What color gray thread matches an unfinished gray rod blank best? I want the thread to be as invisible as possible....

Thank you!

When you state unfinished grey blank, like a Northfork? Natural Carbon?

Your best bet, Natural Silk. I would buy a couple of colors close to that and do some test wraps with finish, just do them where your grip/reel seat are going, find the one that meets your fancy.

I’ve done invisible wraps on colored fiberglass, Natural Silk was the ticket. On raw or “clear” fiberglass, this gets a bit tricky since there are several shade’s, from almost white to a dirty martini look. The more “white” a blank is, White Silk worked best, as the white color gets dirtier looking, Natural Silk.

I’d also give the lightest shade of Grey Nylon and Grey Silk a shot.

Test wraps!

I think invisible as possible means silk. Look through the photo section to see if this what you want.

Fuji Ultra Poly No. 19 complements a gray, natural color graphite blank quite nicely. It does not match the blank's color, but provides a nice shade to offset the blank. I have used it on an NFC LMX fly rod and an Epic 690G fly rod.

If you want transparent, as in it looks like there is no wrapping unless you do an accent wrap, then you need to use silk. The full color and shape of the guide foot will be on complete display, so you may want to go with a Ti-Gray color guide or Recoil.

Yes, A North Fork Composites unfinished blank is what I am building on...Thank you so much! What brand of thread would you use if it was silk...please mention brand and color number...or regular thread size A, brand and color number...

Do test wraps with these 3:

YLI #239 Natural

YLI #212 Natural White

Clover 401 White.

50wt is close to size A Nylon, 100wt is a bit smaller.

Thread tension is also very important, you want the tension as light as possible.

Also, in my opinion, Clover brand Silk is better quality than YLI.

RE: "The full color and shape of the guide foot will be on complete display, so you may want to go with a Ti-Gray color guide or Recoil."

This means that any guide foot prep you do will be visible, too. With my process of never grinding, this would not be a problem, but many builders do a lot of prep which would be unsightly depending on the process/guide color/etc.

I think you and I may be of like minds. I’m working on an NFC blank myself and want my thread wraps to more or less blend in. I’ve experimented with a few different grey thread shades and brands. Mind you, I only made some test wraps and applied a drop of alcohol. From what I saw, Fuji Ultra Poly, BC Grey #023 looked the best. I plan to apply finish this evening and I would be glad to send you a photo of the result if you wish. I would of course simply post the photo to the photos page, but although I can log into it, I’m still listed as unregistered and cannot upload.

There are two options mentioned above. 1) using gray thread to match the blank. 2) Using silk thread that disappears with epoxy applied thus giving the appearance of no thread at all. The later is often called a ghost wrap.

Fuji 023 seems to be a great choice! Yes, Please send pictures...that would be great...Thank you!

Thank you all for your responses!

Philip. I have a photo. Your email is hidden so I have no way to share. Drop me an email and I'll send it to you.

Thank you…it is [email protected]…I really appreciate this…

Invisible as in silk will show the whole guide foot. If what you want is matching , I use gunmetal nylon which darkens just enough to match a raw blank

ProWrap Nylon “Storm Cloud” blends pretty good, a tad darker but very close.

Thank you for your input! I will look into these threads…

Can you send me a link to gunmetal nylon? Thank you!

Is it Gudebrod Nylon Rod Wrapping Thread-#1011 Gunmetal?

Hitena silk number 1 choice, just can’t find it.

A light grey, I prefer Kimono silk or YLI silk. Then I use Crystal coat from CTS for finish epoxy. To me it is the clearest epoxy, but long cure time.

Thank you so much!