Perhaps others may disagree with me, but as a relative newbie to rodbuilding, I think that almost as satisfying as looking at a completed custom rod is being able to do repairs that in the past had to be sent to the tackle shop. I know for me, understanding the construction of a rod has removed a lot of the mystery and confusion about the process, and has allowed me -- even with my lack of experience -- to do a better job on repairs than what I got before I started doing them myself.

Well, I do a better job most of the time, I guess. I was replacing a hook keeper on my heavy (6-16 oz) graphite surf rod, and while removing the old thread wrap, my swiss army knife slipped, and I gouged out a small piece of the finish. With all my surf rods, I use an underwrap of Size A thread and an overwrap of Size D thread, and my first thought was just to extend the underwrap to cover the gouge, but it's too far away, and the underwrap would have to be six inches to reach it (and that would look awful).

The size of the gouge is pretty small -- maybe an eighth of an inch wide by three-quarters of an inch long -- and is shallow enough that I'm not worried about the integrity of the rod (it looks like the only thing that was removed was about 1/64 inch of finish). As a result, I've thought of several options -- ignore it, use thread epoxy, use Perma Gloss -- but I thought I would turn to the collective wisdom of this board for the best suggestion.

Any recommendations? Thanks in advance.

You may be able to tint some PermaGloss and put a drop in the gouge, hopefully coloring and filling it at the same time. Or... just make a little 1/2 to 1 inch trim wrap of some kind - put some thread inlays or something in it. It'll probably look like it was meant to be there.

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