I'm in the process of refurbishing a fiberglass stick. It's a 6 1/2' Cabelas eGlass baitcasting rod that had brown paint on it. I've turned walnut fore and butt grips and I'm planning on mounting the guides in the spiral fashion. I'm going to try my hand at weaving just above the fore grip. I received Doc Ski's videos and James Upton's great weaving book so I'm now very inspired. This one will be a Fighting Sioux logo!

Anyway, my real question is preparation of the used blank. I've carefully stripped off the old paint so as not to damage the fiberglass. The underlying fiberglass looks just okay but not like a new blank. I'm thinking I'll paint it but want to use a paint that'll take some abuse. It should also be flexible enough so that when the rod flexes it won't stress the paint. Should this even be a concern??? At this point I'm thinking one of the Krylon-type paints along with a few clear coats should do the trick.

Please share your experiences as I'd like to do this right the first time.

Thanks,
Chad Huderle
Prior Lake, MN

Urethane clear top coat will give you the durability you desire. Do test it first and make sure it won't have any sort of adverse reaction with the underlying paint.

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Chad do a search here and select all dates, there is a ton of information about painting blanks.

Thanks. Should have thought of that myself! lol

Chad Huderle
Prior Lake, MN

Hey Chad,

I am pretty new to this hobby. I am still learning and really don't have a lot of spare money to spend on new blanks and such. So to keep it cheap and advance my skills I rebuild old throw away rods. I actually find it very rewarding. I reuse as may components as I can (guides, tip tops ect.). Most of the rods I get are pretty old and beat up. As soon as I remove the guides, the paint and finish are pretty much trashed. So it is standard that I strip them down to the raw blank and repaint them. I am not skilled enough to do fancy wraps or weaves and I don't have the tools yet to turn and make my own handles, so to "customize" them I paint them bright and crazy colors. Since these are for myself, friends and family, the one the rod is being built for gets to choose the color.

I have used three different types of paint all with pretty good results. I have used Plaxicoat (sp?) which turned out good, however I don't trust it's durability (didn't put a clear coat on that one). I then used Dupli Color car paint. Works really good. I put matching Dulpi Color clear coat to help protect it. So far so good on that one. Only problem with Dupli Color is that I buy it locally at auto part stores and color choices can be very limited. So the last one I tried was Krylon paint. The "customer" wanted bright purple so it was a harder color to find. Krylon has a ton of cool colors. I bought the one that says "suitable for" and about 10 different surfaces listed. Anything safe for plastic in my eyes is good for a fishing rod. To me plastic flexes...if the paint is good for plastic it should have some flexing ability to the paint itself. Of course I have no type of scientific knowledge of this, but it seems to work for me. The Krylon dries with a nice glossy finish. It was probably good with just the paint, but I did use some of the left over Dupli Color clear coat to put a protective coat over the Krylon with no ill effects. Of the three I have used, I think I'm going to say Krylon was the overall best for me (and I will be using it again).

Now this is all just on my own limited experiences. I'm sure there are better ways and some reading this may think I'm an idiot, but I hope this helps.

Chad I paint a lot of blanks, and prep on them is the most inportant. I also have a friend in the auto paint business and he mixes the paint for me and adds the aditive they use on flexable bumper cover and such. In the last few years I have had zero problems with paint unless it is a deep scratch.

I too restore many old rods. That means painting them. My choice in paint is Krylon Fusion, however
the choice in colors is very limited. I also use the regular Krylon, but prefer the Fusion. After painting
I spray the blank with Krylon crystal clear. So far I've had great results.

my 2 cents John

If you think you'd like the look of the fiberglass with a "transluscent" effect (in the sunlight especially!), use Perma Gloss. PG puts a tough, protective finish on the rod, as well.

Some really good spray paints used by proffesional artists are Montana and Belton. These paints are extremely good particularly the German made Belton from what i have seen they're a spectacular paint. However i have little knowledge of panting blanks and believe that some sort of additive may be neccessary as Lyle mentioned.