I have fairly recently moved to Australia and I am building myself a surf rod (Mudhole LSB1502MH) and a 30-80# saltwater jigging rod (Calstar GF760/L).

My past experience has all been with much lighter fly rods and spinning blanks that I wrapped with either Pearsall's Gossamer for the lighter blanks or YLI 100 thread for the beefier blanks finished with spar varnish or permagloss, as I really like the translucent look....

These big blanks are a whole new experience for me and I would very much appreciate your opinions on:

a) skipping the underwraps? I usually try to put a fair amount of work into dressing my guide feet...

b) trying YLI 30 wgt silk thread with permagloss for wrapping these blanks? Does the heavier weight silk thread still go translucent when coated with permagloss?

c) Butt Wraps with translucent silk? I think a variation of Alan Forsdyke's shaded bands (photo gallery) would look nice in translucent silk, has any brave and more artistic person than me acheived a nice decorative butt wrap taking advantage of the translucent properties of silk? (both of these blanks have a grey scrim)

d) Guides? I was leaning towards using Fuji blcag and PacBay bnsg guides for the surf blank (Alvey reel) and Fuji blblg guides for the jigging rod (overhead reel with a bumper guide/spiral wrap).

any thoughts and advice would be greatly appreciated

Thanks!
Mark in Perth



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2006 10:43AM by mark brown.

I would say most of your thoughts are quite valid and will serve you fine on this larger rod. No underwraps are needed and the guide selection is most likely fine. I would mention that fine silk thread is going to be a bit harder to work with on the very large diameter as you'll have to exercise greater care in getting the wraps nicely packed against each other. It's easy to get them spread a bit when you try and wrap larger guides on larger blanks with finer thread. As you most likely already know, it just takes a bit more care when using these finer threads.

.........