changing a reel seat.

[jimmyjoe]

   Good evening. I like several spinning rods that have uplocking reel seats. I hate uplocking reels seats. I hate them, I abhor them and I detest them. How difficult (and expensive) would it be to take a factory spinning rod with an uplocking reel seat, remove it and change to a downlocking reel seat? And b4 you tell me I'm crazy ....... yes, I am. I know it.    jj

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

Changing the seat is a lot of work and could end up being cost prohibitive. It requires stripping off the grip or 3 or more of the guides. You'd be way ahead of the game to have one built from scratch. 

[Angry John]

Considder the cost of just shipping the rod two ways and that will be more than most rods are worth unless your into the high grade gear.  Rods ship around 30 dollars a direction before the rod is even touched and then you have to find someone willing to do it.  That type of work is a pain and most rod builders i have talked to have no intrest.

[MickD]

While I agree it's probably  not worth it, it is possible to remove a seat and replace it from the rear.  The seat can be carefully cut with a Dremel type saw, longitudinally, a few times, then torn off.  The grip or grips can be taken off by carefully cutting the cork/EVA off, cleaning it up.  Finally, when all is prepared, use wraps of masking tape to provide the base for a new seat and grip, essentially removing the taper from the blank.  Lots of work for little return, in my opinion.

 

All my spin builds are done with up-locking seats.  They put the fingers on a smooth surface rather than threads and allow me to put a ramp on the front, which is just about like having direct contact between the fingers and the blank.  

[Big Swimbait]

I haven't done a spinning rod but when I put Winn Grips on some of my casting rods, I changed a couple. Used a Dremel with a cutting wheel to carefully split it, popped it off with a screwdriver. It actually took longer to clean off the epoxy residue than to remove/reinstall the new seat. But, as DVT said, not possible unless I was changing the grips.

[jimmyjoe]

   Oh, well ..... another good idea shot to pieces.   I guess I'll just have to go on using duct tape, packing tape or tennis tape.       jj

[MickD]

What are you using the tape for?  Curious, don't understand tape relative to this string.

[jimmyjoe]

   The reason I hate uplocking reel seats is that the locknut loosens a little every time I cast. After 4 or 5 casts, I have to tighten it up again. Caastcastcast tighten castcastcast tighten. Drives me NUTS! All brands do it, although some worse than others. So I wrap some kind of tape around the reelseat locking nut so that it stays in place. Burns my butt that I have to put duct tape on a $200 rod to keep the reel in place. The downlocking seats on the Fenwicks, Cabela's house rods and Ducketts work fine. Just fine. They don't loosen up no matter what I do. Those rods, regardless of the fact that they're good rods, are not all that I want to use for fishing. Fenwick's uplocking, now on most of their rods, and St Croix Tidemaster would be, in some cases, perfect for certain things I want to do. But I avoid them because I hate the uplocking reel seats.   jj

[Angry John]

So your problem could be solved a little easier by adding a second locking nut.  You may have to still do some work to the rear of the rod but not even close to the full tear down of removing the seat.  If you have someone local and do not have shipping in the equation then that might be something worth checking.  

[J Francho]

Loctite blue on the threads, and be done with it.

[Scott F]

21 minutes ago, J Francho said:

Loctite blue on the threads, and be done with it.

Loctite blue, is for metal fasteners.  Not recommended for plastics. 

[J Francho]

11 minutes ago, Scott F said:

Loctite blue, is for metal fasteners.  Not recommended for plastics. 

So what? It works fine.  Better looking than duct tape as well.

[MickD]

I have heard of your complaint before, and in spite of my son and I having probably over 2 dozen spinning rods that I have made for us, we have not encountered the problem.  I tighten the nuts very tightly, and that's it.  Not sure why you are having the problem.

 

I would not use any glue or locking liquid on the nut threads.  There is so much area there that you may not be able to loosen them, and some rods have plastic nuts, so they are not as strong as metal reinforced ones.

 

In the custom building "racket," we can get the Fuji locking nut for all (I think all) of their seats, (also work on some other brands of seats) so if you do in fact change some seats, I suggest you get that inexpensive but effective nut installed, too.  

 

If I were encountering the problem I would do a wrap around the reel foot with a few inches of Winn's grip wrap.  Looks good, is tacky and soft feeling, and I believe it would work.  Tighten the nut very tightly, then apply the wrap.  You could do a number of rods with one $10 roll of grip wrap, and if it worked, would be MUCH less expensive than changing seats/grips.  If you cannot find it near you and don't want to order on-line, go to a tennis shop and buy a grip wrap there.  Similar, probably not quite as good, but might work.

[jimmyjoe]

9 hours ago, Angry John said:

So your problem could be solved a little easier by adding a second locking nut.

Probably. The old spinning rods, with aluminum reel seats, usually had them. Over the years, they disappeared.

 

3 hours ago, MickD said:

I would not use any glue or locking liquid on the nut threads.  

Agreed.

 

3 hours ago, MickD said:

If I were encountering the problem I would do a wrap around the reel foot with a few inches of Winn's grip wrap.  Looks good, is tacky and soft feeling, and I believe it would work.  Tighten the nut very tightly, then apply the wrap.  You could do a number of rods with one $10 roll of grip wrap, and if it worked, would be MUCH less expensive than changing seats/grips.  If you cannot find it near you and don't want to order on-line, go to a tennis shop and buy a grip wrap there.  Similar, probably not quite as good, but might work.

Tennis tape was one of the (many) tapes I tried, both on the reel foot (per mfgr's advice) and on the locking nut itself. And it works. I just hate it, when downlocking seats work just as good or better.  I don't know .... maybe I'm just being a little bitchy.     Thnx to everyone for the answers, though.    jj

[kschultz76]

That is an easy fix, though I’ve never had an up locking seat loosen on me. Unscrew the lock down nut all the as far as you can after marking the first visible thread when tightened down on your reel. Now wrap from that thread up in a couple layers of Teflon plumbing tape. Put your reel back on and tighten the nut down. I’ve used this method on a couple rods that the nut tended to loosen up on. It’s not visible if your careful, and won’t get gummy or sticky.