Here are a couple of my carbon fibre grips that I have been working on. Mine are finished with a buffed Satin finish. I also do not sand mine down to a perfectly flat finish and leave just a hair of texture. The Full wells weighs 16.2 g and the half wells ways 14.6 g. Here is also an experiment to see if I could get antler to bond to cork well enough to turn on the lathe
Actually much grippier (is that a word?) than cork. I leave just hint of texture so it is not a perfectly smooth grip, but even the perfectly smooth grips are very grippy.
So is the carbon fiber hollow? If so, how does it retain it's shape? How does it effect the flex of the rod?
The carbon fiber is a sleeve around a foam core that is layed up like fiberglass. The handle should not affect rod flex at all. Unlike an all wood handle that can cause rod damage if you have a full flexing rod or one that flexs clear to the butt (light wieght or slow action rods). The carbon fiber handle should offer the best of all worlds-light,strong, and rigid for greater sensitivity in both casting, hooking and landing fish.
Nice work. How do you finish the ends so clean? Are you vacuuming the grips or just tying off the ends?
I use a mandrel technique. I have tried shrink wrapping but I still end up doing as much work if not more. it has taken me a while to figure out my technique that works for me. I have made many differenmt style handle and the CF is definetly not the prettiest, on my own rods I will probably not go back to anything other than carbon fiber.
If you'd sell one of each I'd be interested in building a couple rods with them. If only one...half wells. I have a 4wt blank that would look beautiful with that half wells.
