Gentlemen - I am seeking insight on the best paint and clear coat to use when painting a rod blank. My other hobby is custom airbrushing and painting. However, I have never applied this to rodbuilding.

I generally use urethene based automotive paint (ie. House of Color, PPG, Dupont, ect.), or water based automotive paint (Auto Air), when airbrushing. My first question is whether anyone has experience with applying urethene based paints to a blank. Do the solvents in the paint have any adverse effect on the blank's composition? I would like to use urethene based paint as it is less likely to delaminate when flexed than water based.

All of my painting is of the base coat/clear coat nature. Has anyone applied a two (2) part (isocyanite catilyzed) automotive urerthene clear coat to a fishing rod? Specifically, I am concerned whether the flexing of the blank will cause the clear coat to delaminate.

Is anyone aware what the blank manufactures use when finishing their rod blanks?

Thank you for your input!

-Scott

Scott I`ve had some sprayed with the Glasurit system of base and clearcoat and they hold up fine.The 2 part clear is flexable enough and holds on good as long as the sufface is prepped properly

Freddwhy (Rapt-Ryte)

Scott,
I have used House of Color, TransStar and Chromabase on blanks, and they all work fine. Blanks however are not spayed, but rather are dip coated, or flow coated, so you may have to do a bit of final sanding/rubout with some finess-it do get that miror shine. Most of these paints are a solvent based paint, so there is no danger of the solvents doing anything to the blank. I can tell you from personal expierence that one of the blank manf. whose facility I have access to uses Valspar solvent based paint to coat their blanks.


Andy Dear
Lamar Fishing Products

Thanks Fred and Andy -

Great information. Thank you very much.

Andy, is the Valspar paint being used by a blank manufacturer a base coat (requires a clear coat) or is it a single stage (doesn't require a clear coat) such as Dupont Imron?

Single stage matte finish

Andy, how's the new paint coming?

Regards......Doug@
TCRds

Scott,
I work in a body shop and have been using the glasurit system also for many years without ever having a problem. I've also used sikkens base coat clear coat in the past. Put some of the paint manufacturers flex additive in the clear coat and you should have no problems.
Tony Fialkowski

scott, house of color is a good choice, just painted a blank candy blue with house of color paint system and it really looks sharp. also merrick tackle a sponsor on the left has a 3 part paint system for rods that i have just ordered from them but have not yet used. i'd stay away from the krylon fusion though. i painted a blank with this and didn't at all like how it turned out. good luck.