Need help with a reel seat on small blank

[Aaronb]

I ordered a Batson Rainshadow XSW62L blank. I'm planning on building a light casting rod with it. I was wanting to use a size 16 Fuji ECSM reel seat. The issue is the rod has a butt size of .35 and tip size 4.5. The smallest sized I.D. seat I think is 9.5. That's too big for the blank. Could anyone tell me how to make this work or suggest a reel seat that would work better? Thanks.

[mhgsx]

I think you'd have to use a seat with no exposed blank area. I'd still try and fit a 9.5 mm seat to see if the gap is too large. The listed butt diameter is not set in stone. The blank you have may not be exactly the same as the listed spec. I've had a couple with wrong sized tips.

The other option is to sleeve the blank to a larger diameter, but I'd think this is too much work.

[donholton]

Make a sleeve out of a scrap piece of blank or another way that I like is put cork (I use burl) on the blank where the reel seat is to be placed and turn it to the proper diameter for the seat. I think this looks good and works great.

[Aaronb]

Thanks for the ideas. I'll look into these suggestions.

[jimmyb]

on such a small blank, there really isnt much exposed blank anyways. I would build with a non exposed seat with good graphite arbors.

The other alternative is to build a split seat and use arbors, the issue with that is a split seat with that small of a blank is very comfortable to palm because of larger diameter differences between the front hood and blank. try it out before you glue it

[Batson-Brands]

I ordered a Batson Rainshadow XSW62L blank. I'm planning on building a light casting rod with it. I was wanting to use a size 16 Fuji ECSM reel seat. The issue is the rod has a butt size of .35 and tip size 4.5. The smallest sized I.D. seat I think is 9.5. That's too big for the blank. Could anyone tell me how to make this work or suggest a reel seat that would work better? Thanks.

Hi Aaron, Thank you for purchasing a RainShadow Blank! What about an ALPS or ForeCast reel seat?? Lots of sizes for the ID your looking for.

[Aaronb]

I had looked at those. I'm still waiting on the blank to come in, so I can do some measuring. I didn't think they were made small enough either. After I get the blank and figure out the sizes for everything I'll have to look again.

[Batson-Brands]

I had looked at those. I'm still waiting on the blank to come in, so I can do some measuring. I didn't think they were made small enough either. After I get the blank and figure out the sizes for everything I'll have to look again.

Hi Aaronb. The ALPS Textouch reel seat goes down to 8.5

Check out www.alpsforecast.com for full specs and options.

I hope this helps!