I had the opportunity to head offshore this weekend for some Red Snapper & Grouper fishing. Along with the usual suspects in offshore rods i brought my 6500 Baitrunner spinner rig to float livies of the back in hopes of a tuna or dolphin. None of that happened but i was happy to use the equipment...anyway on the way back i noticed that the underwrapof one of the guides i had replaced on the spinner less than a year ago was completely faded from metallic blue to silver on one side. Rod has been sitting in the garage somewhat close to a window for no more than 6 months. is this normal? I am getting ready to wrap my next rod with metallic Red as the overwrap but now am concerned about fading.
i am looking for Thoughts on what i may have done wrong and what i may need to do to protect this from happening again?
Thank you for your replies.

J Scott
Englewood, Fl

In many cases it is indeed normal. Metallic thread, by and large, tends to fade to silver or off-white.

..........

I once saw a boat rod that i had built with all metallic thread, was about 4 or 5 years old, it was gold and blue, and i remember i used cp on this one and it had faded quite badly. but being i saw it 4 or 5 years later it's hard to say how long it took to fade that badly.

Jersey, Channel Islands. (U.K.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2012 06:55PM by Steve Mcleod.

YOu know what it might be....the epoxy that you used. I have seen plenty of rods that needed a guide rewrapped and after you popped the epoxy off the silverish metallic thread turned out to be a different color completely. Purple metallic will fade to silver, the other colors - might be the epoxy. YOu'll know wonce you cut it off.

Hi Jim,
Store them in the dark if possible, will prolong the colour but they will fade eventually. Like Billy says diferent epoxies may give a better result.

ESFNEM Col
Port Kembla, NSW
Australia

The use of thinners in the epoxy can also cause premature fading.

Don Becker

Thanks for the info guys.
Epoxy was Flexcoat High build. Plan on trying Prokote on the new one.
It was odd to me that only one wrap faded, the one i replaced. The factory wraps were ok.(different color of blue=first rod i worked on and didn't care if it matched perfectly)
I think i will not do my overwraps with metallic on the new rod and go with ncp instead. Too much work to have it fade in a year. All my other rods appear to be ok and they are in the same rack as this one was.


js