Hey Everyone,

One of our most popular fishing spots in Texas is called PINS (Padre Island National Seashore). It is 62 miles of beach that is national park and completely unspoiled and undeveloped. They allow people to drive on this beach for its entire length. One of the things that we have to deal with is drunk people "booze cruising" at night and wiping out your spread of fishing rigs. So, one of the things that we have taken to doing is placing small bands of 3M reflective tape (I'm a 3M employee so I get it at our company store) around our pole holders and also around our fishing poles so these drunk folks won't plow into our rigs.

Now, one of my buddies that I'm building a surf rod for would like me to integrate a reflective material into a new build as opposed to making it an after-thought. That way it could be permanent and have epoxy over it. Maybe as an underwrap. First off, I'm wondering if anyone has experimented with any other sorts of reflective materials integrated into a new build. Is there any sort of reflective paints that I might be able to use under the guides ?

Thanks in advance for any ideas, Jeff

You might just take that same 3M tape and put it down where the butt wrap is going. Then do an open diamond or chevron over it, leaving plenty of room for the tape to show through. I doubt that the extra bit of weight is going to bother a long surf rod, particularly since it's so low and near the handle anyway.

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Madeira also makes a glow in the dark thread, in different colors, in the Poly Neon line of threads. I imagine the metallics are reflective to a certain extent. @#$%& had them.

Did a little Googling and came upon Krylon "Reflect-A-Lite" paint. It is supposed to be clear so in theory could be applied over the entire rod blank but I have not used this product.

Description from one web page: "Krylon Reflect-A-Lite directly reflects flashlight or headlights, making items extraordinarily visible in the dark or under emergency lighting conditions."

MAybe take your roll of reflective tape, a ruler, and an exacto blade, adn cut really thin strips of that material out. THen you'd be able to wrap it around the blank for an underwrap, adn maybe even spiral it up teh blank between guides...provided you don't mind coating the entire blank with epoxy Florida style.

Some 15 years ago while browsing through the stock of a surplus store I came across a small 3oz container of reflective glass beads. The beads were as small as large dust particles and in bulk appeared not very reflective. After applying a coat of finish to a 3" section of the rod tip I dusted the material onto the still sticky finish with a salt shaker. In daylight the treated was hardly noticeable, but at night the treated area reflected light brightly! I was rather pleased with the results.

To get you started do a google search for "ROLCO Reflective Beads" and you'll get some hits on just this one brand of glass beads. There are others...

Lou



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/17/2007 04:00PM by Lou Reyna.

you want a laser rod, from our own willie wiggins: [wylie_rods.tripod.com]

Jesse Buky uses 3M 1/16 and 1/8 auto trim reflective tape for trim bands on nearly all his rods. He sold me a drawer full of the stuff to make builds easier.

What is the principle behind these Laser Rods?
How do they work?