I just removed the butt guide from a fairly new 5C70MF rod that I had built last year. To my dismay the brown pearlized finish came off and the rod looks terrible .The carbon grey base color is now showing in this area. The guide had been installed orginally with CP and LS Supreme. I have removed and repaired many rods but have never seen this happen before. Most of the previous rods have been Loomis IMX's and St. Croix SCIII"s with matted grey finishes that I did guide work on. I have also replaced a guide on a 25 year old Loomis IM6 that had a brown finish and it worked out well. I usually remove epoxy finish and thread located on top of guide foot, pull the thread out from under the rest of the wrap and use fingernail or plastic spoon to remove remaining epoxy. I then wipe area down with alcohol. I am now concerned about using anymore SCV blanks with this brown pearlized finish and possibly the newly reworked SCIII's with their new pearlized finish. Has anyone had any similar experiences or advice on this problem.

i do have to say that the sc5s have a relatively fragile finish. ISO alcohol will also take off the finish (though you can wipe a little and get away with it without harm). I haven't had to do a repair yet on one, so i haven't run into the same problem as you but hopefully someone can suggest something to at least somewhat correct the problem.

The finish is fine as far as just fishing with the rods go, but removing guides, cleaning with solvents, etc., are things the SCV finish just won't handle. It's been discussed here previously at some length.

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You are just going to have to cover it with your wrap ... welcome to the "Achilles Heel" of St Croix blanks - poor finish. Unfortunately, we are most likely going to be disappointed regarding the finish durability of the new SCIII blanks AND the reintroduced SCII Inshore blanks - they too are a glossy finish.

I just finished 2 SCV rods last week. I made a small 3/8" wrap for a color test with no finishes at all. When I removed it after a few minutes it left a ghost impression on the blank. Unfortunately it was not in a spot that was covered. Lesson learned.

The other thing is that the factory finish does not seem as smooth as I would think it should be.

Good afternoon,

This an interesting and a bit disappointing thread. I am building a St. Croix SCIV flyrod which has a matte green finish. Has anyone had trouble with this line of St. Croix Blanks? At this point, I feel I should return this balnk which was selected by my customer and order out another blank. Anyone having any experience, Please post a response or e-mail me. Thanks,

Mike Blomme

St Croix makes a GREAT blank, has SUPER customer service, AWESOME variety and ALL factory rods have corresponding blank offerings for custom builders ... they are a TERRIFIC company. Unfortunately, they don't seem to care to get a grip on the worst finish in the industry and it even looks like it will be spreading to the once immune SCIII lineup. However, I don't hesitate to build on them in most cases ... I just realize that the weakness exists and work around it and/or prepare for it. IMO, the blank should not be exchanged ... the customer will be thrilled with the rod when fishing it. Just be knowledgeable about the finish issues.

I've never seen any finish applied to any brand of the big name blanks hold up flawlessly - after an appreciable amount of time (10 years or more) and St. Croix's blank finish seems to fail quicker than the others. That's why whenever I or my customer's have a choice, we tend to go with a matte finish. Only problem with that is that in some lines weights, I consider the absolute best engineered and mechanically sound blanks are St. Croix blanks. Here, it's a tradoff well worth the potential aesthical failure.

I have yet to experience any trouble with the brown pearlized finish, however did have some problems with the blue matte on the SC IV. I expressed my concerns to St Croix and was assured they were aware of the problem and were working on new mixtures. I recently toured the ST Croix factory and was extremely impressed with their quality control process as well as their engineering porcess. There has been an obvious improvement on the blue mattte as after building 4 rods within a year of my original complaint, the problem seemed to have disappeared. This is all of course IMHO, but I would suggest calling them when you have this problem with details surrounding your specific problems.

Can you guess Im a St Croix fan??

Just my HO.

Vern Metcalf Jr

Mike,

The matte green is probably the toughest finish that St. Croix supplies on any of its blanks. Some of the dry powder on the surface can turn a solvent soaked rag green, but generally the finish won't come off down to the naked blank like it tends to do with the SCV finish.

In all, they're all good enough to be fished with, but you can't use solvents (even mild ones) on the finish of the SCV and possibly the new gloss finishes on the reintroduced blank series either.

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I would most definately like to know if anyone has personally had any bad expierences with the new clear finish on the new 2008 SC3 models from St. Croix ?? Or, is this just pure "Speculation" from some of the other finishes of the past??

Bob McKamey -- Custom Tackle Supply