Hi All,

 I recently bought some nylon mesh sleeves for my spinning rods and noticed two issues. The bell mouth was a little small, causing me to really have to work it over the largest guide getting it on, and getting it off, the same guide would catch on the inside folded section of the bell mouth. I put a post in asking if anyone had been able to stretch these out. I got a few suggestions but nothing that would solve both issues. I thought about it for a couple of days , tried a few things out and finally came up with a solution. Here's a few pics to show what I did.

 

   Trying to get the sleeve on over the last guide.

 

Guide catching on the inside fold

 

My solution is to

Pull the inside fold out

 

coat it with a good amount of contact cement

 

Pop the fold back in and slide the sleeve over a mandrel, in this case I found a beer bottle works well .

 

I Let it sit for a few hours and when I took it off, the sleeve was stayed a larger dia., and the inside fold was glued to the sleeve, solving both my issues. I did find it helps to put the sleeve on the bottle for a while before gluing to pre stretch it, waxing the bottle helps, and you might need to tap around the edge of the sleeve with a piece of wood to break it free and get it started off the bottle.

                                        Thanks for looking

                                                                Jim

Hah, nice, the beer bottle mandrel is great, I have seen guys use them to form pvc pipe into rod holders. Truly a versatile tool! 

Personally, I find that turning the fold to the outside and then securing it with some braid works better than having the fold on the inside.

1 hour ago, Dirtyeggroll said:

Personally, I find that turning the fold to the outside and then securing it with some braid works better than having the fold on the inside.

I thought of that but when these were made it looks like they heated the ends to give it a lot of memory. I found on this brand any way, what I'm doing works better