Fly Rod Repair

[DaddyO]

Guys,

I need some advice. Saturday, I was finishing up an enjoyable outing on one of the town public ponds. I had caught several Bass and Bluegill and had decided that the next fish would be the last. I felt a bump, attempted to set the hook and my reel fell off my fly rod. At first I thought that maybe the setting nut had worked loose. I bent down to pickup my reel and sat down to put it back on. While attempting to put it back on, the whole reel seat fell off.

Now, I only spent about $100 for the rod. It is a TFO 5 wt and I have another one that is it's twin. I purchased two of them so that I could have a rod to share with friends wanting to learn the sport.

It appears that the reel seat was adhered to the cork. My question is, what should I use to reapply the seat? Epoxy or some other type of glue?

Thanks!!

[Gavin]

Did it slide off the blank leaving a couple inches of rod blank exposed or did it sheer off right behind the cork?..if it slid off glue it back on with some 1 or 2 hour epoxy and make sure its aligned with the guides. If it cracked off...you might be able to repair the break with section of dowel rod or metal tubing and some epoxy. Or send it back for warranty service. Cheers.

[DaddyO]

Gavin, Thanks for the quick response. It slid off the end leaving a couple of inches of the rod blank exposed. Is it best to apply the epoxy to the blank or is it better to apply the epoxy to the inside of the seat and then slide it on?

[Gavin]

I usually put a light coat on each then slide em together...wipe off the excess before you seat if fully...then give it a twist to line it up with the guides.

[Wayne SW/MO]

I wouldn't use epoxy on the seat. Two inches isn't really enough for good support so, like Gavin said, I would epoxy a dowel or piece of a broken rod to the stub extending it, I would then use guide cement to attach the seat. If you make a mistake with it you can heat it with a hair dryer and move it. It's melting point is higher than you'll encounter normally.

[Danoinark]

TFO customer service is excellent...ship it and I bet its back in a week.

[hoglaw]

Did it leave as much blank exposed as there is reel seat to cover it? Or is there more reel seat than there is blank?

If you have just as much exposed blank as reel seat, or within a fraction of an inch, I'd build three arbors out of masking tape on the blank...it will look something like this:

--||-||-||--

You keep wrapping the tape until the reel seat slides over all three of them easily, but somewhat snugly. Start with the one closest to the top of the rod first so you can check the fit on it, then repeat the process for the other two. Once you have your arbors built up to where the reel seat won't wobble when it's on them but still slides on and off easily, mix standard two part epoxy like rod bond and slather a BUNCH of it on the arbors and in those gaps that you've created, filling them in as much as possible. When it's done, all the tape should be completely covered in epoxy and the gaps should be filled pretty close to the top of the tape. You want to use a lot of epoxy here. More is better. Once that's done, just slide your reel seat up to where it belongs. It should feel a lot more snug now with all that epoxy - it should be a fairly tight fit. Clean up your excess epoxy right away with denatured alcohol, check your allighment between the reel seat and guides, and you're ready to dry.

Brace it so that the rod lays horizontally and rotate it half a turn every few minutes for an hour or so, then every ten minutes for the next hour, and so on. That's how you install a standard reel seat - I don't see why a fly reel seat would work differently. The tape forms a good solid bond that is made permanent under the epoxy. I know they make nice arbors out of graphite and other materials, but I've used tape as that's how I was taught and I've never had a seat failure.

If you have less exposed blank than you have reel seat, then I agree you will need to extend the blank as others have indicated, but I don't see why you'd have less blank than seat.

[dave potts]

I've used hoglaw's method on numerous flyrod builds. It works fine. Just be sure you line up the reel seat with the guides before the epoxy sets as there is only one way the reel will fit into the reel seat and match up with the guides.

Dave

[DaddyO]

Thanks for all of the info. I have my epoxy and plan on applying the fix within the next day or two.

[FlyFishinFool]

TFO customer service is excellent...ship it and I bet its back in a week.

X2

TFO has the best customr service with the lowest cost for repair/replacement. Last rod I sent to them I had back in 6 days including shipping BOTH directions, and at NO cost.