New to rod building & have a blank that needs to be coated completely. Is there any special way of doing this?? (brush size, certain finishes,etc...) Ita a Shakespeare blank.
Thanks

Dave,
Quite a bit on this topic has been presented in previous posts. You might want to do a search to get some fairly thorough presentations from experts and which products and techniques might work best for you.

I would think you may need to sand off the old finish and possibly even 'repainting' to bring back the color. After that and through several smoothing/ light sanding stages might be ready to apply the preferred finish, in most cases Permagloss would work best.

I'm sure a few others might jump in as well with further advice, but I recommend going going back a bit through this site and you'll be surely gain from knowing how to do this correctly.

Good Luck.

Rich
Richard's Rod & Reel

First when it comes to rod refinishing I would contact Ralph OQuin. Manufactures U40 products. Ralph is a retired employee of Boeing aircraft. Where he worked with all kinds of finishes and and epoxies.
Ralph has more knowledge than any one I know.
When I re-do a rod I carefuly scrap off all the old raugh finishes. Then I use a gray scotch bright pad to sand the blank. Never use sand paper. Sand Paper well cut thru the finish and cut the fibers.
When it comes to finish I use U-40 Rod Finish. or a good quality auto- finish urithane

Also stay away from steel wool pads as the fibers can get embedded within the blanks. Any use of sandpaper would be the extremely light grades (and very light sanding with the fibers, not against them) from 600 and up to like 1200. The 3M sanding fiber pad also employed in the final stages.
I agree Ralph is the expert. Check the archives, I am sure he brought this up in detail a while back.
U-40 Perma Gloss is a urethane based type of finish and an excellent rod finishing product.

Sorry, I didn't clarify the idea about the sanding. I just brought it up in reference for checking back with the other posts.

Rich