Guys,

I am currently building some St Croix SCV’s rods in the “Gloss Blue / Green Flip Color”. This past weekend I used some “denatured alcohol” and I notice a bit of a blue tint on the paper I used to wipe part of the blank with (thankfully it was in the grip area), so here is my question:

What do you guys recommend to use (instead of denatured alcohol) so I don’t remove the finish but I obtain a clean blank?

Thanks,

Carlos

Soap and water, with a cold clear water rinse.

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In addition, you will find IPA (isopropyl alcohol) to be much gentler for epoxy cleanup.

I learned this one the hard way on a thomas and thomas blank. Since then i only use warm soap and water to clean up my blanks. No finish damage and no residue left behind.

I use denatured on all my blanks, except St. Croixs. For those I use isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol.

You still get a little bit of color, but not as much as with denatured.



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Better to have and not need than to need and not have.

I rather take the position to use my conventional cleaning solutions to clean all of the blanks. If the finish comes off, then the finish comes off. It is better that I find that the finish easily comes off of the rod, and either live with the finish change or return the blank to the factory for replacement. The problem is that if you don't use your typical cleaning solutions to wipe down the blank, what happens to the customer who goes to clean his rod the first time and have all of the finish come off and then have an unhappy customer.

That is also the reason that before ever starting a build on a rod, I make sure that I do a very good stress test on the raw blank. If there is a manufacturing defect in the blank, I want to know about it, before I spend any time working on the blanks or have an unhappy customer when they make the first cast and then have the blank shatter on them.

My point is that simple alchol should not remove the finish from the blank. It is a tough world out there and the fishing rods are going to be subjected to a lot of things worse than alchol in their service life.

Take care
Roger