Recently had a bad experience with a finish on a rod i was building for my son. Fish eyes on a number of wraps. reading "Advanced rod building" I noted a possible contaminant, hand soap. have been using a foam antiseptic hand soap and wonder if a rince with alcohol before wrapping would be a good idea? short of re wraping what can I do to rid of fish eyes?
Can or should one clean thread before finish is applied with denatured alcohol or acetone?

Wiping the wraps with alcohol is one of the worst things you can do - that will almost surely contaminate your wraps.

Thread need never be cleaned, but you don't want to handle it or spray things around finished wraps. Prevent the problem rather than having to solve it after the fact.

At this point, I'd put a coat of color preserver on the wraps and then proceed with finish. That usually solves the problem.

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Bill,
If you're referring to washing your hands with alcohol prior to doing your thread wraps, that shouldn't hurt. Maybe someone else can offer another product for hand washing that will remove skin oils and not leave a residue that could contribute to fish eyes.

Jeff Shafer

I use Dial liquid handsoap mixed 50-50 with 91% alcohol before rod building. I've had no recent problems, over a year, with fisheyes. Ralph

If at first you don't succeed, go fishing, then try, try again.

Bill,

It is very important to have very clean hands before any wrapping is done. Also it is vital to ensure that your clothing is clean to. I always dry my hands on a fresh towel. Never ever dry on a towel that has come from the kitchen as grease is almost certain to have gotten on it. I also avoid soaps with extra miosturisieres in them. Using alchol on your hands is not a good idea in the long term and you can build up health problems by doing so. Any strong solvent should not be applied liberally to your skin.

Finally I always wear a lint free short sleeved shirt when wrapping to help avoid contact with the thread. One last tip is to dab you fingers with masking tape after drying your hands to remove lint from around your fingers and especially nail beds. The lint can act like dubbing in fly tying and make it's own mess to.

I actually wrap free hand which means that I have a lot of contact with the thread and even in hot weather when I obviously sweat a lot I have rarley found clean sweat to cause fish eye. Normlly you have to have do somethingb pretty drastic to get persistant fish eye problems. I use Flex coat and Gibbs nothing outside of the norm.

Hope this helps

REgards

Mike O.