cork handles

Question
Hi Joe,I am looking into building a couple of rods for myself and I have some rod handles I purchased off of ebay with the the rod still in the handles.How would I go by taking out the rod that's glued in without destroying the cork handle?Is there a video on this procedure on the internet that shows this type of rod repair/rebuild Thanks Ben

Answer
Hi Ben,

Quite frankly, I try to stay away from doing this as the chances of it not working well are high and it takes a lot of time.  However, it can be done.

I would approach this from one of two ways:

1) if it is possible to fit a new blank through the handle (and the left over rod blank now inside the handle), I would cut the old blank off at the handle end, insert and glue in place a new rod blank, and build a hosel from epoxy to cover up the obvious gap.  Possibly, a commercial hosel can be found that fits.  This would give you a rod that is slightly smaller in butt diameter than the original rod the handles came off of, but it would be the easiest way to do this task.  This would be my preferred method.

2) if you have a reamer or a drill bit that will fit the inside diameter of the handle and will remove the left over rod blank still inside the handle, you can ream or drill out the old blank.  This is harder to to as it is difficult to keep the bit going straight.  Using a reamer will create a lot of heat and you must go slow and pause frequently to clean the reamer and blow dust out of the handle.  The reamer can be a suitably sized rat tail file chucked into a drill or drill press.  The dust will be fiberglass and carbon resins and you must wear protective gear.  I don't like fiberglass dust so I probably would not use this method.

There may be other methods that I am not aware of at this time.  If so, I doubt seriously that there is any easier way to do this than the insert method in #1 above.

Also, if there is enough rod blank left sticking out of the handle, it may be possible for you to attach a metal ferrule, or build a graphite ferrule on the rod, and use the handle as a detachable short piece.  This is an easy fix if the rod you want to build will accommodate it.

Thanks,  Joe