I have a customer who bought some of the orange rods and now he can't stand that color lol. Has anyone tried taking the orange off? I think it's just the regular graphite underneath but I don't want to stripping one until I know for sure.

David Page
E-town, KY.

As fare as I have herd they are painted ?? Try taking off the largest guide and scrap with a razor blade where the foot was. That should tell you.

Bill - willierods.com

David, If someone asked me to tackle that job I'd turn him down flat. To do the job correctly you'd have to strip the guides off the blank then strip then sand the paint off. There's a good chance that you could ruin the blank by sanding off too much in one or two areas that you'll weaken the blank. Then you'd have to rewrap all of the guides which will take up more time. By the time you put all that work into you'd have to charge at least 80.00 in labor. What if the first or second time he takes it out and fishes with it, it breaks.You know who'll get the blame for the rod breaking ? You. Then he'll want you to replace the rod with another one or he'll want you to build him a custom.

Same thing I went through a few years back. Not with a Carrot Stick but with a factory St. Croix rod. It wasn't a nice situation to be in.

Lance

Lance I told him everything that you just said and he didn't care. He loves the action but can't handle the color at all anymore. I don't like the idea of doing it really and i haven't given him an absolute yes yet. I told him to try to sell them and let me build him one but he didn't seem real thrilled with that one either. I'm not sure whether I'll end up doing it or not I was more just asking to see if anyone had done it.

David Page
E-town, KY.

A sitrus stripper should work to get the paint off. Then a fine scotch pad for final cleaning.

Bill - willierods.com

David,
No big deal.
Don't sand./
Rather, use gentle heat along with a citrus finish remover and a straight edged razor blade that is scraped at a perpendicular direction to the blank.

When you have everthing essentially cleaned up, I take the blank to a bath tub and leave the shower running and use 600 grit wet and dry to do a final polish on the finish.
Very little chance of doing any harm to the finish.

When you cut the guides off the rod, use a heat gun to heat the guide wraps, and then use a razor blade to cut only on the metal portion of the guide to cut through the wraps. Then with the guide wrap heated slightly, the wraps will peel cleanly off the blank.

It really shouldn't take you much longer than 10-20 minutes to remove the guides, remove the finish and clean up the blank.

Then, another 1/2 hour to rewrap the guides and 10 minutes to apply finish.
You should be done in just under an hour.

Take care
REW

Why don't you paint over the orange? Just sand softly to guet grip for the new paint.
Hot and sand on a graphite blank never good ideas.

Nuno

Nuno has the best idea.Carrot sticks are notorious for breaking as they are . Weaken one by removing material and breakage is almost guaranteed. Either way will void the warranty though.

David,

Explain the loss of warranty, name a price that will fully compensate you for your time and expertise, and go from there.

You can scrape the old paint off - it will take you a half hour or more, but you're charging for that, right? Then clean, scuff and refinish. You could even leave the natural grey graphite color there and just clear coat.

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At Lamiglas and Loomis that use automotive paint on there unfinished blanks then put them in a large oven and heat treat the painted blank that should tell you how durable a graphite blank is so sanding the blank should not be a problem just do a soft job then finish it with a scotch pad and re-paint it with automotive paint but this customer is asking allot.

You don't want to sand a rod blank. Blanks aren't at all durable in terms of being able to sand them. Sanding tears the outer fibers which are the very ones most responsible for power and stiffness. In fact, in the article on rod breakage, all the blank makers contacted stated that over-sanding, even by the manufacturers themselves, is the #1 cause of failure due to actual defect. Keep sandpaper away from rod blanks.


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Definitely paint over the orange. I'd use a dark grey to make it look like an unpainted blank. I would never sand any blank. Asking for trouble.
I would not do it for less than what a good blank would cost in the first place.