Building a cork handle from cork rings

[tackle junkie]

I bought the cork clamp by Flex Coat but its only 24" long and the opening for the blank isn't wide enough for the 70M that I'm building. Before I go to Home Depot and try to make one myself does someone have a better way to clamp the rings once I put the epoxy glue on them?

[Lend-a-Fish]

I have no experience with cork rings, but im looking forward to seeing the rod when its finished. Post up some photos brah.

Im just finishing up two 6'6" heavy freshwater casting rods. Cant wait to fish those.

Whats the deal with the cork rings? Arent those more for tennessee style grips for spinning rods? Are you building spinning or casting? How do you like the cork ring made grips compared to cork stock??

Looking forward to those photos.

[Fuji_Pedler]

Jose,

It's probably the best way I've found, especially for long grips. You can make your own out of bar clamps, but it'll cost you alot more and not really gain you anything. The cork clamps with the straps are a waste of time/money IMO.

You can extend the one you have for a couple of bucks. Go to Depot and get two 1/4" X 20 piece's of threaded rod 12" long. Then get two 1/4" X 20 "coupling nuts". It's a 1" long nut made for connecting two pieces of threaded rod. You'll be into the hardware about $3.00-$4.00.

Rather than try to open up the hole in the clamp block you have now, you're better off just getting a new piece of wood and a 5/8" or 3/4" Speedbore (butterfly) bit which will set you back another couple of bucks. Drill the hole in the center of a new wood block, then use your old wood block as a template to drill two 1/4" holes for the threaded rod. That will turn your 24" clamp into a 36" clamp with a larger blank opening.

The 12" pieces of threaded rod are nice to have around when you do smaller grips too, because you're not having to run the wing nuts all the way up and down those 24" rods.

Jason, take a look at any "pre-formed" cork grip. It's made of cork rings.

[Lend-a-Fish]

Yes. But why use the rings? I guess the benefits would be the length you could create, or shaping whatever style you might like. Maybe I will have to try some cork rings sometime.

Good idea on the homemade clamp.

[tackle junkie]

Hey Mark,
I was just in your shop this morning, bought the cork clamp there too. Thanks for the advice, I am going to try that tomorrow.

Jason,
I just want to build a cork handle for the experience. It is easier to buy preformed cork handles but I'm really enjoying building rods. Eventually, I want to add accent rings to the handles. I'm building a casting rod thats going to be a 30# bait stick. I picked up an Alps triangle seat to match my Trinidad 16 and some Alps guides in the TiCo finish. If I get it right its going to be one sick rod. I'll post pics when I'm done.

[Fuji_Pedler]

Jose,

If you or a neighbor have a drill press, you can open up the hole in the block that came with the clamp. I suggested starting fresh because you'll play hell trying to open that hole up with a hand drill. You can clamp the block down on a drill press and open it right up. There's nothing to pilot (guide) the bit since the hole's already there in the block you have, so a hand drill couldn't be held steady enough to enlarge that hole cleanly.

If you don't have the drill & bits needed to make another block, I can knock you one out in nutin' flat and have it in the mail TODAY (N/C) if you can wait till Monday to glue up your grip. Unless you want to make the trek back up here today/tomorrow to pick it up. I've even got the extension pieces I mentioned above sitting here on my bench that I could give you.

Jason,

I wasn't real clear on your question about the rings. Didn't know if you meant "why use rings VS a cork log" or what... lol Many of the people that we sell rings to are either making a configuration that they can't find in pre-formed grips, or because they are adding accent rings of either colored burl cork, poker chips or acrylic in between the rings. Some (like Jose) just want the satisfaction of making the WHOLE grip, rather than just buying one off the shelf.

[Lend-a-Fish]

Ok got it. Yes, some of the accent pieces in burl and the darker corks do in fact really make a rod look alot more custom. I just finished up those two rods and the only part im not sure about is the corks. I used pac bay corks and in retrospect they are a little small OD. It would have been nice to have a hump grip near the back of the seat. There is alot of work involved in cork grips. Even reaming out stock grips is pretty time consuming, but then I used a small rat tail not a tapered reamer. Thanks for the info.

Looking forward to seeing those photos Jose.

[CALCOfshr]

Just a brief comment on cork rigs over premade grips...you can drill the rings to a size that closer fits the blank and then finish ream them for the BEST fit. Its alot less likely to give way and come loose. If you have you ever tried to ream a long cork piece to fit a blank,you would understand better what I am talkin about. Grips not centered,etc. A better grade of cork can be used also.
Chuck

[tackle junkie]

Mark,
I've already got the rear grip in the clamp and I'll add the reel seat and the foregrip tomorrow. Thanks for the offer but it only cost a few bucks for all the pieces I needed.

I want to add that while I was at C & M yesterday I forgot to pick up the tip tops for my rods and when I called Colleen to let her know she said she would send them right out. I received them this morning. That is incredible customer service.
Thank You,
Jose

[finadict]

Fabricating your own cork grips from rings can have its advantages....and can be a serious pain in the ass...all depending on your tools and experience, and of course the quality of the cork.
From years of working for a company building production fly rods, fabricating cork fly grips in huge quantities, and purchasing and grading cork direct from Portugal.... One thing I do know well is cork! On a $750 production fly rod, there is no room for an inferior cork grip.

The most obvious advantage of building a grip from rings is having control over the shape size and length, and to some extent, the final surface quality. And of course the addition of accents and checkers and stuff.

The advantage of a pre formed grip is ease of assembly, and as far as grade quality, pre formed grips have the luxury of being graded after shaping...what you see is what you get...no surprises to appear later.

It seems that each domestic cork ring supplier has their own grading system and label for the quality of cork rings. Most suppliers will purchase rings in the highest grade in bulk from Portugal and re grade it into 2 or 3 distinct sub grades and label and price it accordingly. Grade names like “super fine”, “super select”, “AAA grade”, “extra select”, “special select“….or even numerical ID’s like “CG1, CG2, CG3” are used throughout the industry. The cork grading variances are eerily similar to the confusing system in the diamond business! Most suppliers make a serious effort to segregate the best rings to offer as their highest grade. Most commercially available cork rings are also bleached to a nice shade of near white. This can be deceiving, and can hide some blemishes and the true color of the cork as it will be seen after shaping.

When I purchased cork rings direct from the supplier in Portugal, Flor grade, Extra grade and AA grade were the top 3 quality offerings in that order. Cork rings are a natural product, and the grading process can be sketchy sometimes. Overall quality can vary from harvest to harvest. "Extra" quality rings from one harvest could be the same as "flor" quality from a harvest a few seasons later. It all depends on the quality of that seasons take as a whole, and who graded and distributed the cork.

As for the quality and grade of the final product: fabricating a higher quality grip using high grade "flor", "extra", or "AA" grade rings isn’t going to necessarily be better than a good quality pre formed grip, unless you have a few tricks and tips and understanding of the cork rings themselves.



The highest quality and most desirable cork for fishing rods and the wine industry is the cork with the least amount of voids and blemishes. The tubular voids that run with the grain of cork are called lacunae. The cork grading system is based on the number and position of these lacunae. The way cork is cut and supplied in ring form for rod building orients the grain and the tubular voids so that it will run with the length of the finished grip. It is almost impossible to find rings with absolutely none of these voids, but it is possible to grade and orient the rings to position the voids to follow the predicted contour of the grip where they wont be exposed when the grip is shaped. If you are looking to make the best possible cork grip with an absolute minimum of pits and voids on the surface, consider buying more rings than actually needed for the length of the grip to allow a better choice of rings to position and dodge the voids as the grip is shaped.

When I was manufacturing fly rod grips in big quantities, I had the advantage of having tens of thousands of rings at any given time to mix and match and re-grade to fit the needs and various shapes of grips. We purchased Extra quality rings 100,000 at a time from a Portuguese supplier, and picked the best quality rings for what we needed, and pitched the rest into a box to be sold as lower grade to someone else to make use of them for grips that were straight or differently shaped. Our unusable rejection rate was somewhere around 25%. We were able to produce the final product, as good, but more often better than pre-formed grips marketed as flor quality. The difference between the flor and extra quality rings was very small, but the extra quality rings did have a few more of the voids on average than the flor grade at a 50% higher price. But the number of voids in the rings mean nothing...it's the position of the voids that count. You can have an expensive flor grade ring with one single void a half inch from the center, and an extra quality ring with the same void in the same spot as well as two more toward the outer edge and a few near the center...but when all is said and done and both rings are shaped down to a 1" diameter grip, both rings will each have one void exposed....thus making them the same grade as far as the final outcome is concerned.

If you have a rough idea of the diameter and shape of the grip, or a template with measurements to follow, it is fairly easy to determine the placement of the rings and voids to follow the contour of the final shape of the grip, and dodge the voids to produce as blemish free final result as possible. A cheap plastic circle template used for drafting is the easiest way to gauge where a void will be on a ring in relation to its final diameter.

Lets say for example you want to fabricate a simple 5" long tapered fore grip, 1'' diameter at one end, tapering to 1/2" diameter at the other. This will require 10 cork rings. If you simply draw the shape on a piece of standard graph paper, and draw and number lines each half inch to represent the 10 half inch rings, this will give you the rough diameter of each ring in the stack to compare with the circle template. Start with the first ring witch will be 1" diameter, and using the circle template as a gauge, select a ring that doesn’t have a void on the flat face that intersects the edge of the 1" circle on the template. Check both sides of the cork ring. Mark the outside diameter of the ring with a ballpoint pen as #1. Using the drawing as a reference, select the closest corresponding diameter for the next ring in the circle template, and repeat for rings #2-#10. Then simply glue up the rings in numerical order and shape accordingly. There are occasionally voids that aren’t visible from the flat ends of the cork rings, but dodging the visible ones will significantly reduce any blemishes that appear when the grip is final shaped.

As for the method of stacking and shaping, to each his own, but I personally prefer to stack and glue the rings onto a waxed ¼” steel rod and clamp to cure. I then grab the rod with a drill and spin/pull it out. Next I rough bore the hole to size and taper ream to fit the blank snugly. I’ve always used a set of special drills with ¼” pilots center ground on the tips to bore the grips. I’ve recently tried the reverse sharpened long spade bits from acidrod…..I like! Then I spin and shape the grip with it firmly shoved onto a tapered mandrel or a scrap piece of blank. This ensures the final shape of the grip will be concentric to the bore. Once I’m satisfied with the grip, I then install it on the rod. I prefer this method over stacking the rings directly onto the blank because I can spin the grips much more effectively and precisely without the wobble in my wood lathe, drill press or engine lathe. I also don’t risk scuffing the reel seat, and if I don’t like the way the grip came out, im not stuck with it, and have the option of making another one for that rod.

Another tip; Liquid epoxy works better than thick paste epoxy for stacking rings. The liquid epoxy squeezes from the joint when clamped leaving a far less noticeable glue line in the final shaped grip.

[tackle junkie]

I just printed your post out. Thanks for the lesson. I did buy extra cork but I'm not sure I understand how to position the cork so you can't see the gouges in the cork. I'll post pics and you tell me what you think about it.

Is there a filler for those?