Building a rod for a customer. He gave me some pac bay dark navy blue size A nylon thread. I have been building rods for 15 years. I packed this thread tite,put 2 coats of cp on it ,let it dry over 12 hrs. Now I put my first coat of finish on the thread and some spots appear a little darker than the rest of the thread. Is this bad thread??? Never used pac bay before always Gudebrod or pro wrap.Why is this happening?????

It could be that the thread was contaminated in some manner such poor care of the thread by the customer, oil from fingers, etc.

I don't know if you are using our CP or not, but...

Color Preserver is not like our rod finish which will always set up. Color Preserver can freeze and just go bad over time. This can allow the finish to soak into the thread in a blotchy pattern. How long have you had it? Its possible to have old Color Preserver that is good, but I would not recommend keeping Color Preserver for more than two years. A simple test for bad Color Preserver is to brush a thin coat over clear plastic, like acetate. If it dries clear, its good. If it dries with white streaks, flakes, or lumps, its no good.

If you are going to use color preserver, you should be sure that the thread is completely saturated down to the rod blank. Put on more than you need at first and then come back and wipe off the excess with your brush. This technique will help ensure the saturation.

If you don’t saturate the thread, the Flex Coat rod finish could be soaking into the thread through the under side of the wraps via the air tunnels that form along the guide foot and the rod blank.

Color Preserver is not as strong as Flex Coat rod finish epoxy. Even if the Color Preserver saturates the thread, the super strong epoxy is prevented from soaking into the tread and is only on the outside and like a sleeve to the thread wrap. This is a weaker hold and for this reason we do not use Color Preserver on the wraps that hold the guides down. We sell rod finish to Sage, St. Croix, Loomis, Scott, Winston and others. They do not use color preserver. Otherwise, on decorative butt wraps and under wraps under the guides, we have no problem with Color Preserver. Something to think about.

Flex Coat Company
Professional Rod Building Supplies
www.flexcoat.com

John, I have a bottle of Flex Coat CP that I bought over 25 years ago and just did some test wraps with it. It is still good. It was never exposed to freezing weather. I compared it to a new bottle that I bought, and got the same good results with both.

Wow, that is a long time. You might want to go buy a lottery ticket or book a trip to Vegas.

Seriously though, CP is cheap and will treat a lot of rods. I would not risk it. Do the test I described above and that should tell you if it is good, but if it is that old I would not risk it.

Get small bottles This way it goes quicker and does not st for years

Bill - willierods.com

John, I was doing comparison tests between 6 different CP's currently on the market and all were new except I found an old bottle of Flex Coat and included it in the test. I coated all the wraps with epoxy after 3 coats of CP. Old and new worked equally well. Benn doing this for 44 years, and test everything completely. ;>)

Where and how old is the thread
Did you keep it in some kind of container ????
Out of the sun

Bill - willierods.com

Bill.................He said the customer gave him the thread.

Bill

Ohio Rod Builders

Canton, Ohio

Gerald,
When you rewrap the rod, you might make sure that you have stripped off a couple of layers of thread off the spool. If the thread is old, sometimes it will pick up stuff from its environment. But generally, the junk does not penetrate more than one or twol layers into the thread.

One of the reasons that I never leave thread standing around. Any time that the thread has been used for a rod, it is put back in the thread box and the lid is closed.

Be safe

Gerald,
When you rewrap the rod, you might make sure that you have stripped off a couple of layers of thread off the spool. If the thread is old, sometimes it will pick up stuff from its environment. But generally, the junk does not penetrate more than one or twol layers into the thread.

One of the reasons that I never leave thread standing around. Any time that the thread has been used for a rod, it is put back in the thread box and the lid is closed.

Be safe

Good tip, Roger.

Flex Coat Company
Professional Rod Building Supplies
www.flexcoat.com

After stripping off the thread Test it on a piece of scrap Too be sure it is not the whole spool

Bill - willierods.com