Although this occurred on a graphite rod, I thought it would be of interest to all rod builders. We got a break in the weather yesterday so decided to hit the water. I was rigging up and I pulled the Winston rod sections out of the sock, laid the sections on my tailgate, and was stowing the bag away when I noticed there was something in the bottom of the sock. I emptied it out and found the reel seat hardware had broken off the bottom of the wood spacer. I was appalled to see that when the rod was built, the butt of blank was left a full inch short and the half inch that was exposed wasn’t even glued to the inside of the wood spacer which had a larger ID than the OD of the rod butt. The only thing supporting the hardware was I/16” wall thickness burl, which is inherently weak anyway. It’s a miracle it hadn’t broken off before this. Even tightening a reel on would put major stress on that thin burl. IMO, totally inexcusable and Winston is going to hear about it. I’m doing the repair myself, I don’t trust them to do it right - and I wouldn’t want to pay shipping both ways anyway. BTW, the rod hadn't been dropped or abused in any way. I was lucky that it didn't happen in the water where the hardware could have been lost. I did the repair last night by lengthening the butt of the blank 1" by epoxying in a piece of rod section. Then I filled the empty space with epoxy and pushed the hardware back in place. Before I did that I removed the plug at the other end of the blank to allow air pressure to escape, otherwise the hardware would have tried to pop back out. After glueing I replugged the end of the blank. Long story short, it's disappointing to find what I consider poor construction on what's supposed to be a high quality rod.

I had the same thing happen to a friend with a Sage. I doubt the butt was that short. He spent the rest of the day casting a 6 wt line on my Orvis 5 wt Far & Fine, tough for a guy used to fast rods.

Wow. Talk about shattering confidence in a premium rod brand. Glad you were able to repair it.

So much for excellence in rod building in a factory

That’s too bad, I actually had that happen to me this year on a rod I built a while ago but it wasnt due to the butt being short. All the fittings were flush, maybe there was something wrong with the wood. There is no doubt why that happened with yours though. Also, by my standards WInston has a factory. I’ve driven by the facility a number of times and it looks to be a substantial operation.

I still have several Winston graphite rods, but never use them. Always considered them top of the line. Apart from the obvious poor construction, what appalls me is that the insert isn’t solid wood, but a veneer.

yuck. even a stock Struble insert from that era was actually "wood" for the entire thickness.
Seems like fitting a 1/16" veneer to the "substrate" that makes up the difference between ID of veneer and OD of blank,
is way more trouble that it's worth. Definitely a head-scratcher, for sure.

Tom, thanks for clearing that up. take some comfort knowing they would have repaired it...

Well, good outcome. I don't see a thing wrong with the construction. The problem is the material, burl wood, which is chosen for appearance, not structural integrity. If someone wants burl wood, unpredictable failure because of the nature of the material is the risk taken. A rod built identically with even a straight-grained, dense wood insert, would not fail from comparable impact or moisture damage, to name two likely causes. I guess an additional shim would help restrain the reel seat from fore and aft force of overtightening, but the wood didn't break from a mounted and in use reel's weight, which would be forward of the ring. The glue joint is ample to affix the hardware. The burl could still break up underneath; it just wouldn't be as evident.

I turn hundreds of burl wood inserts a year. While all of these are stabilized, I have never had nor heard of one single issue when properly installed resulting in a failure

JoeFriday hit the nail on the head. Follow the money.