Afternoon,

I was wondering what procedure you guys use to clean the blank and your hands before finishing. I got a terrible case of the fish-eyes on a casting rod i was finishing up last night. I washed my hands thoroughly, wiped 'em down with rubbing alcohol, and cleaned the blank with rubbing alcohol before applying finish. I've never had this problem before, so i'm not sure what i did wrong.

To correct the problem on the rod, should i lightly sand the affected areas and then put on another coat of finish? Is there something more effective?

Thanks for your help. Have a great weekend.

Carrington Tate

Carrington,
Is the fish-eye problem on with your coating on your guide wraps? Or are you trying to coat the whole blank? If it is just on your bindings I would have a guess and say something has got on your wraps prior to applying your finish, which is causing the problem. Are you measuring yor finish with syringes? Have you cleaned them throughly? Something got on your hands. Aerosol was sprayed where you bind and you didn't know, settled on your wraps. There is so many variants possiable. Go back and trace yor procedure and see what could have caused the reaction.

Cheers,

Ross.

Thanks Ross,

I put finish on a 7 inch butt wrap (simple diamonds), and also guide wraps. I also put finish over a st croix sticker, and that seems to be where the most trouble is occuring. I wiped it down atleast twice with the alcohol prior to applying finish. I guess i got something on my hands between cleaning and finishing. What is the best way to fix the current problem on the rod? Thanks for the help.

Carrington

You never want your last step in surface preparation to be a solvent wash or wipe. That can cause the very problems you're trying to prevent.

New blanks should be cleaned prior to beginning work. After the blank is cleaned, you shouldn't allow anything to come in contact with it that might cause problems later.

Now it's quite normal for finish to be repelled by a slick decal or label. For this reason you generally want to apply a coat of color preserver/sealer over the top of all decals and labels. That usually takes care of any fish eye or craftering problems there.

At this point I'd wash the finished areas with alcohol, then lightly sand or scuff with Scotchbrite. Do not wash again with alcohol or anything for that matter, after you've done your sanding/scuffing. If you're concerned about the sanding residue, knock it off with a clean brush.

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

I had the occasional ugly fisheye, then I discovered that I was blowing tiny droplets of alcohol off my lamp when I blew it out after bursting bubbles. I am now more careful about which direction I am pointing when I blow out the lamp.

Tom - Of course, you have the brush thing figured out. I had to do it the hard way. Everything I tried to wipe the sanded rod down with either left lint or possible alcohol residue. Bought a fairly stiff 2" paint brush and use it just for "dusting" the rod before I apply finish.

Thanks for the help, i guess i was my worst enemy on this one! Think i'll get a brush.

Carrington

I made the mistake one time of showing my niece the butt wraps on a rod I was building for her step dad....not good:( She must not have washed her hands since the last time she use hand creme or something like that. I had to put 4 coats of epoxy on before I could get things looking good.

I didn't realize at first what happened and just put another coat on and by that time there some serious craters sand and recoated 2 more times and it finally looked OK.

After that I and no one else touches the wraps or anyhere epoxy goes after wrapping. That and I make sure that I frequently wash my hands to remove all oils when wrapping. I know kinda anal but I don't want to go throught that again.

Steve:

You may have just solved a mystery for me. I was getting fisheyes on my second coat on my last rod. Hadn't touched the blank since the coat before and couldn't figure it out. But I blow on my alcohol lamp to get the gentle heat to burst the bubbles vice direct flame, and probably did the same thing you mentioned.

I'll be darned. Learn something new every day on this site.

Thanks for sharing,
Phil