I've gone by the rule that for heavy SW rods and guide wraps, you shouldn't use CP as you won't get any finish penetration, therefore have a weaker wrap. Makes sense so I do it I 've had success with med to medium heavy sufrods using Madiera 40 and CP, casting up to 3 oz weights with no guide foot cracking or guides ripping of the rod. I've even spiral wrapped a Calstar GF900M with the guides wrapped on the rod with NO FINISH ,without guides shifting (the bumper guide shifted a bit), Jigging 4 oz bucktails off the rocky bottom of the CC canal.

Blah blah... I'm curious if any of the SW builders wrapping 50# rods and up use CP on there guide wraps or would this just be a bad choice on "breaking the rules".

I'm planning to wrap a CGBT96H for NE cod jigging with BLRLG's using a double wrap of Gudebrod A ...with 811 CP. (Olive Green)

A weaker wrap? Have you ever tried to pull a guide off a rod? There is nothing weak about a wrap made with CP. I've built literally hundreds of offshore trolling and stand up rods going back to the early 1980s and always used CP. Never had a single report of a "weak wrap" or a guide being pulled off the rod or out of the wraps.

If you remember the article in RodMaker about CP, the difference between the wraps made with CP and those without is only about 10% and neither one is exactly weak. The important thing in order to keep guides from shifting, is to get either CP or epoxy to form a "flat" along the sides of the guide foot. This means filling the tunnel between foot and thread with something, either CP or epoxy. If you do that you'll be fine.

..........

Hi Michael! more Blah Blah! --- It seems to me that good work practices kinda all fit together. If things are done well you can probably get away with anything like using CP on multiple layers of thread on salt water heavy stuff. On the other side of the coin bad work can cause all sorts of things to happen. If you go a little to far with thread up the guide frame and apply too much finish the finish can crack which would allow moisture penetration to contact thread. If CP is there there is more chance of weakening of the wrap. I have adopted to use practices that give me the greatest strength on salt water stuff. CP is only added for aesthetic purposes and can in no way add strength to the construction. I see too many down sides to CP to use on heavy duty saltwater rods like stand up tuna sticks. I use doubled D black nylon at top wrap and can make the rods look quite nice with metallic underwraps and inlays. Blah Blah! Take this with a grain of salt and a nice glass of wine! My wine glass is in use!

Bill,
Maybe we are drinking the same wine. I agreed with every word you said. What is it that you are drinking?

Obviosly I like the aesthetic qualities, and try my best to build quality also, otherwise I wouldn't even ask the question. Its been burnt into my brain through old books and local old school builders that the guide wrap is "much stronger" if you don't use CP...."CP acts as a barrier"....."promotes guide foot cracking" etc... so therefore on this rod I'm working on it will look great with guide wraps that are all done with CP as opposed to doing a basic black or an NCP, or a nice translucent look. CP and guide wraps have always been a "no- no" , as long as it done right, I suppose I can get away with it. With Olive green!

Tom, beleive me, on that thin little Madeira stuff with no finish, I tried to rip the guides off AND break the blank...I learned the strength off a guide wrap at least.

Bill, I hope your glass is always half full ! (with a Yellowtail Merlot reserve)

I have used CP on 99% of the guides that I have ever wrapped. Granted, the heaviest ones that I do are muskie rods, but I can honestly say that I have never had one fail. I do a LOT of repair work for shops and do many repairs of guides on commercial rods with failed guides and they don't use CP (economic reasons). IMO, whether it's weaker is immaterial. What counts is, is it strong enough!! Some ideas die hard. Fly rods can't have thread art or CP, must have snakes, underwraps protect blanks, casting rods need double foot guides, etc. The list goes on and on.

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

A guide wrapped with the threads soaked with CP verses a guides with the wraps soaked with finish.
How can the cp guide not be a lot weaker????
Not to say the cp guide won't hold up but the guide with no cp and finish on each wrap will be much stronger.
Its relatively easy to remove a guide with a razor blade where cp has been used.
Its a real pain in the butt to remove a guide with finish on each wrap.

I don't use cp at all and finish each coat of A thread on my rods.

THATS why I even posted the question Jim...thats what worries me. I'd be going against what seems like the right thing to do.

Strong enough is strong enough. I always use color preserver and have never had a guide fail due to a weak wrap.

A steel rod blank would be a lot stronger than graphite or glass. Maybe consider going that route as well?

Never yet had a fish jump out of the water and remove a guide from my rod with a razor blade. But those west coast fish may be a lot meaner than what we have out here!

I have had the same experience as Jim. I have taken off literally hundreds of guides with and without color preserver and the guides that did not have color preserver and the epoxy has soaked through to the rod are always a lot harder to get off.
It seems to me that the color preserver by itself is not as strong as the epoxy by itself. The color preserver works because it seals the threads and forms a barrier between the guide and threads and the rod. The epoxy that is applied over color preserver just forms a layer over the color preserver, it does not soak through the threads to the guide and rod as the epoxy without color preserver will do. So a wrap with color preserver cannot be as strong as a wrap with only epoxy.
Is a wrap with color preserver strong enough? It probably is in 95% of the applications but it cannot be as strong as a wrap with only epoxy.

When building heavyier Saltwater sticks 50+ Stand-ups I coat with Epoxy after each layer of thread. first two are apply and brush off

I build a lot of surf and boat rods for bottom fishing. Always use CP if I want to keep the colors bright. Don't use it if I use black thread. So far as I know no failures with the rods I've made with CP. My personal saltwater rods all have CP on the wraps and the guides seem fine even after many years. Just my experience.

Shawn,
I do not think that it has much to do with whether it is the east Coast or the West Coast and I have never seen a fish with a razor blade either. But I have seen many , many guide failures for a wide variety of reasons. Guides will sometimes pull out from under the wraps or will break loose and twist under the wraps or with extended use the wraps will wear and unravel. The degree to which color preserver has anything to do with the failures may be debatable but guides and guide wraps do fail. If you have never had a guide failure then just stick with it and you will.

I don't think that anyone ever said that CP wraps were as strong as Non CP. The only concern should be is it strong enough. Like Shawn said, the old steel rods were MUCH stronger than graphite.

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

Here we go again. If I'm not mistaken, the difference between a CP guide wrap and a non CP guide wrap is only about 10 %. With that said, both wraps completely distort or destroy the guide when trying to pull the guide from the rod.

I have built many 40, 50 and 80 lb rods and have CP'd every last one. Never have I ever had a guide fail for any reason outside of someone stepped on the darn thing. My bag is shark fishing and believe me, if a CP'd guide will hold up under some of the these fellows then those that build lighter tackle have nothing to worry about. IMHO of course.

Regards......Doug@
TCRds

Good evening all,

I think this is the second of these long threads regarding the relative strength of CP/Epoxy and non-CP/Epoxy wraps. I'm not sure this debate will ever be resolved. However, I will add my bit to the debate. Back in 1962 when I was 24, I built a 11.5' surf spinning rod. It consisted of a 30 inch handle ans a 9 foot "tip" in which I placed a ferrule (nickel silver) for ease of transport. As I do with all of my rods, I coated the threads of the guides with CP before putting finish on them. Now this rod had six guides and used the cone of flight theory. I used Mildrum SRA Guides with the butt guide being either a SRA 72 or SRA 75. In those days Epoxy was a glint in some developer's eye. The finish of choice was varnish. Once while fishing from some rocks at Shelter Cove, California in Humboldt county, a sleeper wave knocked me off of the rocks and into the water. If any of you are familiar with rocky coast lines, you will know how much danger I was in. However, the next surge just lifted me back up and I scrambled up onto the rocks with only a few abrasions. However, I did deform the butt guide and the next guide up. The rings were just a bit out of round.

Now this year I decided to rebuild this old rod using the New Concept Guide system. The first thing I noted when I started to remove the guides was that there was no corrosion on the guides all of which were hard chrome plated steel guides. The only corrosion was on the solder joints on the frame of the Tungsten Carbide tip top. I also noticed that all of the wraps were completely intact. There was no damage to the wraps--even the guides that were damaged when I was knocked into the water. I did notice that the varnish was quite dried out and needed to be revarnished. The CP underneath was also intact. Now I never caught a fish over 22 pounds ( cabezon) with that rod, but it has had a an awful lot of use. If the much weaker varnish can last this long without failure, I suspect any epoxy coated wrap will also last this long. I certainly will not argue that CP/epoxy is as strong as just epoxy, but I think that the main purpose of finish is to protect the wraps from unraveling or rotting. I think the major strength of a wrap comes from the thread itself and the number of threads on the wrap. An interesting experiment would be to compare the strength of a wrap made from #E thread, #A, thread and 8/0 flytying thread.

A note about the lack of corrosion, I always wash and rinse my tackle thoroughly after fishing--particularly if used in saltwater. With those large guides, the tunnels are also very large and they were well filled with CP. Since varnish lacks the strength of epoxy or urethane finishes, I think the use or non-use of CP is probably not a deciding factor in the failure of a guide or wrap.

One thing I have not heard in this debate or the one last year is any evidence from people who have had wrap/guide failure using or not using CP on their wraps. This data would at least provide us with some empirical evidence.

Best regards,

Mike Blomme

I rely on thread to strongly bind my guides to the blank, not CP or epoxy. I have never had a thread wrap fail. The epoxy and CP are just there to protect the thread over the long haul. Been using CP on all my saltwater rods for many years and haven't had any problems to date. For me the use of CP and wrap strength is a non issue.

Mike,


I have wrapped several 96H's with Madeira 40, used CP on the wraps, no problems. And my guides are single wrapped.

Sean Endres
North East Rod Builders
New London, CT

Michael I have seen your work and would agree that your thread choices are completely different from mine. I am of the Buky school on thread for standups - if it ain't black, red or silver it ain't thread! Considering you lighter thread colors I think you could have your cake and eat it too with incremental construction and finishing of the guide wraps. Use no CP on the first layer of thread and apply a coat of finish for penetration - wrap second layer of thread and coat with CP for the color effect you want.

Your wine glass has emptied numerous bottles even one from Rome delivered by Italo!

Gon Fishn

I've put CP on 2 rods, both had the epoxy crack, both have a whitish haze frm moisture under the guide wraps/epoxy. One has discoloration in the guide foot from teh epoxy cracking & causing the guide to rust/discolor.

With those big guides and the use of CP, there is going to be a big air pocket on both sides of the guide feet - this would be an area of concern for me, as well as those thick long feet possibly causing the epoxy to crack.

What's the worst thing that could happen? Put CP and see how the rod looks after a year. Worst case if it looks like doo rewrap teh guides using Silver metallic underwraps & no CP on teh overwraps and the color will stay teh same as on the spool.