How To: Sprial Your Rod Grip

[thastickybandit]

Hey SU thought I'd put a little tutorial on how to spiral grip your rod. A lot of you may have seen this on the DRT pages on their rods. We do this at work with a few of our tools. Mainly done on our halligan bars. It does work really well with that tool as far as getting a good grip.

 

As far as fishing goings I'm not too sure that any extra benefit is gained other than having a better grip.

 

What you will need:

 

1. Scissors

 

2. Jewelry Cord

 

I ordered a spool of 3mm(3/32") solid rubber cord off Amazon.

 

3. Athletic tape.

 

I will say that last fall I did use 1/4" PVC tubing that I picked up from a hardware store. I did not like it. It was too thick and when the rod was tucked under my arm and I would twitch the rod it would rub up on the armpit. 

 

I'm sure other rod builders on here can chime in and give extra advice on this. I'm sure you could probably x-flock it as well but you for sure have to have the spiral well in place. 

 

Lets get started...

 

Place your casting hand on the rod and mark where your grip is going start. Either use tape or just make a mental note. 

 

Cut yourself off a long enough section of cord to do that hand. Make sure to bevel one end. 

 

Start with the beveled in and tape it in place with a small piece of tape.

 

Wrap the cord down past your pinky and make one extra pass. (Mark or note where it will end)

 

Trim the end piece bevel it and secure it in place with a small piece of tape

 

Now start with the athletic tape and cover that section.

 

It is very important to keep the tape tight and close to the rod as you wrap. This will help in preventing  wrinkles in the tape.

 

Now once that is taped up. Place you rear hand at the rear of the rod just as you normally would when you cast. 

 

Mark your hands location.

 

And now you repeats the steps prior. The only thing different is that you'll tape all the way from the bottom to the top of your first grip. You will be going back over what you just tapped but it will keep it uniform and in one piece of tape.

 

It is important to cut the tape where your hand and fingers won't be rubbing on it. If you do the tape will work itself over time and the grip will become tacky. And again make sure you keep that athletic tape tight to the rod. 

 

Also you will see that I made changes between masking tape to duct. The masking tape didn't seem to hold well in place so I switched to duct tape. Which I removed as I taped up each spiral. Slowly peel it while you wrap to ensure the grip stays in place. If that is too much of a challenge you can hold it in place with small pieces of athletic tape. And then just tape over it however you want to make sure that tape is perfectly flat and has no wrinkles in it.

 

(sorry I don't know how to insert the pics by the instruction. Hopefully its enough for everyone to get the gist of it.)

 

 

 

 

[IsaacM619]

Thats great stuff dude...thank you

[northeast_trev]

been doing this for a while on Lacrosse sticks. Good tutorial!