A customer brought me an 8ft saltwater rod to replace two wire-frame boat guides; simple enough, or so I thought. As the title describes, I eventually discovered the rod sported a continual length, from tip top to foregrip, under-wrap! Have any of you witnessed such a monstrosity? What could be the reasoning or purpose? After the initial, “What the heck is going on”, closer inspection revealed the entire rod was coated with thread finish. Normally when replacing under-wrapped guides, I strip everything down to the blank and start over. But after attempting to remove the under-wrap of the fist guide and realizing what I was up against with this rod, I only stripped the over-wrap of the second guide. Since there is no label, markings or decals, I can only assume this rod was rebuilt or custom made, although I hesitate to include the term custom to this mess.
You veterans have seen it all and I would appreciate your insight as to what the heck came up from the depths and thrown at me to repair.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

Mark,
The "builder" was distracted during the butt wrap and - mind wandered - thinking of his girlfriend or of her boy friend - watching TV - whatever and discovered that he had done the whole blank. Or maybe owner didn't like the blanks color. Hope he had a large spool of thread.
Have fun.
Herb

Have replaced guides on several older saltwater rods and run into a similar situation where entire rod appears to be coated with several layers of epoxy. Once I have the repair down to the blank I had to fill in the gap with epoxy to bring the guide base even with the rest of the rod. A real pain in the butt.

Ray Zarychta
Glastonbury, CT

Mark,
The rod is what it is.

The client asked that two guides be replaced.

Replace the two guides using the same technique that is on the rest of the rod and move on.

I assume that this is a heavier salt water rod that normally sits in a rod holder?? Just replace the guides and move on.

No need to comment on the build of the rod to the customer.

It will take you 30 minutes to replace the two guides and recoat them.

Just let the client know that if he would like a new rod built for him you would be happy to do the work starting with all new components.

Take care

Herb is probably correct or at least on the correct path. I certainly will replace the guides and move on as Roger fortified but will let the customer know of what I found. So I guess I will never know what possessed someone to wrap the entire blank before wrapping the guides.
Ray commented on the reason every rodbuilder I’ve come across believes thread finish should not be used as a blank finish. While I will not disagree, it can be done and with flawless, 100% perfect results. When I first started wrapping rods, I employed two vintage FG surf rods to strip, replace the guides and rewrap to practice my building techniques learned from this site. Without knowing what PermaGloss was, I refinished the blanks with ProKote, but with a very labor-intensive method. With the blanks rotating on my power wrapper, the ProKote was quickly applied and then wicked-off with a lint-free paper wipe by slowly moving back and forth along the length of the blank until an extremely thin coat was left, just barely wet-out. The process was repeated 5 or 6 times to produce the most perfect finish I have yet obtained including using PG as I now do. PG is a great product and it requires a tiny fraction of the time of those first attempts.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

There is a well respected custom builder around the Here that has wrapped an entire blank in thread on more than one occasion He does it to change the blank color on kids or women’s rods and ones he donates for charity . First time I saw one from a distance I was drawn to look.closer as it looked awesome from 25 ft . Then I realized why the hot pink popped . Sometimes you have to do what you have to do to turn a profit.

Freddwhy (Rapt-Ryte)

Thanks, Fred.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.