I recently finished my first rod a 6ft loomis ultralight, and must say its one of the most rewarding things Ive ever done. I must thank Tom Kirkman very much for writing his book on rodbuilding it made the entire process much easier than I ever thought it could be. Now to the questions, after wrapping all the guides I applied the color preserver the color of the thread turned a lot darker and duller than before is this going to always happen? Does NCP thread look brighter in the long run vs. regualr thread? And finally it seemed to me as I was building my first rod everything I did whould have been a lot easier had it been on larger rod like a surf rod, which is going to be my next project. Thanks for any help.


Daniel Smith

You're hooked now!!!!!
With CP, the color should end up pretty much the same color as it was on the spool. When the CP is first applied, it will be dark and dull, when it dries, it should look pretty much like it looked on the spool. You need to pack well and saturate your thread with the CP.

NCP will never look as "bright" as regular thread since it is actually opaque. It always reminded me of flat paint, lacking the brilliance of the nylon (my opinion)
I know what you mean about the small rods! I do mostly U/L. light and mediums and sometimes envy the guys doing the surf rods! Bot a lot of room to work with on the small ones, but one of Billy V's beauties would really look silly fishing for lake perch!!!


Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2005 12:06PM by Mike Barkley.

Regular nylon will tend to lose some brightness and sparkle after the CP has been applied, but it will come back up once you put the finish on it.

Do keep in mind that light colored thread over dark colored blanks may lose a shade of brightness, but regular nylon is nearly always brighter and has more sparkle than NCP, which tends to look more like paint.

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