RF Lite Reel Seat

[willwork4fish]

With a couple of the other posts about seats I thought I'd share how I make the RF Lite seats. I didn't come up with this, Rich Forhan explained to me years ago how to make them. He used a band saw, I just use a dremel with a cutoff wheel. You can do it to almost any seat but I mostly just use a Fuji ECSM 16 since they come in multiple IDs and to me it's the most comfortable seat. AMTAK has the Blade which is essentially the same thing but it's $17 and only comes with a 15mm ID so you have to arbor both the trigger and thread sections, plus this comes out lighter. With the ECSM you can ream it to fit and really only ever have to arbor the threads (depending on the blank OD obviously, many times no arbor is necessary). Once you get the bottom cut off you'll have to finish it and get rid of any burrs with the dremel, files or sandpaper. The cuts take me maybe 5 mins and finishing it another 10. The pic of the finished handle is one of a pair of punch rods I'm building for a guy...NFC IM MB809s, built at the full 8'. With the grip and seat right now both are sitting at 4.7oz so these will be just over 5oz when I'm done with them which is pretty good for an 8 footer.

The advantages to me anyway are the weight savings, more blank contact and a more robust seat as compared to an SK or other skeleton seat. They don't look as elegant as some other options but I don't really care about that, just how a rod performs.

RFLite2.jpgRFLite4.jpgRFLite5.jpgRFLite3.jpgRFLite1.jpg

[21XDC]

What is "RF"?

[willwork4fish]

What is "RF"?

Rich Forhan...I'll do one on the rod I'm rebuilding for you if you want.

[purple_champ193]

Strange question - do you feel the cut sections on the sides of the reel seat? Any sharp edges after cutting? I would suppose not since this is directly under the reel and your fingers feel the blank while palming. One could see where this would result in a significantly stiffer reel seat when compared to other split exposed ones.

[willwork4fish]

Strange question - do you feel the cut sections on the sides of the reel seat? Any sharp edges after cutting? I would suppose not since this is directly under the reel and your fingers feel the blank while palming. One could see where this would result in a significantly stiffer reel seat when compared to other split exposed ones.

I use a file/dremel/sand paper to smooth the edges (they can be a little rough when you first cut). I find them to be very comfortable and yes, definitely stiffer/more robust than a regular skeleton.

[Spoonplugger1]

Back near 40 years ago when some of us were independently playing around with these and making skeletons we were stress testing everything to learn just how viable what we were doing was. Twisting and bending seats to see if they would fail and what would fail first the reel seat of the blank. Shortly after this time Berkeley came out with the Series One rods with casting reel seats like the RF, they all used hidden thread foregrips, not even having the tenon for any other style. I still have a few examples of the production seat design in a box. Back to the subject, leaving the backstrap dramatically improves glue bond area and overall strength in all situations, the reel seat deforms, triggers bend and come apart before bond failure, we had some blanks fail between the skeleton reel seat pieces, not so with the RF style.

[JJohnSind]

Thanks for this.

[dragon1]

Good stuff...I have owned several George Roth customs that had this RF style reel seat and it was always very effective and comfortable.

[willwork4fish]

Good stuff...I have owned several George Roth customs that had this RF style reel seat and it was always very effective and comfortable.

George is a fantastic rod builder, he helped me out quite a bit when I first started building back in the days of the bassfishinghomepage...his name on there was Ballou...I have a P7000 he built.

[dv616]

That is where I first got started rod building as well. BFHP. I remember George from that page. Danco as well.

[Bryanmc57]

I have a few of Rich's rods. He was an innovator for sure. I have a few of his rods (as well as some from his understudy Brad Tharpe) including a couple of his Tennessee handled spinning rods that have carbon fiber discs between a couple of the cork rings in the handle. He claimed it transmitted bites to your hand better.

[willwork4fish]

I have a few of Rich's rods. He was an innovator for sure. I have a few of his rods (as well as some from his understudy Brad Tharpe) including a couple of his Tennessee handled spinning rods that have carbon fiber discs between a couple of the cork rings in the handle. He claimed it transmitted bites to your hand better.

I've still got 1 rod Rich built me that had a TN handle but I recently tore off the handle and put a regular reel seat on it, he actually used white poker chips on mine. Used to have one of the Competitive Edge rods he designed too with the foam handles. Also still have a couple of rods built by Brad Tharpe, one is the Kurt Lytle Flippin stick...I remember I got that rod just before he ghosted everyone, some people were pissed and out some money.

He used to build rods for Gary Klein and used cork colored hypalon so they looked like factory Quantums. There were a couple of Bassmasters where you could see he was using spiral wrapped rods.

[avalanche03]

Castaway sold reel seats with the section cutout in your pics. I have several rods with those. I don't know if they are still available. Swampland Rods had them at one time.
https://www.facebook.com/swamplandtackle/

[dragon1]

George is a fantastic rod builder, he helped me out quite a bit when I first started building back in the days of the bassfishinghomepage...his name on there was Ballou...I have a P7000 he built.

Yessir...BFHP (prior to TT) was a gold mine of knowledge and wisdom in the world of fishing.

FWIW, another master rod builder not mentioned enough is Stan McLean.

[JJohnSind]

As an added FYI, I just got my hands on the new NFC carbon fiber reel seat. It comes in at .53 ounces with an equivalent locking nut (before any threads are cut). I think this seat will need an insert for most blanks, but, even with an insert, it stilled weighed slightly less. Cost… well, that’s another topic. LOL.

[Spoonplugger1]

CUI always had them in their catalog, used to get them from Bingham Ent., I have always wondered if they were the original source of the Castaway seats. I have maybe 40+ Castaway seats left.