I am working on a spinning rod that I am trying to make a spiral butt wrap on. I am having problems with the color preserver. When I apply the CP the now soaked threads seem to lose their tension and either move out of place or bubble up when dry. I tried to put a few drops of CP in a few places and allow to dry to adhere the thread to the blank but found the final finish results in uneven color. I have tried Diamodite CP and Flex Coat CP with similar results. I'm guessing that the lack of cross threads to hold everything in place is part of the problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks in advance...

Thread relaxes when wetted. This happens when you put a lot of CP on an area with a lot of thread, such as a butt wrap. Putting a drop here and there and tacking things down prior to adding a full coat over the entire wrap shouldn't result in uneven color. But I don't know what you're doing with your CP. Thinning?

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I do not thin the CP... I typically only have 3" of the wrap when completed. With a spiral I will only have 1 rotation in that 3". Is it possible that isn't enough rotations and because the thread is nearly straight it becomes loose?

Maybe, but don't know for sure. I've tacked down threads in the past with drops of CP and then come back and applied a full coat on the entire wrap and didn't have any color variation. So I'm at a bit of loss as to your color problem. But most all threads wrapped under light tension will swell and loosen when wetted. With that little amount of revolution in that length, you're up against a somewhat difficult situation.

Some of the weavers use the clear nylon sewing thread to sort of spiral and bind things down while color preserver is drying on the main threads. Then you come back and remove that clear thread, add another coat of CP and hopefully you're on your way. Might be worth an experiement along those lines.

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Scott:

Are you using your finger to press the wet cp thread down ? That might be the color diffrence you are getting. Try to use a pick or as Tom said wrap a throw away thread to hold it.