Shimano teramar disappointment (now rebuilt)

[JasonGotaProblem]

Years ago I rewrapped a shimano teramar but I left the fuji seat in place. I never really loved the rod. It always stuck out that it was surprisingly non-sensitive. I figured it was because it was stiff. Well I decided I wanted to make it a baitcast rod.

And when I cut off the reel seat I was horrified by what I found. The reel seat arbor... Was cardboard. With almost no glue. WTF shimano you should be embarrassed.

These rods go for $150+ and have fuji hardware. I've seen better reel seat attachment on $8 walmart rods.


Shame on you shimano.

[Reeltyme]

Jason, in my world "Shimano" is a dirty word. Just my opinion, I'm sure plenty of people will disagree, I just call them as I see (work on) them.
Reeltyme

[jurelometer]

The full length cardboard arbor is more common than it should be.  The reel seat will come loose once the cardboard gets wet enough.  Shimano is not the only culprit.

-J

[steelfish]

yet, thousands of fishermen will never care about it.


on the bright side amigo Jason, now in your hands that fishing rod will get a better treatment

[JasonGotaProblem]

Sadly I've seen a few of these before. I guess it doesn't bother me as much on a $20 rod, sort of a meh whatever you gotta do to hit a price point kind of thing. But this is not a budget rod. It's not a high end rod but it's 4x the sticker price of any other rod I've seen that BS on.

My cynical guess is they do that to brag about the sensitivity of the next tier up.

I am well on the way to a rebuild. I was gonna keep the Shimano graphics. But I'm feeling petty today."stormy" marbling it is.

[happyhooker]

As previously stated, the drawback with cardboard is that, if it gets wet, who knows what will happen with that stuff.  Warning with cardboard arbors was always to make sure it gets sealed in to keep the water out.  Maybe easier said than done.

Modern practice seems to be using plastic or foam arbors.  With any kind of solid material, you may expend a lot of time shaping & boring to get a good fit.  The manufacturers get around that 'cause they are making 1000s of rods that will all have the same handle measurements & they can make sure the arbors are all identical.

I have usually used tape; you can get it just the right size easily & manipulate as required.  I have heard of using fiberglass drywall tape and that sounds like it might be a winner too.  Arbors are not really structural; you just want something (durable) to get the seat on straight & tight.

Frank

[jurelometer]

Fiberglass drywall tape fan here.  Wrap and dry fit - not too snug, and then unwind and load up with paste epoxy as you rewind.  Fast, easy, not too messy, and definitely not going anywhere. PC-7 or PC-11(more waterproof) s my favorite epoxy paste. Just two wrapping points is enough. You don't have to tape the entire distance.

With high drag, there is a lot of force pulling the reel seat forward. I don't know if that counts as structural.

Lots of custom builders use making tape to keep the seat centered and hold liquid epoxy in place during curing.  I can't argue with (mostly) success, but it bothers me to put something on a rod that degrades when it gets wet.

Using all that epoxy with drywall or making tape can add some weight.  I might consider  composite or regular cork for a very light rod with a big gap to the reel seat.

A layer of hard form between two shells creates an extremely stiff object.  Not great under the reel seat, but those new "high-tech" foam/CF grips that make large areas of the blank unbendable seems to me to be a poor tradeoff to save a bit of weight and improve vibration transmission.

A blank that was sold with these bending characteristics would not be popular, but that is what they get turned into by installing hard foam based grips and arbors.  They are also starting to put these grips on fly rods now.

I enjoy that feeling of unease when I can feel a really big fish bending the blank under the cork grip on a fly rod.  No foam grips for me!

-J

[JasonGotaProblem]

So I've finished rebuilding this one. I ended up stealing the much-maligned LC12M from my recent BFS build for this rod, I'll probably end up with something less extreme on that one.

I didn't realize til after I installed the fore grip and did the marbling that the reel seat was a tad wider than the top of the rear grip. And it wasn't very comfortable. Well because of how annoyed I was by the paper arbor, I did an extremely good job of attaching this seat. And I really didn't wanna remove it. So I carefully filed down the lip on the back of the reel seat. Now it's way more comfy, even if it doesn't look perfect anymore.

I felt like the white swirls on my marbling were too bright. So I added a bit of black tint to the clear coat I put over it, and that mellowed it out a lot.

I'm pretty happy with the way this looks and feels. Now I gotta test it.

[foakes]

Looks great, Jason!

But, more importantly, you know what is under there —- and even though not seen by the average Joe —- it is right & more capable.

Best, Fred

[oldmanjoe]

      Felt it before I seen it  .  Ya did good work on that stick !!

[MACflyer]

Well that explains why my reel seat came loose on my Shimano Teramar TMS-76M. Repaired it, and it's still one of my favorite rods for inshore: casts really well. Sure wouldn't buy one new though after learning what you found. Nice job on the rebuild Jason.