I am building my first fly rod and I am at the point of putting on the color preservative. It says on the guberod bottle to thin with alcohol. Is that denatured alcohol? I also was wondering how many coats to apply. I got this far and I dont want to screw it up now. any responses will be greatly appreciated.

Yes, denatured or solvent type. But when they speak of thinning they are talking about what to use to clean your brush. Hopefully you won't need to thin the actual CP. If you do, go easy - you want to put CP on the wraps, not a concoction that is mostly alcohol.

The CP should uniformly wet the threads, making them turn much darker as the CP is applied. This should be uniform. If not, try thinning just a tad. The color will come back up as the CP dries.

2 coats is always enough. Let it dry overnight.

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Tom,
thank you for the advice I will take it. I will let you know how it comes out. doing it this afternoon.
fred

I like to thin the water based 50% then use 2 coats thin and a third coat full strength. I get a good soak with the first two then good coverage with the full strength. On each application I put it on very heavy then once the wraps are soak I will dab the excess off then let dry about an hour and then apply the next coat. Let it dry over night before applying FC or TM. It may be overkill but I've had good luck with it .