I find it hard to advise people on finishing - it's one of those things that you really have to watch someone do before you can figure out what's going wrong.

I've used about every type of finish that's been on the market over the past 25 years. I put it on, usually get the job done with one coat, rarely if ever heat it (even then I only use a very few seconds of heat from a butane cigarette lighter) and then just walk away, returning to flip the rod every 10 minutes or so. The finish comes out bubble free and perfectly smooth and flat.

Over the years I've decided that the less you do to or with your finish, the better your results will be.

............

Emory, You're right. It doesn't take much practice to figure out how much to use for one coat, although I would rather put on 2 coats and have it flat than one coat and wavey

Mike

I've always used Envirotex craft finish for my epoxy thread coating. Say what you want but I get good results with it. I use a torch to flame it and get the bubbles out. It's just the way I was taught. It does turn brown, but I use only dark threads and NCP stuff anyway. The stuff levels pretty good for me and I put it on heavy. Most of my rods are surf rods anyway.

Tom, do you know how difficult it is not to mess with finish after you put it on if it doesn't already look 'just right'? That's one of the hardest things for me to do. I want to keep fiddling until it's perfect. The fact is, the less I mess with it the better it looks, at least most of the time. Ralph

I'll second Ralph's comments. My major mistakes came from too much fiddlin'. Anymore I apply a thin finish, turn the drying motor on, walk away and don't look back.

I started this thread...I'll come back to it on the idea of "too much fiddling." I just finished a new 9.5 ft 7 wt. A bunch of great wraps and finish jobs.....however...two of them still bother me. The inscription wrap is still not as smooth as I would like...after 3 or 4 sanding recoating efforts (BTW..I do better on inscription finishing if I wrap the whole area the inscription is going to be on then lay down one coat the write on that then add a final coat, which makes for a level area to be finished...but for some stupid reason I didn't do it on this rod) it is still not quite smooth.

The other wrap finish that bothers me a little is on the first ferrule (3 piece rod)...It is perfectly smooth but tapers a bit too much from ferrule to the front...for some reason I got a little to mcuh flex coat near the ferrule.

I should leave it alone...nobody who knows me will ever notice but me....But I suspect I'll try to remedy the problems...perhaps even stripping and rewrapping them......and in the end it probably won't be any better than it is now. And yet I'll talk myself into doing it anyway!

The other wraps are terrific, though.

Keith