Now that I have a little more experience with this rod building fixation, I am looking at my first rod which I am mostly happy with except for a few footballs on a couple of the guides. My question is if there is a way to smooth out these bumps without having to re-do the entire guide? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

"A bad day of fishing is ALWAYS better than a good day at work."

Blessings,
Dave

I have done the same on my first rod. And got told to take a finger nail file to it litely and them coat over.
I did not do it i took my guides off and re did it. Now i cant tell you for sure if it works or not.Just what i was told.

Dave,

You can mechanically try and re-shape your high build. What you need to consider is the time element as well as the potential result. You may be able to file off the bumps and or the shape you don't want. Be caerful as there are two main risks. The first is you could slip and damage your blank so you might want to mask off. Time consuming but necassary in my view. The other is that you may go too far and fuzz some threads giving you some additional work. Is it worth it. For one or two wraps then yes for a whole ropd then for me no.

When you do the high build again, try less finish and stay with it for at least two hours so you can see what's happening and can whilst the finish is still young take remedial action. Even then once the finish is on and in the correct amount all the rod should need is rotation.

Go back and make sure you are following the instructions on your high build. Stay away from naked flames hair driers and alchol lamps they are tools of rectificatioln only and can make matters worse for inexperinced builders.

Read up in the library on finishing. Last tip if you don't quite put enough finish on first coat then you can always go back and slap another thin coat on ( when first is dry of course). Much easier to control than one coat method. After a half dozen rods you should be flying with a single coat application.

Mike O.

You can file or block sand them flat and recoat, if you want to go to that trouble.

In all likelihood, what you've got there is fine - you just don't like the way it looks because your subsequent rods keep getting better and better.

...........

Dave
My first was a little footbally so its easy to share in the disappointment. I bought a couple of cheap blanks on @#$%& for practicing. I intentionally did not try to repair the first but continue to use it as a reference.
Last Saturday I caught a 3lb large mouth with the rod and as I was playing the fish I actually didnt even think about the footballs. I found something very special about catching a fish with the first rod I had built and have been very glad I left it original.
As I practiced (take guides off an old broken rod) I became more relaxed and experimented with multiple coats, thinned coats, thread packing, cp no cp various butt wraps and 3 different CP's. Its worth the time and its a small investment. I'd repair any footballs on future rods (hope there wont be many) but I think the first rod will always give us a baseline and something to measure against
Ive just posted my second rod in the photo gallery.
Tom