Starting my first heavy salt water rod and want to put a underwrap before wrapping guides. Do you coat the underwrap with CP or a light epoxy coating like Flex Coat Lite or no coating at all. I'm a little worried about thread on the underwrap moving when I put on the guides. I plan on using A size thread for both wraps. Or should I use a larger size for the guide wraps.

Thanks for all response in advance.

Hi Mike,

I under wrap almost all my Saltwater rods and always put a good coat of epoxy on before starting the over wraps. By putting a good coat of epoxy on the under wraps it make it much easier to put the over wrap on and pack them. Some people just use CP and do ok doing it that way. I like the heavier coat on the under wraps because it not only makes it easier to do the over wraps but reduces the problems with bubbles in the finish with trying to to both wraps at the same time.

How heavy a rod are you building? The reason I ask is unless you're doing a real heavy rod under wraps are not needed. I use under wraps because I like how they look on a heavier rod not because they are protecting the blank from damage from the guides. With proper prep of the guides you'll should have no problems with guides damaging the blank.

Hank
On The Rocks Fishing
Wells, ME.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2007 11:21PM by Milton (Hank) Aldridge.

We CP our underwraps before we do the guide wraps. We do it because it ensures that the CP gets onto the underwrap threads, and which it might not do if you apply it just to the guide wraps. This eliminates bleeding or staining coming up from the underwraps into the guide wraps.

Uncle Russ
Calico Creek Rods

Hank is right: underwraps are not needed from a performance standpoint. Because I'm a klutz, though, and my rods get banged around a lot, I use them a good bit, especially on surf rods. On my surf rods, I use Size A for the underwraps, and Size D for the overwraps. I never use anything on the underwraps, as the Size D wraps easily over the smaller A.

On the rare instances where I wrap A over A (like on a couple of boat rods I built last year), I think I did use color preserver, not because I was worried about the thread color fading (they were metallic wraps, which don't need CP), but because I found it easier to wrap over them after CP had been applied. Using CP might help you the same way, and if you're not using metallic thread, it will also help preserve the contrast between the underwrap and the finish wrap. This might be important to you, as the look one gets from contrasting underwraps and finish wraps is why most underwraps are done.