I am building a rod for my daughter.

She has selected a real light colored pink thread. The rod is set up for M/L spinning, so I will be using single foot guides, with no underwrap.

To keep the pink from darkening up, I was thinking about using a white sharpie marker to lighten the blank under the thread, to keep the pink from becoming red.

Has anyone tried this ??

If you put the white under it I would suggest putting a coat of CP color perserver on it. This should keep it from bleading though.
Try some thread on the butt section of the blank. Maybe without any thing under with white and see what happens. Best to be sure

Bill's idea should work. You can also mask off the part that will be wrapped an paint it white. I have done that and it worked pretty good.
I would use at least 2 good coats of CP on the thread (I like Gubebrod 811, personally) Like Bill said. Test where it won't show (under the grip)

Mike

Painting under teh area to be wrapped is probably your best bet, but I personally have had trouble getting straight edges when I remove the masking tape. Even with CP, or NCP thread - light colored threads over dark blank will NOT be teh same as light colored threads over a white background. My preference is to underwrap with Silver metallic & use Nylon thread with no CP.

Tommy,

My son, Patrick did a pink based wrap on a rod for his Mom (and in fact it didn't scare the fish away...she caught a 4.6 lb, 23 inch bass on it...proof the fish didn't run from the pink). He tells me he used NCP thread with 2 good coats of CP. He did two layers of pink thread for the underwrap and guides. Before he did the wrap on the blank he did a practice wrap on a dowell rod and on half of the practice wrap he put CP and the other half just he jsut applied finish. When you look at side by side you can tell a big difference. You can see his rod in the most popular photo section and the finished rod in the thread art section of the photo page. Let me know if I (he) can be of further help.

Richard

Adhesive silver reflective tape might work well to cover the wrap area. Wrap the pink thread and try it with & without CP on a test blank and evaluate whether it works or not. I'm talking about the butt wrap area, but it might work in the guide area also for your daughter's intended usage. Might need to paint guide feet with silver auto touch-up paint to prevent them showing through. I'm sure it can be done and a little testing will help solve the problem.

Stan