Cork Handle Part One

I had hoped to do this in one go but a broken collarbone has incapacitated me somewhat. I am pretty much housebound for the next 5 weeks, I can't even tie flies.So this post is part one, more to follow when I have mended.

So I had previously glued and clamped the rings to a threaded rod. The grip is made up of a mixture of half and quarter inch rings for no other reason than I had to mix and match to make up the handle length,

Inletting grips has caused me major headaches in the past. My solution now is to inlet the ring prior to the glue / clamp process. This presents other challenges when turning the handle on the lathe, more on that in part two,

This grip is destined for a 7'6" fibreglass blank and I want an unfussy cigar style handle. So the following template is designed to keep me on track,

In terms of the grip dimension I have used the handle on an existing rod as my guide and have cut out a gauge to help me with the initial turning of the handle,

You can see from the following that I am not intending to remove too much from the cork cylinder,

Next step will be to chuck this up in my drill lathe and get turning, initially shaping with a surform and then using progressively finer sandpaper to produce the finished handle.