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Thanks for the help everyone, and I appreciate the rises to my subject line. Ugly weather right now and this is the only fishing I'm doing. And thanks, Archfly for the link. I missed that one, which was helpful. It explains everthing nicely. I wish I had the wherewithall to do the wood-turning that's required to do this absolutely correctly. Otherwise, an insert from an old blank and some drywall tape seem to be in my future.

Whrlpool,

Believe me, I understand. This rod has a personal attachment that goes far beyond the historical significance of the rod itself. I could go on and on about the emotional issues associated with this fishing rod, but that's meaningful only to me. The lead-up to this re-build has been long and slow, with five great fiberglass rods serving as "practice games" over the last year. I am now ready to undertake this final project, so I do not take this lightly. I am also willing to listen. I did not intend to copy the original factory Stalker look. Don't know why not, other than I wanted to do it my way. I have on hand the best set of guides I could purchase, including a beautiful agate stripping guide and the wraps will be dark red finished with spar varnish. I intended to use a minimalist Struble D2 nickel-silver, cap and ring seat, with a dark brown insert. Frankly, that reel seat and wrap colors looks very nice as mock-ups on the dark brown blank. However, the reel seat insert is bored to 0.360 and the butt diameter on this 8.5-foot, 4-weight Stalker is almost 0.5 inches. So therein lies the problem. I considered several solutions, but when I heard recently on this board that Tom Morgan - - The Man Himself - - was going to use the wood-insert approach to solving the Big Butt Problem, I thought, surely, the protocol has now been blessed.

All that being said, have you any suggestions regarding the reel seat? There's still time for me to consider any approach.