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Over the years I've had to do an unbeleivable number of variations as far as mounting reel seats an have used all that are or were on the market. Keep it simple. Find where your gonna put the seat. If due to reel size there's a gap then use cork tape to that point or a hypalon grip. Then take your reel seat and mark the blank where the top will be.Make a masking tape bushing 1/8 in down from that line. Space your other bushings at least 1/2 in apart including the one lowest on the rod. Note if using cork tape use a premade surf handle peice of hypalon 1an1/2 in to 2 in long and mount it over the end of cork tape. Reel seat will but up against this.Mix your epoxy and have some rags an denatured alcohol ready. Slide reel seat to ist bushing. Cover it and load epoxy into gap. Fill it as much as you can. Slide reel seat down to next bushing. Repeat this using as much epoxy as you can fit in. Once done wipe off extra epoxy with an alcohol soaked rag . Aline reel seat to match your spline then stand rod upright in a corner or stairway. THIS IS IMPORTANT.Epoxy will settle to one side of the reel seat if you lay it on it's side.Up rigtht creates a nice even glue bond all around the inside of the reel seat. This will prevent a stiff side on the rod and keep it from trying to turn in your hand due to extra stress on the blank from all the pooled epoxy on one side of the reels seat and that may be in a place you don't want it to be.
I've been glueing rods like this for over 30yrs and have never had a glue bond failure to include tuna rods to ul fly rods. It works an it's pretty simple. I had to put a 28 reel seat on an Arra as the guy had huge hands and needed the size not to get cramps fishing. The hypalon worked great. I have over 2 dozen builds similar to this out there and they all are still in use.
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