Building a Fly Rod - Part 3 Attaching the Reel Seat to the Blank

Now that the reel seat is glued up and cured it is time to prepare the blank. A blank will usually be much smaller than the hole drilled through the reel seat so you need to fill that gap to keep the reel seat centered on the blank while the epoxy cures.

Step one is to carefully mark the blank so that you know how much of it will be covered by the reel seat. Using a fine sandpaper the part of the blank that will be hidden is roughed up so that the glue will have good contact with the surface.

After wiping the blank clean of skin oils and dust a couple of mandrels are formed using masking tape. These are just to keep the blank centred in the reel seat and are not an important structural component. It is the epoxy glue that will do the work.

It is wise to do one more dry assembly before mixing the epoxy just to make sure everything is going to end up where you expect it to and its ready for the glue.

Remember if the reel seat has a cut out for the reel foot it must be lined up with the spline markings along which you will be wrapping the guides.