I have been doing rod and reel repairs now along with the occasional custom rod for about 20 years now. Lately I have been seeing a rash of custom rods brought to me for repair that are coated with what looks like urethane or some sort of epoxy that apparently had no UV resistance what so ever.
I had one here today, the entire blank and all guides were coated with this stuff.
I had to replace two guides on this rod and nearly had to file through the coating with was nearly an eighth inch thick.
The customer just wanted it usable and it was a decent looking blank witl good components, but who ever built this coverd the entire rod, guides and all. It looked like aligater skin on the top side where the sun had really yellowed and started to even turn the coating brown. He said the rod was only two years old.

I sort of scored a line in the surface of the coating and razor cut down to the old guide foot and picked and razor cut until I could unwrap the old giude completely. I then simply matched the thread and retied the new guide to match the pattern to the others. I recoated it with high build FC, but my work was nice and bright. He asked if I could strip and redo the whole rod, but I had to tell him it simply wouldn't be worth all the labor to try to get that mess off the rest of the rod. I only had to do two guides near the tip, I'd hate to have to try to cut through that stuff where it's even thicker.

What ever it was it was tough, but real ugly. It chipped away like hard plastic, not like any coating I've ever had to deal with. Who ever built it gave no thought to future repair, or longevity in the sunlight. I've used Flex Coat and several other epoxy coatings, and never saw any of mine turn yellow.

Other than the sun burn look on the top side, it sort of looked like the entire rod was dipped in candle wax, only it was hard as plastic.

If it was only one rod, I have assumed it was someone's home rod building remedy, but I am starting to see quite a few of these like this, and they are all in the same shape. It may have looked ok when they first did it, but every one that I've seen has turned dull and yellow with lots of crackling on the top sides.

Has anyone else seen anything like this?
Any idea of what they may be using or how to remove it or at least a better way to repair one of these?

I'm not sure what this stuff is either, Joe. But to make future repairs easier, try to use a bit of heat first? Might make removal easier. I'd be interested to know if warming it would make this easier to remove on guides, anyhow...

Putter
Williston, ND

I've seen factory-made rods like this before. Can't say I've seen custom-built rods like it though. I think the reason why it is done is to save time and labor.
It's definitely quicker dunking the whole rod into a tray of finish then it is to apply it like we all (hopefully) do. To get a bunch of rods out the door and into the hands of the public is certainly faster.
I hope the rod you repaired wasn't a best of the breed? And... no doubt that you probably did a better job than the original assembler.

I had one identical to that about two months ago. The original blank color was white but not anymore. To make it worse, the thread was wrapped an inch and a quarter past the guide foot tip on each end. Like you , I picked, cut, picked some more and thought I would never get it off. I tried heat, as suggested by Randy, but I couldn't tell that it helped any.

This one had part of a decal on it that said "ustom Rods" and below that "lorida" . I'm pretty sure it was built here in Florida, but have no idea by whom.

I'd sure like to know what that finish is. Wouldn't want it on rods, but it is some kinda tuff stuff.

Might make a great gas tank patch; doesn't sound like very good wrapping or blank finish, though. If sunlight does that much damage to it, especially...

Putter
Williston, ND

That stuff could patch a hole in a rifle barrel

the easier way to take the guides off of this type of coating is take your grinder and put a wire wheel on it and put the foot of the guide under the wire wheel and when you see the metal of the feet stop and then take a knife and peel it back. You won't damage the blank and you won't tear up your blade on your knife.

Neal Cissel
Neal's Fishing Products
neal@nealsfishingtackle.com

I had tried some heat, but was affraid of getting it too hot, but it didn't seem to make any difference. I had seen these before, but lately they're coming out of the wood work here. This was the first one like this in which the customer opted to repair it, and the customer was also sent here buy another very good customer. I couldn't tell what the blank was, it didn't look to be high end, but did have a nice feel. The guides were all Fuji SIC (SVSG) double footed footed frames along with a super long custom turned cork handle it was at least 16" long to the rear of a 16mm Fuji reel seat. The guides were metalic blue underwrapped with black on top. None of the ones I've seen have been identical, but many look to be built on the same blank. This guy told me that he had ordered it like that, but didn't know what the coating was, he just specified the type of rod he wanted along with the seat configuration and the guides. It probably looked great when new.

I had another one here that someone abandoned and I actually tried to strip the stuff off, but nothing doing. What ever it is, it bonds tight to the blank, the only place it seems it can be removed is where the wraps are, and that takes some doing.
On this one I was able to score a line in the coating and when I chipped it away, it sheared off along the score line. If it hadn't I'd have had a mess trying to make a suitable transition with the FC on the new wrap. As it was it took several coats of FC Hi Build to get it to look right at all. I also was wondering how much that coating affected the action of the rod.

The only thing I can figure is that some rod builder has found some sort urethane based coating and is covering every rod he does with it. The guy that brought the last one seemed like he didn't want to tell me who built it, so I didn't push him too hard, he did say the guy worked out of his house and that he's bought several rods from him over the last 20 or so years, but this was the first one that was completely coated.
When he picked it up, I told him if he has any more like that, go find the guy who made that mess and let him deal with it, his response was that he won't do repairs, he'll only build a new rods.

The part that got me was that all of the rest of the rod was well built, with decent components, regardless of what the blank may have been. I suppose the idea was to salt proof the rod. But a many I have seen coated with it were pretty light weight freshwater looking rods, lighter than anything I'd put in the salt.

The finish was very yellow, but I can't say for sure whether it was like that new, or if it yellowed with time or exposure to the sun. The only thing I could think of was the polyurethane like used for furniture and floors, it's about the same color. (To give you an idea of the color, the underwraps were medium blue metalic and they looked green with the coating). Old Gudebrod rod varnich from the '70s was yellow like that, but it would have taken a hundred coats of that to get it this thick. The finish was also all over the guides and frames but didn't adhere to any part of the rings, either it was wiped away or something was used to keep them clear. The ring areas weren't cut, worn or peeled free and looked like the coating naturally didn't adhere there.

It also doesn't seem to do much for corrosion since every one that's turned up here so far has had the guides fail from corrosion, many were still attached since they were encapsulated in the coating, but were corroded clean off at the foot. It's also not a very glossy finish and it's sort of gummy where is starts to turn brown or crack, sort of like an antique piece of furniture with too many coats of varnish. The top of the rod looked like a dry creek bed and had turned the color of a roasted marshmellow to best describe it.
With the way the guides had corroded so fast, I wonder if the coating wasn't the cause, either by absorbing moisture or posably it's corrosive in some way itself.

What got me the most was that someone had done a really nice job of wrapping the rod and used all decent components, only to ruin it with what ever junk coating they used. I would describe the work as classy and well done if it weren't for that slop coating. There was a signature, but it was on top of the rod where it had gotten really bad, so all I could make out is a date and some hand writing, but really couldn't read what it used to say. I tried to strip a junk one down there to find a name. I tried sanding and buffing the area above the writing, but the coating is yellowed and cloudy all the way through, when I tried to peel away or chip at the coating it took the finish of the blank with it. All have had very individual and fairly fancy butt weave patterns, which extended nearly a foot from the handle. So far I have seen three types of blanks with this coating, gray/spiral type, a sort of Burnt peach color blank, and white solid boat rods with full Aftco rollers. The peach color almost looks like one of the upper end Shimano rods that was around a few years ago.

One thing I thought of was that maybe the blanks they used unfinished / unsanded blanks , and a complete coating was the only way to make them look right? Or maybe they're used blanks? The blank I see the most coated like this looks like a Daiwa Eliminator blank, gray graphite with that semi clear spiral look.

I have seen a few that said Custom Rods, out of Florida and one that said ReCycled Rods, which looked like someone redid an OEM rod with cheap guides and bright wraps, but neither were as nasty looking as the one's I've seen lately. The latter had a slip on butt wrap and a gold foil decal with the name under the clear coat which was split and lifting all over, it came off with only compressed air.
All of the ones with this coating I've seen lately have had really nice cork handles, either full custom turned cork or wrapped compressed cork.

Neal,
The grinder idea sounds ok, but what I did was to file down the coating with a file to the top of the guide foot, but it wouldn't peel, it just shattered and flew everywhere. All I could do is pick and chip at it until I got it all off the old windings leaving the windings intact to protect the blank. It chipped and shattered like plexiglass. This stuff was brittle compared to anything else I've seen. I've had rods that were fully coated, and once you beak the surface they will peel, but not on this. It did shear a clean line where I scored the surface, so I had a nice clean edge when I was done. The coating was actually thicker than the blank near the tip where I was working. It had to be a good 1/8" thick all around. and it totally filled the bas of the guid all the way up to the ring and part way around.

Joe

That's really a shame to do that much nice work and wreck it with a poor choice of finish. Too bad he can't be found and told. He likely does know by now, though?

Putter
Williston, ND

The one I had, even when you got an open area like on top of the guide fool, you could not unroll the wrap and bring the coating with it. Every bit had to be chipped off.

Like Joe's, the components were nice and installed well except the finish. It would have been easier to skin an alligator with a butter knife.

Here is something I do to remove finish. That has worked every time. Although I know others don't like to use acetone.
I take and wrap the entire rod with a layer of paper towel, just kind of twist it around the blank. Then slide it up onto a plastic bag that blanks come. Then I pure enough acetone in to the bag to soak the paper towels and let it soak for 30 minutes to and hour.

Note: I do this out side for safety reasons.

Then I remove the bag and towels. Finish is softened and can be removed with plastic spatula or scotch bright pads, while running water over it from hose. I use the water during sanding with the pads to keep the dust down and protect the blank incase I get to aggressive in my scrubbing.

The acetone trick might work, but I often only need to do one guide. Besides, it's not worth all that work to save a blank of unknown origins.
Keep in mind that these are usually customers repairs, it's better for me in most cases to simply say it's not worth it.
The sad part is that these guys spent real money for these rods. I tried the wire wheel trick on a junk blank here, what ever this stuff is,
when the wire wheel hits it, it balls up and then rehardens almost instantly. It sort of puffs up and gets sticky, its like when you try to jig saw plexiglass too fast.

I cut one of the junk blanks up in sections each with a guide on them, I soaked guide sections in Acetone, mineral spirits, laquer thinner, water,
and gasoline. After a night of soaking, nothing did anything to soften this stuff. No change at all. To best describe this stuff, if you take a section of blank and sit it flat on an anvil and strike it, thi stuff shatters and flies just like plexiglass would. It actually takes a pretty good shot to break it or the blank, it's tougher than the blank is at times. I am wondering now if whoever is using this stuff isn't maybe using some sort of clear epoxy adhesive rather than rod coating? Its too hard to be paint, it doesn't actually seem to bonded with the rod, its more that its just encapsulated the blank. When you shatter it, it completely separates from the blank pretty easy, but is too brittle to peel.
It does file cleanly though, it's hard enough not to foul a wood file. I was able to file clean through to the top of the guide, but it took some time. Getting to the blank sort of reminded me of chipping away at a graphite reel seat and that factory glue. Sort of like yellow wood glue if you know what I mean.