I have a rod that just came off the dryer, and want to put another coat of finish on it, but I used up the last of my finish of that brand on this rod. I have some other brands of finish immediately available though. Would it work out OK if I lay a coat of brand "B" on top of a cured coat of brand "A" to get my new rod on the water sooner? Or would I be best off ordering some more of brand "A" and waiting before laying my second coat of finish?

Thanks much!

T

In nearly all cases you'll be okay. The differences between the various brands of epoxy are subtle and not anything that could cause one to react or repel another.

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

Stop being so afraid of using the finish names You may have some thing that will not work ???

Bill - willierods.com

I do not have much experience actually refinishing rod blanks. A friend had a rod that had been dinged up through use and I took the guides off, some of which were also damaged, sanded it down to the graphite and fiberglass and repainted it with black fusion (Krylon) paint and then put three coats of polyurethane on it. I did this a month ago and have not gotten any complaints...yet. Your comment raises the question for me of how you refinish a rod....since I did not use epoxy. If epoxy is the accepted way to go here, then perhaps I should retrieve the rod and apply epoxy. This raises another question about which epoxy....Pro Kote seems to have good levelling properties...but again, I have limited experience in this area. If you use epoxy it would seem to require a lot of it unless it could be somehow thinned out a bit, perhaps with alcohol, for easier application. There are other two part eposy paints I can think of that are used for boat hulls...but if memor serves they are generally sprayed on.

Clinton

Clinton, you do not want to use epoxy to finish the whole blank, that will add too much weight to the rod. Also the epoxy finishes are just not the right thing to use on a blank. Travis is talking just about the finish on the guides.

Whew, thanks for that clarification. Just for my information, if you wanted to refinish the whole rod, how would you go about it? What I did to my friend's rod, would that work well enough over the long haul.

Clinton

This should help to get a better finish : [www.rodbuilding.org]

Bill - willierods.com

Thanks Bill. I read the article and learned a bunch. I have violated a number of the author's rules. The one blank I refinished was pretty dinged up, so I did sand it, but did not try to get out the deepest dings. I also used a polurethane on top of the Fusion, and this is an oil based product. Got a nice finish, but do not know how long it will hold up. As the article mentioned, this was one of those cheaper rods.

The aricle raised as many questions as it answered. First and foremost, I would like to know a bit more about the application of the finish like Polygloss. I cannot dunk the rod into a vat of polygloss and then run it through some foam to wipe off the excess. So if it is brushed on, then what sort of finish can you expect? Do you brush it on and then put it onto you dryer to rotate? The devil is in the details here, and this is an important detail.

Secondly, I am not at all clear how using a plastic knife is going to scrape off the finish well enough. A rod is round and a knife is more or less flat. So scrapping a round surface with a flat knife leaves a lot of opportunities to leave some of the finish on the rod.

Third, is this article directed toward 100% graphite rods alone? The one rod I did was a composite....

Fourth, there is the issue of removing the guides. The authors puts this off to another article, but this is important and I for one would like to read his thoughts on this matter. Anay idea if he has written this article?

This is an interesting subject about which I would like to know more.

Clinton

Hello Clinton

Ya stole Travis's thread, but oh-well.
Go to the list on the left and click on Trondak U-40, then on the right hit Perma Gloss, read that, then on the left hit the FAQ button.

Good Luck!

Bob,

New Bern, NC.

Sorry, No harm meant.

Clinton

Clinton,

No harm done. PermaGloss has a pretty hot solvent in it and I doubt you'd want to try and overcoat the Krylon paint with it. If you do, try it on a small test area first.

PermaGloss is best applied to a rod blank by a quick swipe with a well wetted piece of foam or cheesecloth.

..........

Travis,

I was assuming you meant epoxy. Typically as long as you stay in the same family you can use one over the other. Epoxy over epoxy, urethane over urethane, etc. Sometimes you can mix different types or families of finishes, but this is also where you're apt to get into trouble, if any trouble is to be had.

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

I have been reading up on this topic today, so I am feeling like I know more than I probably actually do. On the rod I have used as an illustration, the Fusion paint has three coats of polyurethane over it. In any event, I am done with that rod and from what I have read today, I will be doing things differently. I read a three year old post by Ralp (forgot the last name) with the best description of how to apply the PermaGloss. This recommends the use of Kimwipes or a coffee filter....but in terms of the rod prep, the post mentions using a Scotch Brite 7448 as the final step before applying the PermaGloss. This surprised me a bit inasmuch as I would have thought one would want to remove the tiny amount of "dust" created by the Scotchbrite before applying the PermaGloss. Does that make sense to you?

One other question concerning all this is the issue of working around line guides and their epoxy. If you are refinishing a rod and you are not going to remove the line guides could you not just buff up the edges of the epoxy and maybe a small amount beyond, apply the PermGloss, and after that has set up, put another coat of epoxy on the line guides after carefully roughing up its surface so the new epoxy would stick to the older epoxy. Ideally of course it is best to remove the line guides, and if the epoxy is really old and grungy looking, doubly so. I guess the question I am raising here is whether the epoxy will go on over the small amount of Permagloss you get on the line guide epoxy as the result of wiping the rod.

Clinton

The proper sequence for surface preparation is clean, scour/scuff, apply finish. If you want to knock any dust off with a soft brush that's fine, but never complete your surface preparation with any sort of a solvent wash or wipe.

If I were refinishing a blank without removing the guides, I'd use PG on the blank between the old wraps. Then scuff the surface of the old epoxy on the guide wrap thread and re-coat that with a fresh coat of epoxy.

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

Thanks Tom. I have a couple of little technical questions. First, I was wondering whether PG will go over epoxy and stick to it, if it is suffed up a bit, of course. Inversely, would epoxy go over PG? These questions arise from you comment about PG having a hot solvent. Now, if you tried to use PG between guides, it would be near impossible not to get some PG onto the edges (at least) of the epoxy....although I suppose you could tape off the area.

Second, the fine article I read recently about preparing the blank for PG included some guidance on removing the old finish. I am wondering what constitutes an old finish? The shiny part of the rod for sure. But how to remove it. I suppose the article I read was taking about someone using epoxy as a finish and having created a mess and then having to remove that without destroying the underlying structure of the graphite beneath. I just have this image of doing that with a plastic knife, which was one of the suggestions. My thought is that it would be nearly impossible to take off an old finish with a dull knife scrapping along the rod particularly a 7 footer. I could be wrong here and have never tried it. Before I try it, however, I would be more than willing to depend on someone else's experiences. Would not using a rough Scotch Brite be more effective? Would such a Scotch Brite pad cut into the underlying graphite? Just questions....but with a purpose, as I have a rod that needs refinishing. I bought it at a flee market for cheap, but it is, or soon will become a collectors item.

Clinton

No problem putting permagloss over epoxy or epoxy over permagloss. Yes, scrap with dull plastic edge, fingernail, orange wood stick, etc. Avoid sanding at all costs. At most a light wet sand with 600 grit. A little heat from a blow dryer might help. By old finish we are talking a clear coating that is chipping off......not anything with color.

In most cases you would want to remove the guides and re-wrap the rod. It will generally end up being less work. Permagloss isn't something you can apply with a brush. You will have a very short working time. In the order of a several to a few seconds depending on humidity. You certainly won't be able to trim around guide wraps and inbetween guide feet.......or at least I wouldn't be able to.

Russ in Hollywood, FL.

Russel Brunt: I want to put PG on, then the epoxy, you wrote that you can't apply the PG with a brush, then what do you use to apply it to the wraps?