Have a couple of old bamboo fly rods. Plan to totally strip and redo .Have several questions. Is paint remover acceptable for old varnish? If there is a slight curve, what can be done to straighten? I know how rods are made and do not to hurt original glue. Steam would seem OK.? Saw information on Tru oil as a finish and use it on gun stocks. Varnish is also mentioned. Any comments?
After stripping blank should the sections be treated such as in linseed ? Most old rods are over 40 years or better. Sure glad I go not have many questions"""
Thanks ,Bill Gaude

i have stripped a couple of old south bends with citrus strip with no ill effects. takes a couple of applications and some scraping with the non sharp edge of a razor blade being careful not to remove cane. twists and bends can be removed with the application of mild heat and bending the rod in the oposite direction of the bend, holding it there for a little while and letting it go back. will usually take the bends out. once you have a clean cane surface you can rub on tru oil or a varnish. a few rubbed out coats before wrapping and then finishing the wraps with varnish and a couple more coats to unify everything. the rods can turn out pretty nice. i am working on a south bend 5256 right now.its looking nice. reel seat hardware and ferrules can be polished with a polishing wheel and a bench grinder and the ferrules re-blackened with brass black if they happen to be nickel silver.

Use one of the citrus type paint removers as Larry mentioned. To remove bends you can use a heat gun. Man O' War Spar Varnish is good to use for your finish.

Bill,

Your email address is hidden. You need to go into MY CONTROL CENTER in the grey boxes at the top of the forum posts and fix that. I would like to send you a personal eMail.

Bill in WV