Various stages in machining my design reel seat. The wood blank is pre-drilled with either a 3/8 or 5/16 inch drill and then mounted on a custom made arbor to machine the seat as pictured. You can clearly see the tapered portion on the upper part of the barrel in the lower left picture. The seat in the lower center picture is machined to within .010 of finish dimension. At this stage it is glued to the blank, the cork mounted, and then the cork and seat are finished to the correct size in tandem.