Rod Handle Repair: Loose Reel Seat on St Croix Triumph

[DontTreadOnMe]

i bought a refurbished st croix triumph rod in person from the factory, and it's my understanding that there's no warranty. i haven't contacted st croix yet about it because i'm assuming it's a waste of time.

 

unfortunately, after not much use, the reel seat freely rotates. the reel easily spins out of alignment with the rod guides.

 

let me illustrate:

 

 

the red part spins freely about the rod axis with respect to the green parts.

 

for now, i have taped it up with gaffer tape so i can use the rod, but this isn't an ideal solution.

 

is there any way to get the cork handle off and properly glue on the reel seat to the rod/blank? i'm guessing you can't remove the cork without destroying it

i also probably don't understand how it was assembled.

 

any advice?

 

here are more pics of the failed rod next to another of the same kind:

 

 

 

 

 

thanks!

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

Don’t remove the cork. Drill two 3/32 holes through the seat but not into the blank. Inject liquid adhesive epoxy into one hole until it oozes out the other. 

[S Hovanec]

^ he beat me to it.

[DontTreadOnMe]

6 minutes ago, Delaware Valley Tackle said:

Don’t remove the cork. Drill two 3/32 holes through the seat but not into the blank. Inject liquid adhesive epoxy into one hole until it oozes out the other. 

 

great idea, thanks.

 

where would you drill the holes? does this placement look reasonable (see red dots)?

 

[S Hovanec]

1 hour ago, DontTreadOnMe said:

 

great idea, thanks.

 

where would you drill the holes? does this placement look reasonable (see red dots)?

 

 

Drill them on the underside of the seat, where the reel will hide them when it's installed 

[Scott F]

Calling St Croix is definitely not a waste of time. I’ve taken old broken rods in including one that had the same reel seat issue. They glued up the reel seat while we waited and didn’t charge for the repair even though it was well out of warranty. The broken one was a Premier that was 20 years old. I paid $55 and got a brand new rod. In both cases, I took the rods to the St Croix store in Park Falls which saved me shipping charges.

[DontTreadOnMe]

i was in park falls not long ago. i should've brought it in!

 

i'm not going to be there again until next year probably, and even if they'd fix it for free, i don't want to pay shipping to send it to them for something that i now know is an easy fix.

 

i just got done gluing it, and i'll share my experience here in case it's useful to someone.

 

after drilling the holes, unfortunately the cavity was full of some kind of foamy glue. at first i wondered if it was a polyurethane glue, but it's way more brittle and weak. i was able to scrape at it and turn it to dust without too much effort:

 

 

anyone know what kind of adhesive that might be? almost like a brittle spray foam.

 

i can kind of see why they selected this adhesive. it's probably semi-permanent and facilitates future repair or replacement of the reel seat, which is a nice thought. on the other hand, i also see why it failed. it's not that strong of a product tbh.

 

so because the cavity was full of it, i knew i wouldn't get good adhesion. i probably wouldn't have even been able to inject much epoxy. so i expanded the lower hole into a slot and scraped a bunch of it out. i turned the seat, scraped, and repeated until i made a full revolution:

 

]

 

then i masked it off (taking special care to protect the reel clamp threads below), and it was ready to accept some epoxy:

 

 

i injected glue into the slot as i rotated the reel seat and made a full revolution. i also injected some into the top hole for good measure.

 

thanks again for the good repair tip.

[S Hovanec]

That would be a urethane arbor.  Injecting the glue while spinning the seat to distribute the glue around.was the proper thing to do.

[DontTreadOnMe]

interesting

https://www.mudhole.com/Flexcoat-Polyurethane-Reel-Seat-Arbors

 

so i'm guessing some kind of light adhesive was used along with that, and the arbor just partially disintegrated and failed under torque?

[S Hovanec]

My guess is inadequate adhesive on the original glue-up.

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

Ya we’ve seen layers of blank material supplemented with the arbor. Forgot to mention that. Fortunately you didn’t have to go there. Just an unfortunate oversight/mistake during assembly. Looks like you’ll be ok. 

[Linewinder]

But wait please....   Most epoxies I see are two-part.  How does this then get injected?

[MN Fisher]

14 minutes ago, Linewinder said:

But wait please....   Most epoxies I see are two-part.  How does this then get injected?

Some two-part epoxies come in a unit that mixes them as you inject them.

[J Francho]

On 8/10/2020 at 6:11 PM, DontTreadOnMe said:

i haven't contacted st croix yet about it because i'm assuming it's a waste of time.

I've had them completely rebuild a reel seat and grip on an out of warranty rod.  I believe they charged me $65.

[S Hovanec]

35 minutes ago, Linewinder said:

But wait please....   Most epoxies I see are two-part.  How does this then get injected?

I mix up the 2 parts and put it in a syringe.

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

There are liquid and paste epoxy adhesives. Use a liquid.