Appreciate all the input, suggestions and words of wisdom. I won't go into
all the details but I mentioned that I had two butt sections from Cortland
that I could use as test pieces. A wood lathe is not a good choice to use
for working on a new fly rod butt section. Let's just say that if I had
placed my rod in that setup - it would be in pieces. Need a much slower
speed than 350rpm. A motor control (Variac) would be one method to slow this
lathe down but for a one time project....... not worth it.

I'll be making a couple of V blocks with felt in the grooves to hold the rod
while I manually turn and sand the next "test" section down to see how it
turns out. Cork sands better than I was anticipating so I'll play with
various grits but it looks like 100 grit will be the most aggressive then
work up thru 220 for final shaping and finish. If it needs more than that, I
have grits up to 600 but I doubt that I want to polish it....

Has anyone ever seen / handled a Winston rod with the Joan Wulff grip (JWF)
? Winston will send one to the local dealer so my wife can try it out but
I'm wondering what it's like. Can't find a picture and the only description
is a full-wells grip with a thumb depression. A full-wells grip has a rise
on the front (and back) that is used for the thumb - making a depression
there seems to negate the need for a full-wells type grip. You can see why
I'm confused and I'll be damned if even Winston has a picture of one on
their site....

Anyway - thanks to all that chimed in to offer their help. It is
appreciated.

Thanks,

Bob S.