Tag Archives: making reel seats

Fabulous Figured Walnut for Reel Seats

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OK, maybe I get excited about some pretty boring things.  But, I was extremely lucky today to pick up an absolutely incredible piece of English Walnut for reel seats.  This piece measures about 13″ x 13″ x 3″.  While this looks like “ultra expensive” Circassian Walnut, it’s actually Oregon grown English Walnut.  It’s probably one of the finest pieces of walnut I’ve ever seen, and it will make some stunning reel seats.  While it has a sizeable crack running through it, I can work around it.  I should be able to get 12 or 14 reel seats from this piece.  I can’t wait to get out to my lathe and turn some pieces.

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Reel Seats

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I was playing around with some reel seat inserts and engraved hardware today.  Here are a few of them from left to right:  Pink Ivory, Maple Burl, Curly Walnut, English Walnut, Curly Maple, and Madrone.  The engraving work on the hardware is by John Hyde.

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Making wood reel seats for bamboo fly rods

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I make all my own reel seat inserts for my bamboo fly rods. You don’t need an expensive lathe, I just use an old craftsman lathe. But, if you’re going to put a mortise on your reel seat, I’ve found that you need a good router table. The precision of the mortise cut is very important or you’ll ruin the insert. I make my cut on a Rockler Router Table with a convex edging bit, sometimes called a finger nail bit (http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=5713). After final sanding, I put two coats of shellac, followed by 8 coats of a high quality tung oil finish, and then a couple of coats of wax. Here a little video of my building process..I hope you enjoy it: