turn a wood reel seat?

[ducksoup]

Hello to all, new guy here. I'm a long time rod builder having built my first over 30 years ago. I am in the process of finishing a custom built bamboo rod blank and would like to turn my own wood reel seat insert using a stabilized burl wood of some kind. Thinking maybe Redwood or Thuya although some of the double dyed gold/black maple knife scales I've seen have been spectacular. I'll be using a Struble U24 nickel silver skeleton and would like to know what size wood blank I'll need. Does anyone have any experiance with making wood inserts for the Struble's? Thanks for any help.

[Nirvana]

I guess it would depend on where you get your turning blank. The pen blanks would most likely be a bit small. Batson's offers two sizes of blank. You could check the on-line catalog for those sizes. If you will be ordering the skeleton, just get something from the distributor. If you already have it, I'd suggest getting a bigger blank and just turning it to fit. I ALWAYS get something bigger. Learned a long time ago that you can always make something smaller, but it's real tough to put material back!!

[Spoonplugger1]

The OD of that size skeleton is .640" so I'd get the biggest blank I could as noted above.

[hardhat]

Not to difficult to turn a reel seat. The most difficult part is getting a excellent finish. Look up some of the post on turning pen blanks. That is a good place to start.