I always use CP and have never had any air pockets next to or along the guide feet. I am careful to fill the tunnels with CP or epoxy, however. Getting something in there to form that "flat" is the key to keeping a guide from shifting or rolling under heavy loads.

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Thet's the key, you have to purposely fill the tunnel. When you use Nylon with no CP, teh epoxy soaks through and automatically fills the tunnel, with CP, you have to spend the time to "force" epoxy in there. If you omit this step, which I'm sure 90% of the people who do not like using CP on guide wraps do - there is defeinately a potential problem.

I'm just an amatuer rod builder so...if:

CP = Color preserver. and
Finish = Epoxy, Varnish, Urethane, Perma-Gloss, etc.

Where and how is a finish going to cement anything down with any strength?

finish n: the final treatment or coating of a surface.


Dan Hogan
The only way to have a friend, is to be one.

Thanks for all your responses. I think I really just needed to hear that other people have success with CP and guide wraps. I'll give it a go. Seane, good to know you've tested a single wrap of madeira and CP on the same set up, thanks.

Dan,

None of the finishes are an adhesive and are not meant to secure the guide. They are basically epoxy casting resins and have very little bonding ability. If you were to put a layer of finish on a blank area, you could lift an edge and peel it off. The thread provides the strength to secure the guide to the blank. The finish seals the thread and protects it from water, abrasion, abuse, etc.

CP or no CP is a never ending debate and is a really matter of personal preference. Neither side ever presents any argument backed by ANY data of any kind, not even personal experiences. Mostly conjecture/opinion. Tom K. has performed actual tests and it's true that CP wraps are about 10% less strong but more than strong enough.

The bottom line is go with whatever makes you comfortable. With many things in rodbuilding, there is no right or wrong way.


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!!

Mike - do 3 scenario's, jus tto see how much strength the epoxy actually adds to a guide. Use guide foot adhesive to secure 3 guides to a blank. Leave one guide uncoated, put CP on another, and put a coat of expoy on teh last one.

That would tell you how much strength epoxy adds to the wrap over CP, and nothing at all.

Billy, I assume you meant to wrap them with thread first???????

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!!

Mike,
After thread coating epoxy has completely cured it is difficult to get off of a blank, at least the ones that I have used. It is not just a matter of putting something under an edge and pealing it off as you suggest. That can only be done before the epoxy is completely cured. I have removed literally hundreds of guides and there is almost always some epoxy residue left adhering to the blank that is difficult to remove. It bonds to the blank pretty well.
There are hundreds of different epoxy formulations and the ones that we put on threads may not be formulated for their adhesive qualities but they are not all that bad as adhesives. Try gluing a couple of cork rings together and then see what happens when you try to get them apart after the epoxy has had a few days to cure.
I do agree with you completely though about using or not using color preserver. People should do what they are comfortable with and gives them the results that they are after. I personally do not use color preserver but on the other hand I am sure that we would not have all of the outstanding weaving being done if it were not for color preserver.

I did a bit of playing around a few months back, wrapping 3" sections of a blank and coating with epoxy and cutting it off a week later (not for this reason, but other stuff I was doing). I noticed that after slicing, the adhesion was fair and the wraps needed a bit of prying and came up in sections with residue left on the blank on wraps done with minimal packing and low tension. With very tight packing and my usual tension however, after slicing, the wraps popped off with no effort at all and there wasn't a trace of residue on the blank. The inside of the wraps (nylon size A) were as dry as they were on the spool.

I'm not at all convinced that epoxy soaks through thread as much as it flows around it if it has the chance.

Mick,
That is a really interesting observation. You may very well be right. The epoxy has to soak into the threads to some degree because of the way that the threads become translucent but maybe with tight packing it does not soak through to the blank very much.

Thanks Billy V.

You hit the nail on the head. The problem is MOISTURE. CP will wick moisture into itself (hygroscopic), under the coat of finish. You'll get some pretty good corrosion going there in the salt water environment. This is the primary reason I do not use the stuff. The other reasons are the funky things the stuff does to thread - green or sparkles on black, uneven wetting when you least expect it, etc.

Then there is the possibilty of it being 10% weaker than epoxy finish. On offshore rods I want the strongest bond possible.

IMHO CP is just an added step that you don't need. Use thread colors and type that do not need the stuff and avoid the problems.

Lou

Nylon thread does not absorb epoxy, or CP for that matter. All any of these products can do is seep between and around the thread itself. They do not penetrate the actual fibers.

Thread is your bonding agent for securing guides to the blank. Not the finish.

If you really want the toughest, strongest, most abrasion resistant finish product going, you wouldn 't be looking at an epoxy anyway. PermaGloss bests it in all categories by a mile. Two miles, really. Anyone who has used this stuff and come back later to try and cut it off, or even to scratch it, can attest to it being about the darnest thing you will ever attempt to get off. It is as close to a permanent coating as exists. And yes, it is the one product that you can actually use without thread to hold a guide to the rod blank.

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Emory, I see it as "Lick your thumb and press it onto your faded levi's". Turns very dark but your leg isn't wet.

Something else I've seen and do not understand, yet bothers me greatly... use a light thread on a dark blank , grey on black seems to display it best... applying finish to a rotating blank, in a fairly quick amount of time, everything seems great. Run a heavy bead of epoxy along the top of the finish and let sit for say a mintue or so, then fully encapsulate the wrap. Even after complete cure, the initial lines where finish meets thread stays far darker than the rest of the wrap. Looks like a line of soot almost. I've duplicated this many times.

The epoxy is changing consistency/viscosity every minute - every second really. Where you first apply it, in your scenario, it tends to wick and seep the quickest and deepest. As time moves on, even mere seconds, it becomes thicker and doesn't seep into the spaces in the threads as fast nor as completely. This is why the initial place you applied it will be a tad darker.

Another reason to apply epoxy as quickly as you can, coming back after all the wraps are coated to fix any minor imperfections.

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Exactly Tom. That's the part I don't understand. I do, but I don't.

Something that takes hours to dry, shouldn't have that much of an effect after less than a minute on something that is .007 thick, especially when it isn't fully absorbing it (that I've seen). It obviously does, but in a perfect world.... It's stuff like this that made me hate chemistry and physics.

Mike B - No, do not wrap teh guides with thread, just use teh guide foot adheasive to hold them there. This will show just how much strength teh epoxy adds to a wrap, and how much the CP adds.

You can do the same with PermaGloss, building up many coats until the guide foot is covered. The PermaGloss will actually bond the guide to the blank, requiring a good deal of pressure to break it apart. So much, in fact, that you could actually take the rod fishing and not have any problems.

But since the thread holds the guides, it really doesn't matter. I was just pointing out that if you want the greatest amount of strengh, toughness, durability, etc., then PermaGloss is the only choice. It's overkill in terms of strength, but no epoxy can touch it.

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I read here it takes some 40#'s of weight to rip a finished guide off blank, thus incorporating the 10% stronger without CP rule; straight epoxy would rip off at 44#'s. I think the big issue and basic difference here is the possibility of minor cracking when CP is used, and the importance of your tunnels being filled

I've not had any cracking problems when using CP. I tend to think it's something else that might cause that, but couldn't say for sure.

The bottom line is that we aren't suffering from weak wraps - wraps that spit out guides or have guides ripped from their moorings. And this is true whether you use CP or epoxy. If a person doesn't like to use CP then they should forego it - it's more of a product for retaining color (cosmetic) than anything else. But it does not create a weak wrap by any stretch of the imagination.

If you're wanting to retain the on the spool color of regular nylon thread, use it. If you're not, don't. But rest assured that either way your wrap will be more then strong enough for anything you'll ever do with a fishing rod. If you fill the tunnels with either CP or epoxy, the guide can't shift under the wrap. If there is a problem with guides shifting, that would be it - empty tunnels.


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Mike J;

I am building a 50lb stand up shark rod and am using CP. Every layer of thread get both CP and epoxy. Then I am putting on a couple more coats of thin epoxy. I will know later this year if it holds up...lol..

I know Doc Ski uses a ton of CP and I don't think he has issues.

Now you got me to thinking about my boomer jr rod I am going to start..cp or not...

Ernie