I'm getting ready to build fly rods on an American Tackle AMF804 4wt, and a St. Croix 4F904.2 4wt. Both are green blanks. I plan to wrap with no trim bands, no CP, and am wondering what color besides Green thread will compliment the blank. I'd like to hear what others have used that they liked. I want to stay away from metallics, too.

i have wrapped a pac bay green blank with black thread no cp...turned out really nice...
good luck with your build bryan...

I like a med-dark gray or maybe a gun metal gray with green.

I've done browns ( 541 Med Brown ,5274 Chestnut), 206 garnet, and 340 gold. My son had me do one in his favorite color purple that looks surprisingly good. (Gudebrod silk)

Bryan:

Depends on what you want. Fade-into-the-background wraps may include green wraps with single inlaid threads of green metalic or white or gold. Complementary color wraps may include green as primary wrap and red trim bands. Triadic wraps may include rust as a primary wrap with medium purple trim band or inlaid thread. The sky's the limit. Suggest you look at color wheels to try color combinations before you wrap. Also remember that if you do not use color preserver, the threads will become translucent and let the backbround color though and effectively darken them.

Doug Weber
Weber Rod Works

I second the Garnet thread on a green blank with no CP. It turns a very dark almost candy apple red and looks great.

Jim Smith

i've used medium green gudebrod A thread with NCP A white for very thin trim wraps. the NCP leave sthe white thread nice and crisp, a nice subtle contrast. no liquid color preserver neds to be aplied.

eric
fresno,ca.

Garnet with no cp looks stunning on a green blank.

Plain old red looks good too.

Green wraps with red or garnet trim is yet another option.

Many other combinations too. One of my favorite schemes is to use wraps that match the blank with metallic wraps that also match. In other words, green wraps with metallic green trim on a green blank.

Kev

Kevin stole my thunder. When matching the thread to the blank, doing the "disappearing" wrap, I like a very thin band , 1 or 2 wraps, of metalic thread, either gold or silver for me. To hide the metal thread while under the "see thru" color thread, I slide it under the guide foot and start the wrap right at the end of the foot. Looks nice.

Tim

Garnet Garnet garnet. Of course with a trim band of you choice. I had a green blank and stumbled around for about a month and ended up using green just because I already owned a blank of green and garnet. If I had the choice to do it again, garnet would be my choice. Good wraps!

Besides what has been mentioned for a flashier look try a metallic brown or copper in Sulky thread. Copper makes a great trim band for the forest grren thread.

Dan Grulke

Since my plan is to be instructing a group of first time builders, we won't get into trim wraps. I like the garnet concept. I'm going to do a test wrap. I plan to give the students a few choices for color when they start to build. Green, garnet, red. Thanks, all.

If you can -- make your self up a test stick.

A scrap piece of blank the same color if possible, put these colors on it apply some clear -- take a look outside when dry.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2005 09:26AM by bill boettcher.

Garnet without CP looks great,as do most of the browns(brown and green go together wonderfully) and gold(340,which looks kind of like a honey color and is the color that Sage uses on their green XP blanks I believe).

One of my favorites for green,grey,and brown blanks is the black/orange Classic Twist without CP.The orange turns into more of a medium brown with a just hint of orange to it,and the black seems to look more like a dark brown.Overall it kind of looks like wood grain,and it goes great with a medium to dark burl wood insert.It looks unique enough that you don't need trim,but metallic gold,and especially metallic copper go great with it.

I used blue dunn on a StCroix fly rod I made, was really a very nice look to it

Garnet with a narrow Copper Matallic trim band on a green blank. Ralph

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