Gary,
I have extended many many fishing rod blanks.
I always use another rod blank that fits tightly up inside the current blank.
i.e.
Remove the butt cap of the rod in question.
Take a sacrificial rod and cut all of the guides off the rod. Also, use a dremel tool with an abrasive cut off wheel to slice the reel seat on each side. Then insert a wide bladed screwdriver into the slots cut by the dremel and twist the screwdriver. This will split the reel seat and allow it to come free. Then, use a heat gun to heat up any remaining glue to soften it and use a single edged razor blade held at 90 degrees to scrape off any glue and finish left on the rod blank. With the current rod butt removed, use a caliper to measure the id of the inside of your rod that you wish to extend. Then, transfer that measurement to the parts rod blank to get an idea of where you want to be when finished. The idea is to take the parts rod blank and trim it in such a fashion that the parts blank will fit up inside the rod to be extended by 5-6 inches or more. To start, you want to err on the side of a smaller parts blank by making the initial trimming of the parts blank by 6 inches or more further up the blank. Remember, you can continue to trim more and motor off the parts rod. But, if you make one cut too much, you will have to start over again.
Note:
When doing this - after getting the general idea of where I am going to be cutting the parts rod, I will use the heat gun to soften the finish on the parts rod and use the razor blade to scrape all of the finish off the parts rod so that when one does the final assembly one will have a nice receptive surface for the epoxy used to glue the rod blanks together. Or, if you only want this to be a temporary handle - and if you extend the parts blank up a foot or so into the new rod - you will not really need to use any glue. Just firmly insert the grip and use a layer of wide tape to hold the two parts together.
The big advantage of using a fishing rod blank for the grip extension is that you want to use a parts fishing rod that has a taper similar to the new rod so that you will get a nice tight friction fit for the full length of the inner outer fit of the parts grip extension.
You could even get lucky and be able to use the current grip on the parts rod to have it be part of the new rod.
Best wishes.
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