buggered reel seat rings

[John in MT]

I have an old 12' surf rod - made in Korea mid 1980's.   Has 'Master Custom Black 6603 Korea' written on the rod just forward of the grip - the only identifying markings I can find.

The knurled threaded rings that hold the reel on are corroded.  The primary ring is in fair condition and useable, the thinner jamb ring is basically useless.  Thinking I'll just replace them both if I can find them.

The threading on the seat looks to be a square thread profile, 27.5x mm major dia,  26.9x mm minor diameter.  The pitch is 2 mm.  The reel seat itself is glued onto a 1" aluminum tube.   I have no idea how the glass blank is fit to the 1" tube.

I have a lathe I could possibly make a pair of rings to fit, though I've never tried to cut square profile threads or make an inside threading tool with a square profile.  Come to think of it I'm not sure I have the gearing on the lathe to cut a 2 mm pitch (which might be a show stopper as far as making something goes).

The question is: Are these reel seats and maintenance parts like rings available someplace?  Or do I need to figure out how to pull the seat off the tube and just put on a new seat?  I've removed the three pieces of neoprene grip below the reel seat.

ETA: I do have the change gears to do a 2mm pitch if I go that route.

[Swami805]

Get a new reel seat,life is short! Should be no trick getting one on a aluminum tube. Lots of places online, normally there will be a number on it that reflects the diameter in milimeters.

[John in MT]

Probably the best bet - but I seem to keep expanding the task at hand.  Started out with a missing butt cap, then I realized the glue bond was broken on the first neoprene sleeve, so I took that off, then the next one, then the next one, and now I'm up to the reel seat.

The glue seems like a rubbery goo - hopefully I can heat it a bit and slide it off without damaging whatever glue bond there is from the blank to the butt section.

[oc1]

Sounds like the easiest thing may be to strip everything off the blank and start fresh.  Go slow if you grind off the reel seat so it doesn't over-heat the blank.
-steve

[thorhammer]

Carefully cut off seat with hack or dremel. Buy a new one from netcraft or mudhole for lt $15 shipped and epoxy into place.  If it were me I'd cut off foregrip, do a cord wrap in the three spots where the foam was and depending on how much I like the rod and want drop another ten spot in it, heat shrink over the cord. Also available from mudhole. Very grippy that way. Do this process all the time on buggered seats.

[Swami805]

If you want a metal seat like that there's a guy on eBay that sells lakeland reel seats that are very similar to what you have, I get them to restore old Harnells. You could try Anglers workshop too, they have a good selection of grip material.
X2 on the dremel or hacksaw,cutting it off would be easiest

[Jeri]

Those very early rods were basically 8' of fibre glass blank with hollow dural pushed and glued inside the fibre glass blank.

If you strip everything down, avoid heat near the dural to glass junction, and after that just clean everything well before you start the rebuild. When looking at your rebuild plan, look to cover all the dural, as it is very susceptable to corrosion with salt water. The common plan in the 1960's when these were the latest tech, was to cover all the dural with heat shrink, not the nice soft material we have today, but heavier guage and more robust.

Attention was always paid to the joints between heat shrink and say reel seats and butt caps. Whipping thread bands over the joints and sealing with 2 part resin - everything to stop salt water getting to the dural.

Hope that helps

Cheers from sunny Africa

Jeri

[STRIPER LOU]

I would go with a replacement seat also. The threads on the seat are possibly rolled and not that defined. That being said, internal square type threads can be a bit of a pain to machine. Guess it all boils down to the time you have available.

Good luck with your project,  ..  Lou

[John in MT]

Looks like a short piece of 1" sch 40 brass pipe will work for rings.  I'll give it a try - interesting machining project.  I'll knurl the outside, bore the inside to the right minimum diameter, and make a single point tool with a slightly greater than 1 mm width.   I have a 12 x 36 lathe and I have the change gears to run a 2mm pitch.

Probably make a run with a piece of aluminum first to see if the thread profile and pitch work.

If it doesn't work I'm out $8 for the brass fitting and a little time.

If it doesn't work for some reason, then I'll change the seat out.

FYI - 1" brass nipples sold at the BORG are sch 10 - to large an ID to work. 

[thorhammer]

ok this has gotten interesting...let's see that mill work!

[John in MT]

I'll update when I get a little further along - no source locally for 1"  sch 40 or sch 80 brass ( I found some sch 80 brass pipe nipples on Amazon, so I can get it).  The only brass I've found locally is too large an inside diameter it slides right over the threads.

I'd make it out of stainless as it's readily available locally, but my threading tool will be made of oil hardened steel rod, hardened and tempered by watching colors.  I'm not confident it would stand up to threading stainless.

I could make them out of aluminum - but the threads are very shallow.  They are only about 0.013", I would think the aluminum would be too soft and shear off if you cranked down on the lock ring.

Looking at the buggered rings on the original seat I don't think they were square threads originally - the seat body is, but the rings look to be a standard thread profile on a 2 mm pitch.

[John in MT]

Nothing much to see - but progress!

I made a threading tool out of 1/2" oil hardening tool steel - I wanted a bit of play in the threads so I made the thread profile about 0.045" wide (the 1 mm thread would be 0.0394" if perfectly tight).  I heat treated and tempered the threading tool yesterday.

This evening I took a 1" thick chunk of aluminum bar stock I had laying about, bored the ID to 1.064" or 0.004 bigger than my best measurement of the minor diameter of the threads  (1.060" )

Set the lathe up to thread a 2mm pitch. Interesting, to me anyway, to cut metric threads on my lathe you can't release the half-nuts or use the threading dial, all movement of the carriage is under power.  My lathe doesn't have a brake either - I only made the threading tool to handle about 1" max depth - so to thread a 1" disk I had to guess where to kill the power and let the chuck coast to a stop without crashing the tool.

The thread profile indicates a thread height of about 0.013", I ran the threading tool through the aluminum bar stock and tried to get a depth of 0.017  (depth doesn't matter - as long as it's more than the major diameter of the reel seat itself)

I should have ended up with a minor diameter of 1.64" and a major of 1.098"   The reel seat is a minor diameter of 1.060" and a major diameter of 1.086".

Hopefully machining a piece of brass will go as well.  I plan on making 2 brass rings - each 1/4" wide.  A main ring and a jamb ring.

Threaded right on the reel set - no slop at all.  The full 1" aluminum disk spins all the way up and down the reel seat.


Obviously - if someone had to make a living doing this it wouldn't even come close to paying for itself.