bear with me here, its been a long haul heres the backdrop:

I have been working on a recent rod project for the past two weeks, a rainshadow IST1283F rx7 steelhead blank. 10'6" in length with a 8-12lb line rating. The only thing that i have left to do is install the rubberized cork butt plug.

I stripped the rods original finish off with citri-strip as described on these forums. I wanted to paint the blank and I used krylon fusion paint in satin khaki, I also coated the blank with two coats of satin polyurethane. I felt that the blank turned out nice. I assembled the rod and wrapped it up and finally applying the epoxy finish to the wraps as per tom kirkman's article, which by the way helped a lot. My last two rods turned out great, my best epoxy work to date!
I still need to work on my butt wrap epoxy work, a few wobbly areas! but the guide wraps are glass smooth.

Its a good looking rod, a lot of work went into it so I was shocked when i assembled the rod in my front yard and sighted down to blank only to see the tip section pointed towards the left! Crooked as a congressman folks!

After racking my brain at what could be causing this I finally noticed a spot on the butt section about 8 inched behind the furell point, its warped or bent on about half the blank. You can see it clearly when sighting down the blank.

I have no real idea what caused this, its looks horrible thats for sure.

This rod is supposed to replace my only steelhead rod that broke! Now I am worried that this new rod is going to implode on the first steelie i hook into this season!

so onto my real question........

whats the best way to strip a blanks original finish down to bare graphite.

- It has been said that sanding is not the way to go about this. The theory is that by sanding the blank down to the bare graphite you damage the outermost graphite fibers, the most important ones thereby damaging the blank and weakening it causing early blank failure.

But blanks are sanded at the factory! so if sanding was bad then why would the factory do it?

If a person sands slowly and in a radius or circular motion around the blank and not across the length then this should replicate what happens at the factory.

I have experience with sanding blanks. I have stripped down completely a 10'6" fenwick steelhead rod and rebuilt it from the grip up. It was clear coated with urethane, no paint. Its arrow straight and has not broken yet after a full steelhead season.

I have also sanded the tip section of a 10'6" St.Croix wild river noodle rod. This section was 5'3" and made into a ultralight spin rod. Sanded the same way as above, slow and steady with a circular motion with the blank not against the length. I have tried to break this rod on purpose with nothing to show for it, horsed on some big smallmouth bass but nothing yet!

and finally some builders go beyond that. In "The custom graphite fly rod" by Skip Morris, skip has a chapter on modifying a rods action by removing graphite by using files or sanding. Techniques developed by rod builder russ peak who shared them with skip. This throws right into the face of the "dont remove the fibers!" crowd. Has anyone else read this book?

If using citri-strip was the way to go then how did I end up with a crooked blank? Was the blank always like that, just hiding under the original finish and only came to light when I re painted the blank? I doubt it, that blank was straight as I could tell when I looked at it.

I think that the Fenwick will still be going strong after the Rainshadow blows up on the first steelhead. Thats what I think.

I also think that sanding is better than chemicals.

Jason-I don't think it is possible that your actions caused the bends. The color change could have made it more noticeable.

Sanding a modern graphite blank is a bad idea period - it's not a theory it's a fact. You don't have the margin for error on the latest high modulus graphite blanks that you did on glass or very early graphite models. Go a little too far or run the sanding scratches too deep and your blank will indeed be toast.

Blanks are indeed sanded at the factory, but the intent is only to remove the outer resin, not the graphite fibers themselves. Most designers have a built in margin of error for that procedure that is about 1.5 to 3 mils thick. The folks doing that sanding have done quite a bit of it and know how far to go before damage is done. On very high modulus blanks with slim tips, you may notice that the area in the upper 1/3rd or so of the blank still has some slight ridges on it. That's because even the manufacturer was timid about doing much sanding on the tip area.

Scraping is the best and safest method for removing finish from a blank. Done properly, it does not harm the blank in any way. Something like Citri-Strip should not harm the blank provided you get it on and back off in the shortest amount of time needed to do the job.

.................

Being retired, I've now found the time to " refresh / refurbish " vintage rods. With a fair amount of time spent reading good reference material, some trial and error, It's been both successful and somewhat lucrative. With that said, I've recently encountered a new challenge, with which your
experience will be greatly appreciated. I'm working on a Fenwick FS85 series N257762, with guides, windings, cork grips and reel seat, in very sound
condition. The exception is the shaft, which has experienced some heavy scaring, small chips and rubs, some of which were removed with basic rubbing compound. Others will need painting, there lies the problem. Unable to find any information on either the brand, color or type of
paint originally employed, I desperately require your assistance.

Sincerely welcome all suggestions,

Matt King