For the first time I finished rod from an unsanded blanks (or at least partly sanded). The rough surface made it hard to pack A- thread. I managed to do some nice wraps, without glitches, but it was a lot of work. It might have been easier with doing invisible wraps or using C or D thread, I presume. Is there any trick for wrapping blanks with a raw partly sanded surface?

The difficulty you describe is the exact reason I sanded the two NFC X ray blanks I've built on. I'm still not that great at guide wraps without needing to frequently pack the thread, so aside from not really liking the feel of the blank's texture, I just didn't want to deal with what for me, would have been an added headache.

Terje,
Yes, it is very easy.

Remove all of the wrappings that you have done on the rod and then sand the blank, and give it a nice polish.

Then go back and build your rod as you wish.

Best wishes.

Terje

I am curious what is the reason you assembled the rod without sanding and/or finishing the blank.

The blank has two fine reinforcing strips of Toray carbon fibre wrapped under tension in a cross-weave ‘X’ pattern before as a top layer and I was afraid of weakening or harming these strips.

Without seeing or feeling the blank it would be difficult to make an assessment. My gut feeling is that a very light sanding with emery of 400 or higher will not compromise the integrity of the blank.

Try sanding a section of the butt end ( section under the rear grip) and see how it affects the "X" weave wrap portion.

Last resort ask the manufacturer if sanding is permitted.

Have fun

D has worked well for me. When using A on that blank I measure and tape off the areas receiving thread and then apply a light coat of PG. It lets the A thread slide into place better. I use this same technique when over-wrapping silver A with orange or yellow thread. The PG prevents the top thread from "grooving" into the silver thread.

Make sure the wrap is offset a little bit from where the thread is being fed from your wrapper so the thread wants to pack towards what has been wrapped on the rod. Go slow and lay your burnisher against the incoming thread to coax it towards the wrap a bit more. With a little practice you can pack tight as the thread is wrapped on the blank. There is a balance point between jumping over the ridges on the unsanded blank and crossing over the thread that has been wrapped. I find that the method I described makes it relatively easy to find this point.

Maybe backing off on the tension just a bit might help your packing, I haven't wrapped a bunch of raw blanks, but the ones I have done seemed to wrap just fine.

I'd agree with Spencer. I've built several X Ray and Delta blanks with no issues. I've never seen a need to sand any blank. NFC actually discourages sanding the Xray blank claiming it will take away the crispness bit to each their own when it comes to building rods.

Thanks for all the answers.