handle--it took about 15-20 to buzz it down close to the Blank- then I just shelled off the remaining cork. To get started I put the handle in a vice held by two pieces of pine. I used the wood as a guide to keep me from burning down too far and hitting the Blank- I took one side down as far as I was comfortable and then I rotated the handle 90 degrees to do the next side until it was shaved pretty close.The job went pretty easy and I put on a new Handle and it is drying as I write this. Now if I can just find all of the lost pieces of my pride- I know they're around here somewhere.

We've all been there and recovered. So will you, and this is a mistake you won't make again. Of course, you'll make other mistakes, as we all seem to do.

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Dan,
In the future, a very easy way to remove a cork grip is to use a simple pair of slip joint pliers:

[www.homedepot.com]

Open the plier to its widest opening and then place the plier around the grip that you want to remove. Have the pliers located such that the pliers are touching the cork with the very inner toothy part of the pliers that are semi round.

Just partially close the pliers so that the pliers bite into the cork and give the pliers a good rotary twist around the rod. You will tear off big chunks of cork with each twist of the cork. Move up and down the grip needing removal with the pliers, gradually closing the pliers more and more. Finally, 90% of the cork will be gone and you will be down to the cork. When you get to that point, just pull out your handy dandy heat gun and put some heat on the now exposed adhesive that will still have some cork mixed in. Continue working with the pliers or if necessary just a sharp blade that is placed perpendicular to the rod blank and the scraping action will remove the heat softened remaining epoxy and cork.

Normally, this method takes just a minute or two to completely remove a cork grip.

Good luck

Thanks Roger--I have a couple to replace and I'll give this a try