I need to make a blank with a 20mm butt fit inside a stick of cork with a 28mm outside diameter. Or more accurately i want to. Need is a funny word here.
What's the best way to go about this? Do I need to find a drill press? Wider cork doesnt seem to be a thing.
Ok so I should be clear that I'm familiar with the concept of a reamer. The question really is about how to pull this off with such a wide hole in the cork...
You need a reamer. You can make one from a dowel or better still an old piece of fishing rod. I epoxy sand paper to it and works pretty good. I use 80 grit the piece of fishing rod is best since it's tapered. I've been using gorilla glue to attach the cork to the blank. Been working good
20 mm bore in a 28 mm handle means 4mm walls. That is getting a little thin for reaming, especially with the quality of cork available today. If the handle is short and you go slow, you might get away with it. Might be worth going down in grit to 150 or so.
Low grade cork rings that are thin walled are not horribly strong, as a defect can cross all or nearly all of a 4mm wall. So even if you manage to ream one out, it might not hold up well in use. Gorilla glue is a good idea except if you have an area with a big enough void, and a thin enough wall with a defect, the expanding glue might bust a ring.
You could go up to high grade cork- expect to pay USD $6 per inch for the good stuff in ring form.
I personally would use individual composite (AKA burl) cork rings. Standard ring outside diameter is about 32 mm. I use a flush trim bit on a palm router, and a ring template fixture that lets me bore out centers of different sizes at 0.015 increments. This just takes a couple seconds per ring. No need to ream when I am done boring.
Video here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG-vgrbHwBNHz4vAFO8Hja35STSY70yu/view (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG-vgrbHwBNHz4vAFO8Hja35STSY70yu/view)
Composite cork is tougher, more sensitive, and much cheaper than decent solid cork. It is not as squishy and grippy, so it does have its downsides. I personally like composite cork grips better for fly rods and anything conventional/spinning up to inshore saltwater.
Cork of any kind is not frequently used on large diameter blanks. My non-expert opinion is that 28mm is definitely pushing it. At that point, most builders are going to use foam, cork tape or cord grips.
-J
I use cork on my personal rods even the fat ones. I use these, about 5" long so no clamping and plenty fat enough for most blanks. I'm going south to get some supplies Saturday, I could grab some and send it to you if you want
Quote from: Swami805 on April 15, 2021, 09:48:50 PM
I use cork on my personal rods even the fat ones. I use these, about 5" long so no clamping and plenty fat enough for most blanks. I'm going south to get some supplies Saturday, I could grab some and send it to you if you want
That's awesome i will take you up on that. i haven't been able to find it that wide. PM me the price and your PayPal address. I'll just save this handle for a narrower blank.
Quote from: Swami805 on April 15, 2021, 09:48:50 PM
I use cork on my personal rods even the fat ones. I use these, about 5" long so no clamping and plenty fat enough for most blanks. I'm going south to get some supplies Saturday, I could grab some and send it to you if you want
Those are what I have been looking for ! Can you post a link where to get them or is it a private hide away you have to get them ?
Quote from: Swami805 on April 15, 2021, 09:48:50 PM
I use cork on my personal rods even the fat ones. I use these, about 5" long so no clamping and plenty fat enough for most blanks. I'm going south to get some supplies Saturday, I could grab some and send it to you if you want
Are those two piece, one inside another? It sure does look like it.
It's one piece.
I get them from island tackle in carson CA. I've also gotten them at Bob Sands tackle in Van Nuys ca.
Quote from: Midway Tommy on April 16, 2021, 03:32:03 AM
Quote from: Swami805 on April 15, 2021, 09:48:50 PM
I use cork on my personal rods even the fat ones. I use these, about 5" long so no clamping and plenty fat enough for most blanks. I'm going south to get some supplies Saturday, I could grab some and send it to you if you want
Are those two piece, one inside another? It sure does look like it.
I though the same thing looking at it .
It does look like 2 pieces but I don't think it is. Here's the other side
Quote from: Swami805 on April 16, 2021, 04:07:01 AM
It's one piece.
I get them from island tackle in carson CA. I've also gotten them at Bob Sands tackle in Van Nuys ca.
I went to Island Tackle website and the cork or cork handles,sleeves or anything corkey does not show up in the search or under Supplies so will give them a call later when they open for bidness.
Thanks for the info
Did find another source but they don't seem to have this size .
HERE (https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjS9suh8oLwAhVFVdUKHeSoBuUYABADGgJpbQ&ohost=www.google.com&cid=CAASE-Ro7_ySgMHAsiLAX48ZMS7Vg3Y&sig=AOD64_2e1zrRW6TpRRIdFV51l2hgdamRbg&q&adurl&ved=2ahUKEwjSy8Sh8oLwAhXDXM0KHWmmDzEQ0Qx6BAgEEAE)
Quote from: Wompus Cat on April 16, 2021, 01:43:41 PM
Quote from: Swami805 on April 16, 2021, 04:07:01 AM
It's one piece.
I get them from island tackle in carson CA. I've also gotten them at Bob Sands tackle in Van Nuys ca.
I went to Island Tackle website and the cork or cork handles,sleeves or anything corkey does not show up in the search or under Supplies so will give them a call later when they open for bidness.
Thanks for the info
Did find another source but they don't seem to have this size .
HERE (https://www.googleadservices.com/pagead/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjS9suh8oLwAhVFVdUKHeSoBuUYABADGgJpbQ&ohost=www.google.com&cid=CAASE-Ro7_ySgMHAsiLAX48ZMS7Vg3Y&sig=AOD64_2e1zrRW6TpRRIdFV51l2hgdamRbg&q&adurl&ved=2ahUKEwjSy8Sh8oLwAhXDXM0KHWmmDzEQ0Qx6BAgEEAE)
My favorite tackle shop has a website that doesn't come close to describing their actual stock. None of their rod building stuff is listed at all even though they have a lot of it. Neither is any of the highly specialized stuff. Their website is all drop shipped stuff, with the occasional announcement about in store sales. So if you're looking to order a Daiwa BG they got you covered, if you wanna know what blanks they have, stop by.
It may be a similar situation. Without intentionally generalizing, i havent found the average tackle shop owner to be super IT savvy. That their websites aren't always a reflection of current stock isn't surprising.
Island tackle is more of a walk in shop, I don't think they do much online trade. Super nice though and might ship you some stuff if you call
Bob Sands tackle also will ship you stuff if you call and I've found that size cork there too I doubt you'd see much on their website either
Quote from: Swami805 on April 15, 2021, 09:48:50 PM
I use cork on my personal rods even the fat ones. I use these, about 5" long so no clamping and plenty fat enough for most blanks. I'm going south to get some supplies Saturday, I could grab some and send it to you if you want
That is some good looking cork.
The large diameter solves the problem for reaming. But perhaps a problem still remains if the goal is a smaller outer diameter grip on a fatter blank. I would start to get nervous if the cork wall diameter gets under 1/4" (~6.3 mm), but maybe could push a bit with extra high grade cork. Natural cork has voids, actually wears down and takes significant torsional load (because it is so grippy). It does not seem to me to be an ideal material for a long lasting thin wall grip, especially if you are not gentle on your gear.
Having said that, I haven't ever built a rod with a thin wall, high quality natural cork grip to see if it actually works or fails for my situation. And if you prefer fat grips, this could be a non-issue.
-J
You could build it up with cord and then wrap with cork tape.
So we already knew Sheridan was awesome, but he really came through on this one. He not only procured for me the large diameter cork, but also very professionally reamed one out to the correct diameter for the butt of the rod.
I realized there might be a simpler answer to reaming out cork to fit properly on a given rod. And now to be clear I felt comfortable doing this because I'm doing a tiger wrap above the grip that would cover any scuffs that arise from doing this, but I just cut a 1/2" strip of sandpaper and wrapped it around the blank I'm reaming the cork for, and started twisting. It worked out pretty well. Some minor scuffs but really not so bad. Especially since its getting covered anyway.
Also shown in the pics below, there's a gap between some of the sections of cork. I'm thinking i should have taped it or something while waiting for the epoxy to dry. But I didn't. So I'm assuming the answer is to put some wood glue or filler into a syringe or something and squirt it into the gap(s) before I spin it up to contour it? (Thanks go to Joe for the means to spin it!)
On that note, this cork is way fatter than any previous rod grip I'm aware of having used. I didn't think I'd like it, and had planned to be aggressive on my contouring. But after doing some test casting, I was right, I don't like it. I love it. It felt very natural in hand. So I'm gonna round down the transitions at the ends, and maybe give it a mild resurfacing after what I assume will be an amateurish filler job but the intent will not be removing a lot of material, just smoothing it a bit.
Btw Thank you everyone for your advice and guidance. I don't say that enough.
careful w/ filler... research & experiment
in my few lame attempts w/ surface crags, it always looked like filler (i.e., BAD)
and eventually came out, taking some more cork w/ it
Quote from: philaroman on April 29, 2021, 03:45:28 PM
careful w/ filler... research & experiment
in my few lame attempts w/ surface crags, it always looked like filler (i.e., BAD)
and eventually came out, taking some more cork w/ it
See I don't mind normal cork gaps at all, in fact I feel they contribute to what makes cork a comfortable grip. Its the gap between segments that bothers me. And even still it's no huge bother, it just could look better, so if I can fill it in I want to try.
For all my previous builds I focused solely on performance. And while i am not ignoring performance by any means on this one, I also wanna see how nice i can make a rod look if I put in the effort.
make your own burl, maybe... cork shavings + right bonding agent (seek advice there)
??? inject/sprinkle/cure/repeat ???
Jason, you need to slow down a little bit and make yourself a cork grip clamp (see below). Make sure the joint fits, with glue in it, & clamp it together overnight. Any gap in the cork will eventually create a problem, especially when water and/dirt get in there & take over. Forget wood filler, it will eventually fall out. You could mix some cork sanding/filing dust with epoxy and force it into the gap. That will last for a long time. Elmer makes an Epoxy Wood Restoration Two Part Filler (https://youtu.be/xhYdpYzy-gU) that is fairly close to the cork color, but it's kind of pricy for a little job like that. Any unmixed portions will last for a long, long time. I've got some that is 10 years old & it is still good. A protectorate cork sealer like Penetrol (https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/8fff3dcf-265b-4722-a160-fe659843db57_1.37247cb70afb88613410878857897a3c.jpeg?odnWidth=1000&odnHeight=1000&odnBg=ffffff) will protect the cork & filler from degradation and won't peel or flake off like urethane eventually will.
Quote from: JasonGotaPenn on April 29, 2021, 02:51:34 PM
So we already knew Sheridan was awesome
he is way beyond that.
Quote from: JasonGotaPenn on April 29, 2021, 02:51:34 PM
I realized there might be a simpler answer to reaming out cork to fit properly on a given rod.......but I just cut a 1/2" strip of sandpaper and wrapped it around the blank I'm reaming the cork for, and started twisting. It worked out pretty well.
normally you NEED to have at least 3-4 reamers of different diameters, you can just buy them or make your own with broken rods, one of then will work for your desired ID diameter size.
Quote from: JasonGotaPenn on April 29, 2021, 02:51:34 PM
.... I'm thinking i should have taped it or something while waiting for the epoxy to dry. But I didn't.
that's the best way to learn, from our own mistakes.
sorry I cannot help much in this because I havent Work much on cork, so I have limited knowledge on this topic, but you can sand the cork and fill the Gap with the cork dust or use an actual cork filler, Im kind of OCD with my rods so, probably I wont like how it looks with the filler, so, you can use a bit of bling-bling here, fill the gap almost to the rim with the filler or cork dust and wrap some thread of the same colors of the guides on the filled gap, then add a really light coat of epoxy, it will look like those aluminium color trim ring as an accent.
Titebond 3 and a boiled champagne cork or cork gasket material or just sand the champagne cork for dust and bitts to make filler
Make the slivers as wide as you need !!!!!!!!
I use this garden variety wood filler. Easy to use and holds up well. Here's a butt on a high mileage rod about 15 years old and a new one that's never seen water. The cork segments aren't always cut true so there's a few gaps and some voids since it's not high grade cork