A friend gave me 4 old fiberglass rods to practice on before I try to build my first stand-up. Most of the rods are white and have lost all the shine. I read Toms article on redoing old rods and he said to use Permagloss. On the white rods that I have, are they white just on the outside or white throughout? I would think that the sanding would not remove any white to expose another color.

Can I also heat the real seat and remove them as well?

Thanks for your help!

"The early bird gets the worm,.. but the second mouse gets the cheese!"

Most likely those blanks are painted white. Fiberglass is a very light colored material, but it's not bright white. If you need to repaint, you can coat with enamel and then overcoat with a clear urethane. Or, you can tint some Permagloss with white pigment (go easy - it doesn't take too much) and do the job all in one step. If these are practice rods you might as well practice.

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Would the pigment be any type? Can you recomend any?

"The early bird gets the worm,.. but the second mouse gets the cheese!"

TAP pigment, fiberglass gel coat pigment, or even the pigment from the bottom of a settled jar of Testor's paint.

White is a little tougher to work with, however you're working on top of a very light colored surface to begin with so it won't be nearly as difficult as if you were trying to paint a grey blank, white.

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Go to your neighborhood paint store and for a buck or two acquire an ounce or two of TITANIUM DIOXIDE. An ounce or two will be a lifetime supply. It is a white powder, and is universally used in all white pigments. A tiny pin point full is sufficient to make any rod pure white with epoxy or urethanes. Put a tiny pinch into your mixed epoxy, and it will turn white as a sheet. Same for a portion of Permagloss. Do not attempt to put it into the bottle of Permaglass -- it will set up in the bottle. Add it to a portion poured out into another container. Its perfect for coloring Rod Bond. I demonstrated at Charlotte how to us it to bring cork filler to the exact shade of cork desired. In the entire coating/paint industry anything that is white, probably got that way with TITANIUM DIOXIDE.
Ralph

Ralph, You keep adding cork dust to the rod bond till you get the desired color?

you can never get the desired color by adding ONLY cork dust. It will always be to dark. You then get the desired color by adding TITANIUM DIOXIDE until you match the cork being repaired..
Ralph