I finished wrapping my second rod, a Dan Craft 9' 6wt FT, wraps looked beautiful, and I thought I was ready to go. So I mixed up a batch of Flex Coat Lite, coated, and wiped off. The first I put on heavy to soak up the threads and then I wipe as much off as possible, then add a second coat on day two. Worked like a dream on my first rod. However I knew immediately something was wrong. It looked like there were a thousand little fibers sticking up out of each wrap. I thought this might self correct but today they are still there. I think I frayed my thread as it came out of the fly tying bobbin that I ran it through while wrapping. I have no tags, but literally hundreds or thousands of these tiny fibers sticking up on every wrap. So deciding that it was ruined I began cutting off the wraps to rewrap. However after pain-stakingly cutting off one guide, I am already frustrated and worried about nicking my blank. This is really going to take forever and the chance of my blank coming out unscathed seems remote.
My question is..... do I have any other options??? Finely sanding the wraps then re-epoxying, steel wool, anything...!!!???
If I really need to cut everything off, is there an easier way to soften up the epoxy so there is less chance of me losing a finger or nicking my beautiful blank?
Thanks for your thoughts.
Mike

Mike - If you choose to slice it all off, just run the razor blade tip down the CENTER of the TOP of each guide foot, up from the toe toward the heel. The metal foot will be your cutting board. Or if the razor blade tip tends to slip down, then lay the blade tip along the SIDE OF THE GUIDE FOOT at the TUNNELS and ride the blade along the METAL of the guide foot. Once you really have destroyed the band, the rest of it will crack off easily enough. If the razor doesn't plow down well, heat from a hair dryer may soften the FC-Lite enough to let the razor tip penetrate to the guide foot.

You may have to buff out a scar from the razor on the guide foot. But that is easier than buying a new rod blank because your razor slips and slices into the rod blank.

Using one of those cheap, push-out, break-off razor blades lets you snap off to a fresh edge after a few slices. Better to wear out your razor blade tip against the guide foot metal than to ruin your rod blank or to slip and catch your fingers.

If another heavy over-coat does not seem like it would cover the fuzzies, then you could sand them down. Or shave them down. Then re-coat. ... Good Luck, -Cliff Hall+++

The next time you wrap !! after the wrapping is complet. Try flaming the wrap to shinging off the thread fibers. Becareful of the flame, to close and you well burm your wrap
Good Wraps Bob

Mike,

You can leave your rod as a mess or you can remove the guides and re-wrap it's that simple. Now I am surprised that you did not spot this hairy problem before your first coat of finish was applied. This would have been the time to abhort. Ok sometimes you can get thread that is very naughty and it goes into a hedge hog state after the first coat of finish. Why it does this I don't have a clue but it does happen particulary with certain brands of thread.

It also pays to check every spool of thread before setting it up in your wrapping jig. It may not have been your thread tension device but that is certainly a potential culprit. Are your hands smooth and cut free, they can very quickly fray thread? If you burnished your thread was your tool dead smooth, check it out Mike.

So I reckon if you follow Cliffs advice above you will get your guides off safely. The harder part is getting rid of the finish from the blank. The newer the finish the easier this is to do. Try your thumb nail, hard work and probab;y won't get all off. Try a plastic knife or say the plastic stirrer that comes with Araldite epoxy . I even use small pieces of wood which I sharpen. Mostly though and this may be a bit scary for you I have to finally resort to a scapel blade mounted in a proper surgeons handle. This takes a very, very long time to do and one slip and it can be by by blank. Scotch Brite pads will help you get the last bits off. It's a pain a horrid job this but you can do it. You can cover up some areas by using a slightly longer wrap. Trust me it's not the end of the world. This is a fishing rod not a vital part of your anatomy that is at risk.

As you are still at the front end of yur rod building addiction I would suggest keeping away from heat. Blanks start to delaminate at quite low temps. Anything over 100 degrees C and you are starting to push it. OK 150 C and you have pushed it. They are low mass so heat up very quickly. The old finish will cut easy enough as Cliff has described. Much easier to handle a cold blank too.

Ralph Quinn has written some good stuff on rod restoration which also covers this better than I have so do a search and work out how to do it before you start rather then when you have screwed up which is the way I normally end up. LOL.

If you get stuck re- post the Guys will come to the rescue.

Mike O.

I had the same problem. Read this thread. [www.rodbuilding.org]

It will work out okay. I ended up with three coats, but it could have stood another if needed.

Dave

Dave,

I took a quick look at this thread out of interest. The only thing I don't really like with laying on extra finish is the additional weight problem. Now one thin coat if you can get away with it I would bear but more than that and there may be performance issues with light fly rods. A boat rod no worries. You can get more problems down the road to with increased likely hood of the finish checking over the toes of the guides. It is surprising just how far sometimes these darned fuzzies can stick out and can take some covering up. My take on it is if the rod is for my own use then blow it I will live with the fuzzies but if a customer paid me hard money I owe it to them to do a re-wrap, after all there was nothing wrong with their money so the rod should be good too.
But it is good to know these get out of jail techniques.
Mike O.

Nobody so far has mentioned the thread tensioner. Take it apart and remove ANY rough spots.

I probably don't need to say this after your unfortunate incident, but make it part of your routine to inspect every wrap very carefully -- I use a 4x magnifier -- for any flaws. Once you've done the epoxy, it is very hard to recover. BTW, this situation also demonstrates an advantage of using color preserver. The fuzzies, etc., if there are any, will show after it has been applied, and unwrapping is a cinch.

Jim

The easy proceedure for removing those guides is on the FAQs page.

.........

If it is the tensioner, one that the thread rides though two cups, I would discard it and put tension on the spool of thread with a small spring .

When you say you applied to the thread , coated, and "wiped off". What do you mean wiped off?..did you just feather off excess flexcoat with your brush?...or did you literally wipe it off with something else?....I know this seems like the obvious...but before blame is placed on the tensioner or anything else, I just thought I'd ask...did you wipe off the excess with a rag or anything ...???

Mike, I agree with you. It was my personal rod, a 9' 4wt, and I take shortcuts sometimes. If I were selling it, I would have rewrapped. Even so, my three coats of finish amounted to less than what I see on production rods. I

I didn't see the extent of the problem until I applied the first coat. I did see more fuzz than usual, so I flamed the wraps. They really popped after the finish was applied. I tried to sand after the first coat (I remove all excess finish with that first application) but it was too close to the thread, and I was exasperating the problem. I did a second thin coat and sanded after that. Third thin coat covered the fix.

I'm just a hobby builder, and actually enjoyed (to an point) working on solving that problem once I saw what I had. It turned out to be a bad spool of thread.

Dave

Dave,

Fantastic . Problem solved. Go fish that rod when she has hardened off. Sounds like a nice tool.

Tight lines

Mike O.

Thanks for all the ideas. I am still not sure what I am going to do.
I did inspect the wraps prior to epoxying, but they looked great. I was really happy with how it turned out.
I think my problem might have been I had the thread running through a bobbin that I use for tying flies. It is has about a 2.5" neck, and I have no idea what the inside of that looks like. I don't have a wrapper or anything and was just doing it by hand. This along with too much tension may have frayed the thread.
As for wiping it off, I was just feathering off the excess with my brush.
Anyway. I will continue to think about it, sit here and be depressed for another day or two, and then experiement. I may try and cut one more guide off and if it isn't any easier I may sand, re-epoxy, and just have a comsmetically ugly rod that will probably still fish great.
Thanks for your help.
MIke

The easiest way I have found to take the guides off, is to sit the rod about 8" infront of a little ceramic heater, the little heater I keep under my desk at work. keeps it at the right temp with less variation. I still fame the epoxy directly with a lighter when I first put it in front of the heater, then keep in front of the heater while doing all clean up.

1. Use Gudebrod rod winding bobbins with the ceramic lined tip.

2. Closely watch the threadwork as you're wrapping. If you see any fuzz STOP and figure out whats wrong.

3. As mentioned lightly flame the thread work prior to finishing.

4. Shave off any fuzz sticking up after 1st coat, then apply 2nd coat.

Lou