im wanting that candy apple look of garnet over gold but on a baitcasting bass rod is a underwrap going to hurt my performance??????? and what about the transparence of the garnet over the guide foot is that going to ruin the whole effect for me also and not look good?

This is a color scheme used by St Croix . Turns a translucent scarlet. Looks nice trimmed in gold as you describe.

Yes, the guide feet will become visible, and extra attention must be given guide foot tapering for a neat appearance. I use an acrylic blank ink pen to blacken the freshly ground metal, let dry for a few hours before wrapping. Guide feet look fine when prepared like this.

The arguement against an underwrap is going to be from an added weight standpoint, but the extra gram or two of thread is offset by the protection the thread provides the blank. No metal to blank contact; in my book a must when building on expensive blanks. Cheap blanks that I build as "guest rods" or for the kids, or solid glass blanks, I may not underwrap, but just about everything else takes one.

Lou

the guide frames are also gold as will be the under wrap i have done a practice wrap but with out a guide and want to start wrappin tonight but like i said im just curious
and the under wrap will extend completely from start to finish of each guide
so on the dbl foot guides what would u do in the space between feet????

You can do one of 2 things - do an underwrap from one side all the way to the other, so the Gold stands out ibetween the guide feet, or 2 2 underwraps, on under each guide foot. #2 is harder, you have to have precise -r measurements. If you do it the first way, you should add a trim band in the center of the underwrap to break it up - something along the lines of the Burgandy Metallics from a couple of companies (Gudebrod & I think Rice).

THe guide feet, since they are gold, or if they were silver would not be a problem. With a black foot you might want to take off the black on most of the guide foot or you'll get a black stripe - but on this dark of a threead, I promise you wouldn't notice. THat's uneccasary except when using lighter threads, and even then - nobody's gonna notice.

THere's a few pictures of guide wraps at the bottom of this page, all are done in similar fashion to what you're looking to do.
[www.fishingphotos.net]

If you just want a little more color, then false underwraps might be the ticket. A few extra grams of extra weight can and will affect performance, particularly on lighter type rods as you mention. Some tests and results are in the works now that will help everyone understand just how much weight can be added by thread and finish alone. And, this does have a noticeable effect as you get nearer the tip of a rod. Heavy surf or boat rods would not suffer nearly as much, of course, as such added weight would make up a much, much smaller percentage of the overall weight of the rod.

Underwraps are not needed if your guide feet have been prepped properly. And if the feet haven't been prepped properly, underwraps won't help much anyway. It's a cosmetic choice that you have to weight against any overall reduction in performance. Wisely implemented, you can probably get by without damaging your rod's performance to any degree that you would find objectionable.

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Shane -
Through all of this no one has asked the first question. You're building a baitcaster for bass -- what is the blank rated for (line test) and how heavy is it? The "for" and "against" underwraps killing responsiveness of the finished rod has to do with adding too much weight to the tip area of the rod. Tom touched on it above - heavier rods don't suffer from deletrious effects of added weight. Also not asked - what kind of guides are you using - style/size. Likely what I'd do is take pieces of what has already been proposed. For the first guide (maybe first two depending on your blank) - I'd do the continuous underwrap with the small band of garnet centered under the guide ring. For the next guides do the split that Billy described - you will have saved weight from the finish between the guide feet. Since you are using gold guides they alone at the tip could provide the candy apple look with no underwrap (think CP though so you don't lose the garnet color completely). This may sound "hodge podge" but if this is a 6' long (or better) rod
with some serious "out of the hydrilla yanking" intended you could drop your overall guide sizes to save the weight and underwrap them all.

ok the rod is a 6'8 xtra fast ill say xtra heavy also
was a 7 ft heavy rod to begin with
choped off 1 inch at tip and lost 5 at the butt

If people are so conerned with loss of erformance, they'd ALL use Titanium guides. I'd think since he's using Gold framed guides, that they are not TI, and if he was worried about adding weight he'd look to reduce the weight of the guides, beofer worrying about 3 feet of thread & a light coat of epoxy.

He may be worried about economy. The first place that could make sense to save weight would be those areas that won't cost you any extra - shorter wraps, no underwraps, thinner finish, etc. Every little bit helps. And, add up several of those little bits and then you do realize enough difference to actually make a difference that can be felt by human hands.

Obviously, if money is not at issue, then lighter guides are the quickest way to get weight off the tip and realize some real benefit.

And we all have to remember that any of this must be tempered by some measure of common sense. Saving even a very few grams will make a difference on electronic test equipment, but perhaps not in the human hand. At some point, however, it can be felt and realized. But again, common sense should rule the day.

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never once did i mention weight being a factor @#$%& i fish several 8' steelhead rods for pitching in to heavy cover and the fish here u dont need sensitivity they hit hard and big 13# + is what im talking bout
so weight dont bother me as much as performance

Weight robs you of performance in many ways. Two rods of exactly the same stiffness and action but one weighing a bit more than the other, particularly if that weight is in the tip, will find the lighter of the two to offer more performance in terms of casting distance, reaction and recovery, sensitivity, balance, etc. When you talk performance, you're also talking about weight, or vice versa.

By the way, neither obscenities nor reference to obscenities via puntuation keys are allowed here.

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sorry bout the obsenities i figured the way it was used it was alright i meen ____ive seen many used on and around this sight been following it since i found it over a year ago