Items Needed
Hobby Knife with a Flat, Chisel Blade
Sandpaper: 40-100 Grit for Epoxy Removal and 100-150 Grit Sand Paper Cork Shaping
Pen (roller-type over ball point), Pencil or Marker
A small piece of pipe insulation or other soft cloth/material
A Wood Rasp
Rubbing alcohol and Paper Towels
The purpose of this tutorial is to give your old rods new life by converting them from the traditional full cork handle to a split grip. I am no expert nor am I a rod builder, but I attempted to try this out of curiosity.
Some of the things I did were learned from an article written by George J. Roth and I wish to give him full credit for the section that covers the final shaping of the cork, especially the use of tape to protect the blank and the use of sandpaper without a sanding block. Both have saved me from making first time mistakes. I highly recommend that you read it for more insight and information:
http://www.georgescustomrods.com/Shapin ... 20Grip.htm
His Email: [email protected]
Let’s Get Started
Here is the rod before the operation.
Take your writing implement and mark the sections of cork that you wish to preserve and remove. I used a roller ball type pen (like a pilot) and held it steady in one hand to keep it stationary. Then, with other hand, press the rod to the pen’s tip and rotate the rod around. You can see in the picture below the line close to the rod’s butt. This is how it should look.
The cork was removed methodically by pushing the chisel close to the blank all the way around the rod. I started at the line I made on top, where the cutting began. With a sharp blade, you will find that it will cut through the cork easily. Be careful not to damage the blank.
Note: I didn’t use my car to hold the rod. I just place the rod there for the sole purpose of taking photos. I held the rod. Whenever you use a hobby knife, be sure to always move it away and never toward you.
Next, I used a chiseling technique by making lines lengthwise. The chiseling broke the cork into smaller sections that I was able to peel off as if I were peeling an orange. The shot below shows the lengthwise cut. These cuts were also made about the blank. Here it is after some of the cork has been removed.
This systematic process is continued until all of the cork you wish to take off is removed. I hear that some folks have heated the rod to loosen up the epoxy and used pliers to remove the cork. I realize that they are probably good ways to remove cork, but I didn’t get a chance to try those methods. I also learned that neither was necessary.
Note: I saved many of the big chucks of cork that I removed. I envision using it as “filler” to shore up and fill in pits and holes in the cork handles on this and other rods but I am not one hundred percent sure. Perhaps sand the cork to dust and mix with a little glue. Just a thought, but I will save that for another project.
Here is the rod with the cork removal phase completed. There will be some residual cork left over that the first phase of cork removal will leave.
Cleaning up the blank
The next step involves removing the excess epoxy and remaining cork. I used 100-grit medium sand paper for this task. All I used were light, careful and gentle strokes. The strokes were made along the length with a back and forth motion. You will find that the cork and epoxy comes off with little effort.
Important Update!!! I have since learned that the epoxy on some rods can be much harder to remove than others. On this Rapala rod, 100 grit was all that was needed to remove the epoxy. On my second rod, a casting Lightning Rod, the epoxy was far more difficult to remove. I had to use 40 and 60 grit to wear away the epoxy and it took some elbow grease. This was the most energy consuming part of the process, but well worth it.
Take off as much of the excess material that you wish.
Here is how the blank looked after I removed the excess. I used rubbing alcohol and paper towels to clean the blank.
I used sandpaper to get the cork back its original color of the cork. Compare the palm section of cork to the cork in the fore grip.
Shaping the Remaining Cork
This was the section I didn’t really know how to approach. Many ideas come to mind, but I was lucky that someone directed me to George’s site. His article gave me the information I needed.
The first thing to do is to cover the areas of the rod to protect it from incidental strokes of the rasp or sandpaper. I used painter’s tape.
I used a small table and two clamps to hold the rod down. A small piece of pipe insulation was placed around the blank to protect it from the clamp. I used just enough pressure to keep everything steady. Do not risk going overboard with the pressure on the clamps.
I started using the rasp on the tail end as you can see above.
Because there are a myriad of shapes and tapers, I will cover just the basic steps I used:
Use the rasp to give the cork the basic shape you desire. The rasp can take away a lot of cork with even just one stroke. Just take off a little at a time and do so evenly. For example, if you make 3 strokes on one section, do the same for the next section.
Once the general shape has been made, take a strip of sandpaper to get the cork to its final shape. I used 100 grit medium sandpaper and followed it with 150 grit for the final touch. I didn’t have anything finer. I highly recommend taking a look at George’s article for more insight.
Above is the split grip with the cork shaped. The front end is rounded similarly to the fore grip and the tail end is now tapered.
The exposed blank looks so cool that I decided not to coat it with rod epoxy.
You’re done! This is how I did it and I am certain there are many ways to get it. I hope you can take something from it and hope you give it a try. Thanks for reading.
Alexander Arceo aka islandbass
