Grip removal and repair - existing rod

[salmonoid]

I have a small stream rod (6'6" 3wt I think) that had an issue when I bought it, in that the blank wobbled around in the handle badly. Someone forgot to add enough epoxy, methinks, in the build process. Anyway, after reporting it to the rod company, they sent me a replacement rod and told me they didn't want the original one back. I've had the old rod in my quiver for over five years now doing nothing but taking up space in my garage and figured I might as well repair it and give it to someone. My question is what is the best way to go about removing the cork handle? If I'm looking at this right, it should be something along the lines of heating up the epoxy around the bottom thread wind and cleaning the epoxy off, remove the hook keeper, and winding check and then pull really hard on the cork? Slice the cork? Any advice on removing any remnants of cork that might adhere to the epoxy on the blank? Just heat that up too and scrape it off?

Thanks.

 

[gfen]

The cork will need to be chipped off, and then remnants sanded off.

 

[kbobb]

before you do that you could try getting a syringe and needle - fill it with thin epoxy and try injecting it in the front of the grip between the rod blank and the cork?

Or maybe at a spot further down into the cork?

This might tighten it up enough that you could use it and spare you the agony of taking off the grip and any guides before re-gripping.

I did this to one of my rods years ago and it worked fine.

 

[FrequentTyer]

Unless you are very clever (I'm not) try Kbobb's suggestion first. The grip should be tapered inside to match the blank, so a new grip needs to slide on from the tip end of the blank section. This means stripping the blank of guides and wraps if you want a proper fit. You could over-ream the grip and go from the butt end, but you will have a lot of extra space under the grip.