My trusty, pistol gripped top water rod is in serious need of a face lift (actually, it's a butt lift). The cork is seriously pitted. I've never attempted to either use cork filler, or replace a grip. Reworking the existing cork would be a project I'd be more comfortable doing, but I'm not sure if it would only be a 'BandAid' fix.  Any thoughts?

If possible you can tear off the cork off the grip, ream a new grip and use arbors to keep it centered. It will seem like a lot of work but once it gets started it goes pretty easy.

If possible you can tear off the cork off the grip, ream a new grip and use arbors to keep it centered. It will seem like a lot of work but once it gets started it goes pretty easy.

Not trying to hijack your thread, but I think this will answer both of our questions. Is this an efficient way to do this? Putting grips on from the butt? Just asking because I have a ton of blanks with the guides already wrapped and some of them would make good treble hook rods.

The easiest way to do it is to buy carbon or fiberglass tubing and slide it up onto the butt and glue it on. Just use tape to make arbors and use a lot of epoxy. For cork get a grip and ream so that it slides up the butt of it and glue it on.

You can turn down the existing grip material and use it as an arbor too. The need for arbors to account for the taper is the only difference in installing a grip from the butt. If you want to remove the old grip just pinch off chunks with a pair of pliers being careful not to crush of crack the blank. A little heat and scraping will get the remaining residue. Cork filler is easy to use if the pitting is shallow.

You might try sanding the grip a little to smooth it out then wrap it with some grip tape.

 

 

oe