Cool trick, but wear safety glasses

[streamcatcher]

It's been cold, and I've been tending to gear. I broke the top 2 inches off of one of my IM7 trout rods and decided to just put a new tip on the broken end and call it good-- it's just a trolling rod, so this is a quick and cheap fix.

Now, I needed to get the guide off the broken tip... so I thought, "I'll just pop that in the vice, heat it with a torch and melt the glue and burn the thread at the same time...the tip should come off clean."

Well, that theory worked great! However, as the glue melted, it created a pocket of pressure inside the tip which BAM! shot off the end like a .22, hit the ceiling of my shop, which is also the floor of my living room... I heard a faint, "What was that?" from my wife who fully knew that I had blown something up in my shop, which doesn't happen that often, but well, she knew.

So, that method worked really well, but perhaps next time I'll use less heat and pull the thing with pliers, and definitely wear safety glasses. Oh, I did recover the perfectly clean tip guide and installed it on the broken rod without further incident.

[Poindexter]

I bet I've fixed two dozen rods like that and never had one pop like that. Good thing it wasn't in line with your face -- that could have been ugly.

[StickFish]

There was a tip on here a while back, put a rubber band on the tip top and attach the other end to something and stretch. Heat tip top and when the glue loosens the tip will come off from the tension of the rubber band. Works great on damaged tip tops so you do also over heat the blank.