If one was to put the guides on a fly rod with glow in the dark thread at Wally World how well would it work in the night? For night fishing from a pontoon or whatever....do you think it will work to any beneficial degree? How long will it last before it needs to be "re-treated" with a strong flashlight to get the glow back?

Or another way....how long does the glow last? Can it be treated externally after being built with some glow in the dark material? Or is the glow in the dark material seen on websites a grease that does not totally dry and thereforeis not suitable to put on a rod? Perhaps one could treat the whole rod with something to glow in the dark?

I have a couple of very cheap fiberglass blanks to play with. IE $8.88 apiece I think it was. So wanna play...but know nothing about glow in the dark material.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Jim

Thats really funny...I was just thinking about that recently. I was fishing at night and thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if my wraps, or at least the tip, glowed in the dark so I could see if I was getting a bite?"

Don't really have an answer to your questions, but if and when you experiment with it let us all know. I may try it myself on a scrap piece if I can find the thread.

Another alternative would be glow-in-the-dark decals. And one I have done myself is the little glow-in-the-dark tubes that you snap, and can hang from the rod tip. But neither of these would really be a part of the rod.

Matt Smith
Greensboro, NC

I was just talking to someone today about the same thing. I was thinking more on the line of using glow in the dark PVC shrink tubing. as an under wrap. More of a cosmetic thing.

Found some on the internet. Apparently it is popular for embroidery. We have a joann's close to the house so I may go check it out.

Here's the link: [www.joann.com]

Apparently it is 40wt polyester. I have no idea how that compares to rod building thread or how it will react with epoxy, but I am going to test it out sometime soon.

Matt Smith
Greensboro, NC

One thing you could do, is just wrap a small section of the blank at the tip with this thread. Use your regular thread for the guides. Then you are not having to worry about the guides at all.

If I ever did any night fishing I would have already tried this... but it should work. Get some Luminova pigment and mix it in your finish epoxy. There are other types but I know this one works well on watch hands and dials.

Hope that helps.
Good luck.

Stan

I recently completed a rod with glow in the dark thread (Fish hawk brand) for fishing soft plastics night tournaments. Was hoping that seeing the tip move would aid in bite detection
Looked really good in the spool glowed like a 100 watt bulb in the dark.
But was disappointed with the end results on the rod barely glows at all (grey blank)

I think to get you results you are going to have to use a white blank or put on multiple layers.

Steve Gardner Wrote:
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> I think to get you results you are going to have
> to use a white blank or put on multiple layers.

Steve makes a good point. Similar to having to use a white undercoat on lures for flourescent paints to show their full brightness, you'll probably have to use a white underwrap or paint the blank white under the glow in the dark thread to get a good glow from it. I'd probably lean toward painting???

Good luck.

Dan

I found a spinning rod I built back in 1986. I used guides that had glow in tthe dark shock rings around the ceramic rings. I think they were Fuji. It has been many years since I have used this rod, but as I remember, it didn't work very well. I will give it a try again tonight, and report back.

You can by Glo in the dark paint at Pat Cataans and paint the last 6 inches of the tip.

Bill

Ohio Rod Builders

Canton, Ohio

i have used the glow in the dark thread from fishhawk. you will need to underwrap with white thread or consider painting the area white. the dark blank takes away from the light transmittance. another thought, but haven't tried it is the light reflecting tape used by hunters and others. it will reflect even the slightest amount of light and is easy to see. there may well be a similar paint out there that will do the same thing. the thread seems to hold a "charge" for awhile, but i think the reflective material may work better as it uses the slight amount of light available

How about a translucent fiberglass with a fiber optic ....optic fiber in the center of the core or even mounted on top of the rod....fiber optic carries light???

uh.....I was not planning on using a black blank. Got a cheapo 7'-8" 3pc 5wt medium action "chartreuse" blank off @#$%& for $8 and change......

But I do appreciate all the information above. Very helpful. Thank you for the info. I am quite a rookie. Have never even done an underwrap. Guess it means a wrap over the first wrap. Anwyoooo......glad to hear put white under it for effect. I would not have....but will now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2010 12:34AM by Jim Williams.

Someone from this board responded by email to my inquiry about night fishing rods and he was using a UV glow paint and was painting the blank from the second guide towards the tip, then wrapping the rod. He said the customers he was doing this for would use a camera flash to recharge the rod. I was looking into trying to find a one piece fiberglass rod to put an LED pointer in the butt end to make the clear tip end glow. I just ran out of rod building hobby money in the budget before I got that far.

Check these out guys

[www.wylierods.com]

Tom had one at one of the past Expos I hear.

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

Wow. That's the effect I would prefer over just glowing threads. Was wondering how I could get the whole rod to glow like that. That's why I asked about glow matereial. Didn't know about the glow paints and such. But thanks to the posts here sure do now. Seems like my 7'-8" CHARTREUSE GREEN 3pc 5wt blank would be perfect for this effect. BTW you can still get this blank off @#$%& for the $8+ price. Pretty cheap for a toy to play with. Who knows....might even make a good rod.

willie rods....looks like I am a day late and a dollar short. Oh well....I actually don't care. Just wanted to do it. I am not in the rod building buisness. Have never sold or rod. Hat's off to them. Some people just stay traditional. Love it.

Thanks for all the great information. I have a lot of things to find and play with. It's all good.

I experimented with this for awhile since most of my summer fishing is at night and wanted an alternative to taping on glow sticks to my rods.

I can say pretty much everything i tried didn't work. The thread glowed for like 2 minutes and then you couldn't see it anymore, the glow paint lasted about 10 minutes. I also ordered some special glow powder and glow paint from a place online. They weren't much of an improvement either. I tried mixing the powder into the epoxy finish with the paint under and over the thread. If you google search glow powder you can easily find the products I used.

Cabela's hada glow in the dark rod that also lit up at the push of a button , cool peice of equipment !
Larry