So I have searched the archives here and found some good info on making totally clear thread wraps. White silk and some type of warmed varnish seems to be the preferred method. But I saw a few that recommended epoxy with thinner. I would rather stay with epoxy for the greater durability and longevity if this can be counted on to work. What type thinner or solvent is best for this? DNA Alcohol or Acetone. Mix finish and then add, or add to one of the epoxy parts and then mix? Sorry for all the questions I am still somewhat new to this.

Not sure I agree with your durability statement, there are an awful lot of old rods out there still fishable, and it's a whole bunch easier to remove an epoxy wrap.

I use acetone and add it after mixing (so I mix two minutes more after).

No, not white silk. Use natural color silk. Use silk with no dye. Yes, natural silk is a very light color, but it is not white. For Yli, 100 wt silk the color number is (or used to be) 212.

No tight wraps. Use only enough tension to prevent the wrap from unraveling. Do not burnish or excessively pack wraps.

Use a light or lite formula epoxy finish. Mix 3 ml of each resin and hardener for about 3 minutes, add 3 ml of acetone, then mix for another 2 minutes.

Apply epoxy as quickly as you can THOROUGHLY wetting all the silk paying special attention to the first and last turns of each wrap and the guide fee tunnel.

Turn by hand for 1/2 hour then turn using a dryer. Expect an extended cure time.

Good luck.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/2019 04:02PM by Donald La Mar.

I have done it very successfully with white Gossamer silk, use epoxy mixed with DNA to a almost water like consistency for the first coat followed by a that there was no thread on the wraps.regular epoxy coat. People have swore there were no thread on the wraps.

Bill,

Do a search for the topic I started called "translucent thread". As an addition to the posts on that topic, I recently used some regular size A white Gudebrod (I know you can't get it anymore) on another carbon fiber blank that I was test wrapping on and with Flex Coat Lite (obviously no CP) it totally disappeared. I'm going to try some Fuji Ultrapoly white in a couple of days to see how that works.

David Sytsma