As a first project to practice wrapping guides I have removed the guides from an 40+ year old 6.5' solid fiberglass spinning rod. The rod has seen a lot of wear/tear with the original blue finish looking pretty sorry on the tip section and the wraps were failing but the reel seat and cork grips are in good shape.

Thanks to the great posts on this board I've been searching through my plan is to refinish the blank with tinted Permagloss using pigments from TAP Plastics so am pretty set on that procedure. My question is around the old finish which is very thin and I'm guessing is a type of paint (and I'm quickly learning why it is easier to just start with a new blank...).

I have carefully scraped any residue on top of the finish with a dull xacto blade but the finish itself takes quite a bit of pressure to remove via scraping so I'm concerned that I'll scrape away blank material trying to get every last bit of the old finish. After several passes with the 000 grade 3M pad the surface is nice and smooth but most of the finish is left. Do I get more aggressive with rougher scouring or call it good and apply the tinted Peragloss since it will be an opaque coating? My gut is telling me to just go for putting on the new finish and see what happens.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2006 11:44PM by Craig Hardt.

If the intent is to just practice, then more passes with various grits will eventually take the finish off, but as has been mentioned a number of times in different posts, you want to be super careful NOT to break into the finish of the actual structure of the rod.

If the intent is to end up with a refurbished stick with as little risk as possible, then just go ahead and put the tint coat over it.

My buddy is as good as they come with a razor blade, and we will take an inexpensive rod that we got for use on the piers, here on the Carolina coast, after the guides have started to corrode from the salt, and we'll strip it down to the raw rod and then refinish it with a coat of rod varnish or spar varnish, and maybe include a tint as well. We've only actually scraped the skin of one rod, and of course that immediately became a source of reamers and grip extensions.

- hope that helps
Uncle Russ
Calico Creek Rods

As your blank is SOLID glass and not a hollow tube with walls I would bet you could get
as agressive as you want ( within reason) and not hurt it.

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

I've been able to remove finishes with the citrus based paint removers without damaging the blank. It sometimes takes multiple applications.

Ditto on the previous two posts. Solid glass blanks are pretty tough. I wouldn't worry too much about damaging the blank. The citrus type paint removers would probably work as well. Depending on what you have and what color you're putting over it, just painting over the old finish might work out just fine.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2006 08:35AM by Rob Matarazzo.

Thank you to everyone for explaining the options available and the advice on the toughness of the solid glass blank. Being a practice piece I'll probably test most if not all of these technique before applying the new finish as a learning experience.

Scraping doesn't hurt, but sanding can.

If the current finish is nice and smooth, and well "stuck" then I'd go ahead with the new coating. Do remember though that the new coating will be affixed to the old one, so if the old one is lifting or peeling it's going to lift and peel the new with it.

.........