Has anyone had success in correcting "football" shaped coatings? Several of my small snake guide wraps looked okay when I left the fly rod to turn, but they ended up setting up too thick in the middle, like footballs. All I can think of is to sand down the thick middle sections, then apply a thin top coat. I use Flex Coat Lite.

Will this work? I am concerned that the new coat may not level out, across the probable uneven sanding.

Thanks a lot in advance,
John

P.S. I am a perfectionist. Likely not too many others would be bothered by the footballs! But the rod is a Christmas gift, and I want it to look as good as if it came from Santa himself.

You can sand them,being careful not to scuff the thread. You can also shave them with a razor blade, again being careful. After yoiu get them into the shape you want, a very lite coat of epoxy will cover up your repair efforts.

Thanks very much, Phil. I think I'll use sandpaper (wrapped around a popsicle stick), as I'd be afraid of a blade going a bit too deep. I'm not a surgeon! But I've lots of experience with sanding. Wish me luck!

John,Thats what i do when i get them football shaped epoxy jobs, one thing I learned to watch out for is the edges of the football, it is thinner then the middle do when you get down the epoxy a bit you have to watch out for the edges, the thread can be easily scuffed and ruined it happened to me a couple of times, when I get down that far I turn the popsickle stick on it side and carefully sand just the middle so i won't scuff the edges, I hope you understand what I am trying to say, Good luck and tight wraps.

I think a perfectionist would remove the guides and re-wrap. Put your finish on in thin coats, don't worry if it doesn't completly cover on the first coat because the next thin coat/coats will, and you will avoid those footballs which look ugly especially on fly rods/light rods.

Jersey, Channel Islands. (U.K.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/16/2012 10:10AM by Steve Mcleod.

Thanks for the good suggestions, Lorenzo and Steve.

Lorenzo, I understand exactly what you wrote.

Steve, I'm not sure why I did not notice that I put too much polymer on the 3 wraps that are footballs. My technique has worked well in the past, which is a thin first coat, just soaking the wraps, and none over the thread edges, followed by a second coat, which also seals the edges. For that, I use a very thin, metal knitting needle, held against the thread edges.

I will try sanding and recoating, and if that doesn't work, I will re-wrap the guides.

I appreciate everyone's help. Merry Christmas!

John,
I carefully monitor all of the guides and butt wraps for the first 30 minutes while the rod is on the dryer.
Every now and then, I will see some foot balls develop after 10 minutes or so, which result from a slight movement of the finish that was applied a touch too much.

If this happens, I grab the heat gun, hit the foot ball on the finish with a bit of heat, until the finish flows and dab off the excess finish.

I let it turn for another few minutes to be sure that the guide finish is perfect and then move on.

Be safe
Roger

Roger, thanks very much for that tip. I usually do that, but I guess I wasn't careful enough this time.

Thanks everyone. The repair worked out just dandy today!

I cut thin strips of sandpaper, to fit over a thin, wooden stir stick, and began timidly with 400 grit paper, but soon found out that would take a month of Sundays and then some. I went lower and lower, until I found that I was comfortable with 120, then worked back up through 220, 320, to 400. I worked slowly, giving the rod a slight rotation with each swipe of the sandpaper, to avoid flats. I finished off with a tiny piece of grey Scotchbrite pad, which smoothed out the sandpaper marks nicely.

I was going to mask off the blank, but forgot, and it was okay. I work well with detail work, having once been a jeweller.

After the sanding, I used 99% isopropanol to clean up the dust, and that gave me the reminder that it takes 3 days for polymer to cure. Yup, it softened the surface, and the cleaning rag fibres stuck to it! I let it dry well, then smoothed it over again with 400 grit, then Scotchbrite, then used good old water to wipe down. Looked great, so went ahead then with the new top coat of polymer.

I used one of the brushes that Flex Coat provides in their kits, to apply an extremely thin top coat of polymer, and that worked perfectly.

I had thought, briefly, of cutting the wraps off, and re-doing completely. But I've built less than a dozen rods, so my results still depend more on luck than skill, so chances would have been that the re-do might have been just as bad, or worse.

Thanks again for the help, and Merry Christmas!

edit: double post error.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2012 12:14AM by John Segal.

Just curious.....is the 2 part epoxy a "polymer" or a "monomer"?