removing epoxy from old guides - neat trick or big mistake
Posted by:
Kyle Unser
(---.dluxlink.com)
Date: February 13, 2012 07:24PM
A close friend of mine's grandfather wrapped rods for many many years in Little Rock, Arkansas. His rods were (are) beautiful and he had quite a following. One of the men he built some rods for passed away, and he wanted the builder to have them back. He sold them all through various means and the proceeds went to the deceased gentleman's grandchildren.
A few years ago, I happened to be in his shop when he had quite a few left, and I grabbed a really pretty build he did on a GL3 blank. I didn't play with it or test it much, I just knew it was a nice blank and figured it would be a good rod. What this rod had in aesthetic value, it seriously lacked in fishability. It's a 6' SJ721-B, rated for 6-10lb line, set up as a spinning rod. The first time I took it out, I couldn't feel a thing with it. It didn't cast all that well and there was absolutely zero sensitivity. So it sat in the corner of my room, too pretty to do anything else with but too cumbersome to fish. Once I got into rod building I realized that the problem might be the fact that he used BIG guides, and lots of them. I needed one of those guides for another build, so I figured I'd just strip them all and start over. I left his caligraphy (sp?) and diamond wrap untouched, but removed all the guides. Then, I realized he had done an underwrap (with D thread I think), an overwrap, and a whole bunch of trim. After I got about a pound of guides, thread, and epoxy off of it, the blank hummed like new and I couldn't wait to get started with a new lightweight approach. The only problem was removal left behind these brackets of epoxy where he went past the wraps.
I started trying to remove them with a hairdryer and my fingernail, but made little progress other than dinging up my beautiful thumbnails - stubby and bitten though they may be. Trying to figure something out, I went scrounging for a fabric scouring pad or something similar. I found some old grill cleaners still in their shrink wrap. They're about 5" by 3", and have five little valleys that are meant to go on a grill. One side is soft, and the other is coarse (but still not steel wool or anything. I started working these hard and fast over the areas, and I could feel some serious heat being generated and I could also feel the epoxy ridges disappearing. When I stopped, the blank was hot to the touch and most of the epoxy was gone. It isn't perfect, but it did 95% of the job. The last 5% is probably the toughest, but I'm not sure there's any way I can make it look "new."
Anyway, I started wiping down the areas with denatured alcohol on a paper towel - putting a little blot on the towel then rolling it around the rod and sliding it up and down with some pressure. I found that every time I did this, the towel came up black. This was even on non-scoured areas, so I assume I'm removing some finish in the process. I didn't let it bother me too much because the rod looks just fine. I can't see that I did it any more harm than good.
Does denatured alcohol actually damage the blank or remove the finish? It's a GL3, so it wasn't glossy to begin with (or at least it wasn't when it got to me), but it wasn't a full on charcoal matte either. I can only see improvement. Inspection will still reveal where the old wraps were, but I'm not sure I can get those back to square one no matter how hard I try, and it's just going to be a creek rod for me anyway so I'm not too concerned about it. I just wanted to preserve the artwork of an old hand while making the rod fish like it was meant to be fished.
