I have been asked by a friend to repair an old steel rod with some new guides. It looks like a fine copper wire was used to wrap the guides. Would this be true? What should I use? Regular thread? Manufacture of the rod is unknown but on the reel seat I found "Speedlock" with a Patent number of 1534674. The rod it self is a square steel and the lenght is 62" from tip to butt. Any info. on this old rod would be great.

Many of these old rods did, in fact, use copper or steel wire for the guide wraps. Sort of a novelty I guess.

Have you ever tried wrapping a guide with copper wire? I have. You're not going to have much fun if you choose to use it. I guess it all comes down to whether or not your friend wants to keep the rod authentic. It doens't have much monetary value, although it's a neat old rod and is only going to become more of a novelty with age. If you or he has any eye for historical aspects of fishing tackle, it would be nice to put it back with the same stuff used when it was originally made.

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pick up copper at hobby lobby not bad to wrap with

Many years ago, I repaired an old steel rod that had been wrapped with wire. Problem was, they'd used silver solder or something similar to tie the wire wrap together with. I couldn't melt the silver solder with a propane (Bernz-o-matic) torch and wound up cutting it off with a Dremel and re-wrapping. It wasn't much fun at all...