Anyone ever add one to a fly rod?

I've never built rods, thus my question.
My concern is that once I remove the butt cap from the reel seat, the blank will be to close to the end of the seat. That won't give me enough room to install the threaded butt cap that the fighting butt will screw into.

For those that build their own fly rods, generally how close is the blank end to the end of the reel seat?

I'm just trying to figure out if I can do this before tearing into a perfectly good rod.

Thanks for your input.
SF

SF - there are a couple of fighting belts on the market that have removable gimbal pins to allow for spin and fly rod compatibility. For the rod mod, I don't think you'll have enough real estate to work with. I'd go with the belt IMO...

You probably can pop the cap off and take a look. It shouldn't ruin the rod. It will allow you to assess the situation. If you can't put a removable fighting butt on, you can put the cap back on, or put a new one on if you damage it.

Nick & Sam,

Thanks for the replies.

Nick,
Not quite visualizing what your describing. Any links?

I tried getting the butt cap off gingerly, but no dice.
Figured I'd ask before wrenching on it.
Are the caps epoxied on or do they snap on some how?

Sound like the worst case scenario is I'll be buying another butt cap if I take it off and there isn't enough room as you mentioned Nick.
SF

Stop! Don't ruin your rod. Standard fighting butts have a cross cut / 90 degree cut channel to seat into a fighting belt receiver or "gimbal". The cross cut mates with the steel pin within the gimbal for a positive lock. This pin prevents non-fighting butt rods from fully seating within the gimbal. On some belt models, the pin is removable to allow rods that don't have a fighting butt installed to be fully inserted in the gimbal. Buy the belt, save your rod. Check out Meltons or another other blue water shop:

http://www.meltontackle.com/products/aftco-fighting-belts.html

PS - the only two reasons for a fighting butt on a fly rod are Ahi and JC's. Take me with you!

Stonefish,

The easiest way to add a fighting butt to a fly rod is to buy a kid's bicycle handle grip and just slide it on over the end of the reel seat. It's only there when you need it.

Otherwise it depends on the reel seat. Some have a press fit aluminum dowel that is expoxied in, but those should be removable with a little heat and prying. The end of the blank is usually right there, but naturally, there are exceptions.

There is another alternative to a threaded butt cap. If the end of the blank is visible when you remove the butt cap, use a piece of discarded rod blank sanded to fit, or even sand a wooden dowel to fit about 3" into the butt of the rod. Glue cork to the exposed part, and turn to desired shape and diameter and add a new butt cap and you're done.

Sg

I like SG's suggestion there SF.

Yes, the cap is usually epoxied on. I think Rod Bond epoxy will soften when heated. I tried heating up regular epoxy, to get a reel seat off a blank, and it was a real (not reel) pain to remove.

If you're going to remove the cap, heat up the end of the reel seat with a heat gun or boil it in hot water, but, don't force it off. I agree with Nick, you don't want to ruin your rod.

Thanks for all the input. I was hoping it would be a simple mod job, but it doesn't look like it.

Rather then screwing up a perfectly good rod, I think I'll just slip on something like this.
http://www.mudhole.com/Rod-Building/EVA-Butt-Caps/Fuji-EVA-Butt-Cap

That will work. Provide a nice bumper for the rod seat.

I had a factory Lamiglas LHS 2 in the 7 weight with a built in removable fighting butt. This was the 90's

It was in brite aluminum & the old triangular cork fighting butt like Sage used, in fact the VXP has that look, it was attached to about a 1" threaded post w/ an o-ring.



The reel seats must be out there.

http://www.jsflyfishing.com/fly-rod-fighting-butts


I'd replace the grip & reel seat & -install the look you want. It's not that hard.

An slip on butt is going to look weak.

I have the parts for your rod, shoot me a pm. Easy job.
Ryan

I ended up buying some of the EVA butt caps.
They will work fine for what I was trying to accomplish.
$1.10 rather then tearing the rod up was an easy decision.
SF

Sad state of affairs dude, EVA uhhh


I love tearing old rods up & re imagining them. Once ripped the full wells grip off a RX6 with my teeth.


Primal times.

You have EVA envy.

If your happy brother, I'm happy for you. Looking at that pic, it's not a half bad looking solution.

You'd better not cast Sam's little sea trout Burkie.....


It could be extremely expensive.

That's exactly what I've done to add some "tummy protection" to a few of my lighter sticks that didn't have fighting butts. I bought the TFO version.