I've always felt the same on this. A non-CP'd wrap is more secure than a CP'd one, but not by much, and certainly not enough that I think it would matter. If a guide is ripped off during fishing, it's because of other problems besides what was put on the thread.

I've been considering a side by side test just to check this out. Might be a good time to start on it, just to get some sort of numbers, although I know what the result is going to be: No CP will be slightly stronger, but the amount of weight required to tear a guide free will be insanely high compared to a real world environment. Even on offshore rods, the max weight being applied is going to be fairly evenly distributed across all guides, on a flexible platform.

I did want to mention though that I've redone many of my own wraps, before putting on finish and can say that with Glass Coat CP, the tunnels do in fact get filled. I've peeled off many a wrap and was left with a guide still attached (somewhat securely too) to the blank with a very nice countour of dried Cp from the top of the guide to the blank.

Mike makes a good point too, along what I've always felt. If water or anything else gets through the finish somehow, it doesn't matter if CP is on the threads or not. The fact that the finish barrier was broken is going to lead to problems.

It's not hard to get off, perhaps a few small areas are, but for the most part you can apply epoxy finish to a rod blank and then just peel it back off later. This is why epoxies are not good as blank coatings - they don't wet the surface and therefore don't bond to it.

During the testing for our article on color preservers, 100 test wraps of each were made and then a series of stress tests were made to determine the difference between loads that both type wraps could accept. The difference between those with and without color preserver amounted to an average diffence of 11%. Both were more than adequate for holding guides and in fact, the guide would deform and be destroyed before you could tear it out of the wrap.

Wraps made with color preserver are not inherently weak.

..........

So tests have already been done? No need for me to go to the garage and hang weights off guides then. 11%... Some may see this as significant, but to me it is exactly the opposite. I can see trying to build the strongest rod possible, but does a difference as slight as this really matter in a fishing environment?

To the guys who do a lot of rod repairs and/or hate CP, I ask... Have any of you ever had to replace a guide that was pulled off the rod during a fish fight? Was it one that you or another builder did with CP? Not trying to start a fight, I'm simply curious. I've never seen one nor heard of one outside of a factory job.

I've seen so many people who are so vehemently opposed to CP and never understood why.

Don't mistake me on this; I'm not in any way "violently" opposed to CP use on guide wraps. Again, I don't think it makes two hoots in a holler diff. on the FW walleye rods that I build. I just think that I get a bit better encaputlation of my threads with just (FRESH) finish applied to the wraps. When my finish is starting to set up, I stop and mix some fresh up. I used to try heat to get it to flow; but I found that this sometimes didn't allow full penetration so I quit doing it.

Strength of the threads on the guides was never an issue at all with me on this subject. My thoughts only deal with the protection-of-the-thread issue of which the encapsulation is my priority.

If the finish cracks, it needs to be repaired. All other things equal (thread tension, tunnel filling, guide foot prep, etc.), I just feel more secure with only epoxy finish around the threads on guide wraps.

Putter

Tim,

When you put a layer of finish completely around the wrap it becomes an encapsulating band. It's not so much bonding to the rod as it is to itself like a very tight runner band may appear to be adhered to the blank but is not! Put a dab of epoxy on a blank and see how easy it is to pop right off. When your finish dries on the foil or mixing cup, you can pop it right out. Not a very strong bond!!!!

Mike

Mike,

You're absolutely correct that I do not derive my observations and assertions from efforts in a scientific method. I am simply making observations based upon my limited experience. Strictly opinion. It seems to me that this is the context of most assertions made in this forum, and a great deal of the information is exchanged, albeit anecdotal, but still useful to the participants. I know that it is for me.

I am always very interested to see when participants have taken the time and effort to undertake a scientific analysis of a given problem, but this is not somthing we see on a regular basis. Most of the "test results" I have seen asserted on this subject appear to be very interesting, but are informal, and subjective. These tests appear to be incidental datum, not data derived from objective testing of a significant sample size in controlled conditions against a control set. Notwithstanding the informal nature of the information exchanged, there is still much knowlege to be gained by everyone.

I have seen assertions that the stregnth of finished wraps are only marginally stonger than unfinished wraps. I suppose that this is possible, but my experience in informal tests I have conducted is that the delta is more significant. It would be my opinion and speculation that the finish in fact bonds together adjacent strands of thread wraps, resulting in a composite that is much more resilient to dynamic loading. It seems to me that especially in dynamic shear loads, a plain unfinished thread wrap will unilaterally load past it's breaking
point, since load is not distributed. This would appear to be particulally true at the wrap terminus at the foot of a guide. It would be my opinion that finished thread wraps handle shear and dynamic loads due to the stress distribution afforded by the casting resin encapsulating all threads.

It is an interesting thing that when a person finds out that "concept" spacing will add 5% to the length of a cast, they will go all out to make sure their rods are set up this way- but when the same person hears an easy way to make a guide's attachment 11% stronger, they won't bother. As if 11% improvement is so little that the custom rodbuilder's mantra of "doing everything possible to make the perfect rod" can be put aside. I can see it now- "buy commercial rods- 11% stronger guide attachement than your local custom builder"..

Personally, I recognize that in most cases it does not matter. I like using CP on light rods because it makes reparing a guide so much easier. After 10 years or so (it seems), epoxy gets very hard and can be a real pain to get off a blank. I've repaired older blanks where removing the thread pulled the paint off the blank and left thread "tracks" of crusty old epoxy that took a lot of sanding/shaving to remove. With CP, this does not happen. But having said this- I will not use it for offshore rods where I might really need that 11%...