Well after MUCH anticipation and 3 shipping days (that felt like 3 weeks) my TFO, TICR-X blank arrived today!! But hold the door, the paint job is terrible... substandard at best. They stopped the paint a full 3+ inches from the male ends and left a few inches of the tip section female end unpainted as well. To add insult to injury, the line where they stopped paintin on each section is WAY uneven (actually has pool and run marks) and there are smudges and "gank marks" on the unpainted areas. I could have beat this paint job in my garage, with a can of spray paint and a piece of used tape. :(

It's going back. I just hope that's not typical for them, I hate paying return shipping for stuff beyond my control especially when it should have been caught at the factory and at the retailer.

Rant over... all that to preface my question of have you guys had similar paint quality on TFO blanks???

These are not expensive blanks, although they perform just fine.

Read the thread below about a similar situation with a TFO blank.

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I here this a lot here. I would check out Batson. There paint jobs are excellent. I would rather have a gray unpainted blank then them.

Bill - willierods.com

Ummmm, that TiCR-X probably casts great .

eric
fresno, ca.

I'm not sure if this is the case with TFO however it's becoming a" feature" of some surf rod blanks. There should not be runs or smudges however some rods blanks are purposely left unpainted for better grip near the joins.

YOur going to be duly embarrassed by this RANT when you learn that the blank is supposed to be that way. The gray paint is actually raw graphite that is put there to make a wearable ferrule system. It's designed to keep the ferrule snug as the male and female parts wear over time and use. The uneven "paint" lines on the male ends do not matter because you are to wrap that side just like the ferrule wrap on the female end. It's a very good design and an excellent blank.

Then how come no one else does it that way.

Bill - willierods.com

No embarrassment here... I think you misread my post. I know they need to stop short of the joint, but they stopped way short. And the "gray" is not bare graphite, it too is a coating of sorts. (speaking of the shiny silver coating at the joints which also has pooled on one side) And the chief complaint is that the blue paint was not masked off in a straight line nor applied properly (as evidenced by a pooling run and overspray on the joint areas.) Sure, I was going to wrap to it, but the shiny uneven lines will show through a nylon w/o CP, which is my chosen thread.

I never doubted the design or quality of blank, as I'm a fan of TFO rods... I just figured it was painted at about 4:58 pm on a Friday, of a long weekend. ...lol

No worries though, I already have the RA # and it will be gone this morning.

Bill, I also like Batson and have built a good number of them... but they didn't offer what I wanted on this one.

Must have been the Adult Beverage ?? LOL

Bill - willierods.com