My personal preference is for no frills rods with minimal trim work - I want a high performance fishing tool. I am building a steelhead rod on a Cascade Composites clear finish blank - blank is a dark gray color. I am planning to use Flex Coat color preserver and lite finish.

I want to wrap the guides with a thread that will be a close match to the blank color when finished. I will do some test wraps, but what colors of thread would be a good place to start - black ? or gray? or some other color?

I will do trim bands in orange. What brand of thread gives the brightest orange color? Which is most resistant to fading over time?

Thanks to all of you for your assistance. This website has one of the most helpful bulletin boards I have found on the internet.

Steve, I have built mostly on Rainshadow matte clear blanks, and have used the following combinations on the guides without CP, and allow the colors to blush. A. Brown, metallic gold trim, B. Garnet with Metallic gold trim, C. Cobalt Blue, with metallic gold trim, D. Dark Green, with metallic gold, and or copper. E. Black with gold metallic trim, metallic silver trim, metallic red trim. The colors are endless, I use grey thread with Cp as under wraps for feather inlays, I also do feather inlay on metallic silver, gold, copper, and Blue. My favorite is cobalt with gold trim, but I am partial to blue. I have tried to use charcoal thread, but it did not appeal to me. Just a few suggestions , I use gudebrod thread. Also a lot depends on the guide frame color, silver, gold will tend to show through on all but the darkest threads also. As far as orange I don't know which is better. good luck

Problem is not all charcoal blanks are the same shade. My Austin All Star is the lightest, my SCIIIs are the darkest, and my Gloomis is in the middle. I recently redid my Gloomis GLX with Gudebrod 720 gray without CP. The thread is light colored until the finish hit it and it turns almost transparent and lets the blanks show thru - but it is a snitch lighter in color than the blank. I used Gudebrod 441 charcoal for trim bands for a slight accent. If I had used the 441 for the entire wrap it would have looked nice although just a tiny bit darker than the blank. I wrapped my Austin All Star in 441 charcoal and it stands out against the blank slightly but is a smooth looking transition. And I'm going to use plain black without CP on the St Croix because it's the darkest. Good luck.

Duh - after looking at my Austin All Star again, I realized I used the same 720 gray with441 charcoal trim bands as I did on my GLX . The Austin is a much lighter shade of charcoal and the wraps show up a bit darker against it.

I too love a simple, understated rod. Here's my personal color choice for my rods.

Garnet nylon, no CP.

Turns a beautiful ruby hue when coated.

Understated class. Goes with most blanks.

I din't want any of you guys to take me wrong, because I enjoy reading your posts, but you died in the wool fly rod guys are a hoot.

Later,
Gerald Mc

Jet Black thread over jet black alconites is simply stunning.

Richard Carlsen Wrote:
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> I too love a simple, understated rod. Here's my
> personal color choice for my rods.
>
> Garnet nylon, no CP.
>
> Turns a beautiful ruby hue when coated.
>
> Understated class. Goes with most blanks.

Richard - Which type garnet thread - regular or NCP? And/or did you mean that you don't use any color preserver over the thread?

Thanks for the idea - I'll do a test wrap. Now I'm also thinking about using colors similar to a steelhead - possibly dark gray guide wraps with red and/or green trim bands.

Bob Leab Wrote:
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> Jet Black thread over jet black alconites is
> simply stunning.

Bob - Thanks for that idea. I am using black Alconite guides on this rod, so I'll do some test wraps with jet black thread. What manufacturer? Gudebrod? another company? regular or NCP? Thanks.

Gudebrod Nylon R.W. #524

Steve , you won't be dissapointed with the black , I like to put a couple of metalic pueter inlay threads in with the black.............. looks great . I use any strait black nylon , NO cp. It will look even better with the Alconites , I just finished a Dan Craft 6wt with this combo .......... real stealthy looking. John

Got Fish ?

Steve, when you do your test wraps, use some kind of wetting agent. It's the high gloss that really makes it work. The result is a classic form follows function look. Any true black with no CP should work.

Wrap a couple of guides on with black electical tape. You'll know real quick whether the look is what you're looking for.