I had someone approach me today said he has a rod that he loves and is dear to him and wants it rewrapped what is involved in getting the old wraps off and rewreapping the guides?

Depends I guess. I've redone all my rods at some point in time, oOe about 5 times I think. Each time has had differences.
Basically I just use a razor blade and cut thru the top wrap, using the guide foot as backing so as to not cut into the rod itself. Then yank off the guides and peel the wraps and finish off by grabbing those cut sections. Just beware not to cut into the rod itself, whatever you do.
Finish remaining on the blank after that stripping can be easy or difficult to get off. I've had it both ways. Again, you really want to avoid cutting or scratching up the blank itself. Fingernail, the edge of a plastic burnisher, and plastic disposible knives I have all used.
If you are being asked to reuse the old guides, then be prepared to restore the feet. Usually some corrosion build up down there. POR15 is pretty nice stuff to seal from corrosion, but only use it in hidden places as it is not UV stabile.
If the wraps are going back to exactly the same places and lengths, then no color match problem. At least on mine, the color fade on the rod is quite apparent when you look at what was hidden under the wraps.
Once you have everything stripped off, not a bad thought to take a find scotchbrite to the whole blank and give it thin coat or two of Permagloss

Time wise, I'd say it easily takes 3x the amount of time to refurb a rod than to buid one from scratch

You'll find your answer on the FAQs page here on this site.

..............

Simple,
1. Use a heat gun to heat the epoxy and soften it around the guides. Use a razor blade on the guide side of the rods to slice through the thread.
2. Peel off the thread and remove the guide.
3. Gently heat the remaining epoxy around the guide with the heat gun, and holding the razor blade perpendicular to the blank, scrape off the epoxy.
4. Continue the same process for the butt wraps.
5. To remove the cork handle, use a slip joint pliar to chunk away the cork. Heat the epoxy holding the remaining epoxy and using the perpendicular razor blade technique scrape away the remaining epoxy.
6. To remove the reel seat, use a band saw running parallel to the blank to cut off the reel seat. Or, you may use a dremel tool with an abrasive cut off wheel to slice away pieces of the reel seat. As soon, as you have a piece removed full length, you can use gentle heat to soften the epoxy and rotate the reel seat and slip it off. Again, use the gentle heat to soften and the blade to scrape away the glue.

On a typical 6-7 foot rod, this entire procedure should take you no more than about 10 minutes. Just be CAUTIOUS on the use of the heat. A little heat is great. A lot of heat is BAD> If you get too much heat, you will destroy the blank. So, watch the heat.

Now, if you have a blank that has had some sort of full lenght finish - in the form of rod coating or finish that is in bad shape, you might consider removing all of the finish, and simply buffing the blank, as is the case with t he Loomis IMX blank.

If you choose to do this, you can simply replicate the above procedure, and continue removing finish until you get to the end.

At this point, I like to use the rod turning lathe, and I spin the rod blank at high speed, (using appropriate blank supports), do a final sand with wet and dry sand paper, and then do a final buff with polishing compound.

Again, with the right equipment, this will take an added 15 minutes.

Take care
REW

10 minutes Roger?? Not on my best day could I carefully strip a rod in 10min.
and I have rebuilt quite a few. Either your smoking FAST or your smoking
funny stuff! LOL. If your really that fast my hat's off to ya.. (bowing)

Justin,
Re-wraps & re-builds are sometimes 2 completely different animals and you
have to pay very close attention to the owner/user when they bring the rod to
you. For example, you say that the client said "near & dear to him". Now if you
re-wrap that rod and replace the existing guides with newer & lighter ones and
space them according to up to date methods (which means you probably be
adding 1 or 2 more guides than were there origanaly) that rod would naturally
perform WAY better than when it was new. However, it would also FEEL and
look very different as well and the owner/user may well be very unhappy with
the new FEEL.

Sometimes it is better just to remove the old worn wraps and put the existing
guides back on the exact same place they came from. You change nothing but
the thread and thread finish.

Make sure you know what the client wants. A complete rebuild
or simple or complete restoration and that the client understands the difference
of those terms and what they mean as well.

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

Raymond,
Actually, it really doesn't take that long to strip and rebuild a rod.
As I said earlier, "careful application of heat" is the secret. Get the epoxy softened a bit, and it comes off quite quickly.
I also use my rod lathe, to spin the rod for the final buffing and clean up, before restarting on the rod build.
I use multiple supports so that I can spin the blank at 3600 rpm. At this speed, the buffing and final clean up goes fast.

Take care
Roger

p.s.
You are right - it is closer to two hours than 10 minutes, but it does go fairly quickly