I have a buddy who wants to remove his wood foregrip and butt grip and go with foam. Anyone have a clue how to remove them without damaging his blank? I told him theyre likely epoxied on and damn near impossible to remove without cutting them off but there are quite a few excellent rod builders on here who may know a trick or two. I dont even really know how theyre installed in the first place 
. Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated. Its an old Ling Cod rod he is rebuilding for his 4/0 to better suit our type of fishing if that helps any. This will be his first build and I told him to leave the grips alone and just refinish them but he's stubborn and rambling about weight since he is going with all rollers 
. All guides have been removed but thats as far as he has gotten.
He's talking about trying to split the wood with a screwdriver and tackhammer 
. I told him to hold off on that plan for a while .
cut off flush with reel seat,drill out wood then try to extract the rest of wood.
Ok, cool. Thanks man! So the blank doesnt pass through the wood to the end of the butt. Thats what I thought but didnt wanna just start cutting his rod up before finding out a bit more info. Thanks again man.
-Ray-
no no no some rods that have a wooden butt also have the blank going straight through that wooden butt. i had an old 7ft rod where the blank was 7ft and it had a wooden butt and a wooden fore grip. ive taken off a wood grip by using sandpaper. but i have a mandril and just set it on there and spun it and sanded it. if you heat up the wood it tends to loosen the expoy underneath and u might be able to grab it and slide it off. but thats the only 2 ways ive ever done one. hope this helps
Now Steve told me the butt grip actually says on it that the blank goes through the butt . Also said its a "Pelican rod" that was his Grandfathers Ling Cod rod. I think Ive convinced him that if there's nothing wrong with the grips or reel seat he should just restore them and keep it classic.