Cork grips are pretty much history. The best cork rings available are more like a cross between an oak tree and a sponge, and it takes 100+ years for a cork oak to grow big enough to harvest cork. Do any manufacturers of synthetic fly rod grips offer grips in different (larger) diameters? Not everyone is a "medium", and it shouldn't cost much to make different grip sizes.
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yea cork is getting more pricey thanks to all the new uses for floors and sound proofing walls but if toy want a solid cork grip you got to want to pay the price or you can just get one of these and sculpt it to your needs Straight Rear Grip with Two Tenons for Casting Rods -mudhole


CFX Custom Carbon Fiber Grip Kit -mudhole and make your own

The best day to be alive is always tomorrow !!
Think out side the box when all else fails !!!
Wi.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/16/2018 02:11AM by Matthew Paul.

why not EVA? or better yet flocked EVA..comes in colors too..

schneiders has them up to 1" [www.schneidersrods.com]

The internet has reduced the prices of cork significantly. You can find sources with really good quality rings for between $1-$1.50. This is my 18th year building, and for 18 years I've heard builders complain about the quality of cork, "it's not as good as it used to be". I don't think it was ever as good as it used to be...and it never was any different. Even when people say they pick out hte best ones and they end up with enough true flor rings to only make a single grip out of 100 rings - that grip isnt' perfect, there are the same pits and lines a everyone else's. WHen an old timer has grips they made from cork years and years ago - it looks just like grips made with cork from today.

My cork grips primarily use Burl cork. Custom Fly Grips has so many varieties of burl cork rings that you can build a less costly, higher quality, more attractive, more durable grip than with plain cork. About the only thing I use plain cork for is checkboard slices or repairing a factory rod grip.

John Shear
Chippewa Falls, WI

John,
10-4 on the use of burled cork. I agree with all of your comments about the use of burled cork.

However, I can not in good faith use burled cork due to the extreme weight of burled cork compared to the use of conventional cork. The added weight comes from the glue that is used to glue the cork pieces together for burl cork construction.

Good luck

Archie’s butternut wood handles aren’t too heavy and looks really good with a few coats of spar.

Personally, to me the weight difference of burled vs. plain cork is negligible and certainly not extreme so I like using it a lot. It's one of those personal preference things.

John Shear
Chippewa Falls, WI

Burl is at least 2x heavier than cork (and some 3x).
So for me weight difference is not negligeable.
So I only use it as an accent.

But each his own :-)

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Eric
[www.emfishing.fr]

A weight reducing solution for using burl cork is to core it with foam shims. I do it by boring the burl cork grip and inserting 20mm reel seat shims and then reaming for the correct rod taper. This process reduces the weight by over 50%

there is a lot different ways to skin the CAT , it all depends on what you will accept in your rod building finished product, good , fair, or poor ?

William Sidney
AK

Phil: I really like your idea of foam shims. Seems like manufacturers would jump on this. Foam shims are much easier to rout out than cork and they are durable and cheap. Suppliers could perhaps punch out a "donut" from a size large or extra-large cork disk to use with a foam shim and still have a large enough cork disk to sell as a size small or medium disc.

I have a nice variety of rods built using wood handles, plain cork handles, and burl cork handles. I let a person try those rods and see what they like best. Some want the wood look, but most want the decorative burl cork. Nobody explicitly requests plain cork so I give them what they want.
This thread has inspired me to start recording the weight of the grips and reel seat for each build which should be interesting over time. I just got a wood lathe and it will be interesting to compare various types of wood after boring and shaping.

John Shear
Chippewa Falls, WI