I recently had to strip off all the guides and windings off a rod I built for a friend some twenty years ago. I ended up sanding off the gloss finish. Is there any way to re-store the old gloss finish?

Permagloss is the stuff I use on glass/graphite rods. Clean up the blank well. I would avoid any serious sanding particularly on a graphite blank but rather prefer to clean off any thread finish at the guide stripping stage then scotchbrite the blank. I use a brush to apply permagloss. Some use a paper coffee filter. Some use a finger cut off a latex glove, poke the tip through the glove, pour permagloss in the finger, and pull it up the blank thus coating the blank evenly. How you apply it is up to you, whatever works!

PermaGloss is outstanding for this purpose.

If you want a quicker, albeit slightly less durable fix, a couple coats of Helmsman Spar Urethane in clear gloss exterior will do wonders. It's a good product and will hold up reasonable well. It's also very easy to apply - just spray it on.

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