What quantifies as a "well stabilized wood insert"? lI have scene a filler tube that is installed under a reel seat, is it common for a rod builder to use one? Can a wood insert be easily refinished while on the rod?

I do a fair bit of Salt Water beach fishing, Using a rod with wood insert is not recommended. Sage, Loomis, Echo, Redington, are just a few manufacturers offering Salt water specific rods, Non of them have Wood inserts. I can certainly agree that "some" wood grains look good as inserts. But, it does seem like of the companies mentioned above, Sage models of rods (saltwater excluded) uses the most wood inserts. When looking for used rods, Sage is the one that the reel seat must be looked at to determine overall rod condition. Sage can have some messed up reel seats.

For beach fishing, I have wanted to try a Sage 9' or 9' 6" VXP, XP, RPL, RPLX, but they all have wood inserts. An XP 691 or 691 solves the wood insert issue, that was there salt water version, having an all aluminum reel seat and fixed fighting butt. On the other hand Loomis, Redington, and Echo rarely use wood inserts.

Might be just me, but a woven graphite reel seat looks much better, and is more durable.in all fishing conditions than wood. 25 years ago, with the help of rodbuilding.org, I built a Sage 389LL with a wood insert. A dark finished wood insert that does looks good. However, if a woven insert was the norm back then the decision between wood or woven graphite would have been difficult. Especially, when knowing that self build rods do not compete with factory build rods for retaining value.

to inlet a cork ring ??? I use a dremel type tool, 2 way's to do it, # 1 one is the wraps I don't like because they will grab an walk away from what you are working on
# 2 is the diamond [ I like the best ] it don't walk on you , then use A sanding drum to smouth it up in all case's ,

William Sidney
AK