Repairing a loose rod blank

[dtrs5kprs]

Or, "Say wut?"

In the process of re-spooling for TR. Pulled a reel off of a rod, looked at it, looked at it again. Didn't remember the guides being off to the left. Put it down. Picked it back up. Now they were centered. Huh?

So, I gave it a twist to the right. Boom. Off to the right. Great. Blank is loose in the foregrip, handle, and seat.

Cheap and dirty fix is in the pics. As screenshots from my Twitter account. Basically, some high pucker factor drill work, epoxy, and a blow dryer. Figured it might help someone else salvage a stick. 

 

[dtrs5kprs]

[dtrs5kprs]

[Al Agnew]

I did pretty much the same thing to fix one of mine.  It worked.

 

[dtrs5kprs]

15 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

I did pretty much the same thing to fix one of mine.  It worked.

 

Yep. Day and a half later (more or less) and the blank is stable in the seat/handle/foregrip.

Only other time I've had it happen was on a rod with a screw down foregrip, 90s style. Just unscrewed it and filled the seat with glue then.

Drilling into, without hitting the blank on a GLX is...😬

[mixermarkb]

Nice work-

I've had that happen on two Loomis casting rods. I used a penetrating epoxy from West Marine, designed to wick into rotted wood on a boat. I just dropped it into the reel seat from the  blank finger contact hole at the trigger, and it was runny enough to wick around and fill up the reel seat. Handy stuff to have, bought it to fix a couple spots on the boat where people had driven screws with no sealant. It can be messy since it's so liquid, but works pretty well. 

[dtrs5kprs]

8 hours ago, mixermarkb said:

Nice work-

I've had that happen on two Loomis casting rods. I used a penetrating epoxy from West Marine, designed to wick into rotted wood on a boat. I just dropped it into the reel seat from the  blank finger contact hole at the trigger, and it was runny enough to wick around and fill up the reel seat. Handy stuff to have, bought it to fix a couple spots on the boat where people had driven screws with no sealant. It can be messy since it's so liquid, but works pretty well. 

Yep. This one was fitted up too tightly at the exposure to get anything in it.

My gut feeling...Loomis is not using enough epoxy to keep finished weight down. Repaired, it's considerably heavier than the twin I have.

Compare it to St Croix, where they advertise their rods as basically overbuilt. But you can flat out abuse them. Double coats of Flexcoat High Build, etc.

[Dutch]

Are these rods from the Gary Loomis era or after he sold out?

[dtrs5kprs]

3 hours ago, Dutch said:

Are these rods from the Gary Loomis era or after he sold out?

This one is after. Post Weibe handle.

[Dutch]

Good to know. Thanks.  Mine are from GL era and I’ve never had a problem with them.