OK - applied exactly per directions on bottle to size A silk (2/0) in a medium brown with burgundy tipping. Everything went dark as it usually does after the initial application, but stayed and dried dark - no contrast between the tipping / main wrap, and everything is much darker than I intended it to be. Where did I go wrong?

Sean,
Did you apply color preserver on silk before finish? If not, that is why thread became transparent.
Sanford

Sounds unusual. I wonder how dark the blank was you were wrapping on. Most of the color preservers will still allow the thread to darken just a tad if you are working on a very dark colored blank. If the darkening was uniform, you likely got all that product had to offer in that situation. As the color preserver dried, the color should have come back up a bit. Did it?

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Sean
Non of the acrylic (the whitish colored ones) color preservers will work on SILK. Make up a mixture of color preserver and 50% alcohol (either IPA or Denatured) for silk. This mixture will work on most silk colors but not all. Silk takes a highly penetrative solution in order to seal out the top coat effect.
Ralph

Sean,
Ralph's correct in that acrylic C.P. is not the choice for Silk.
It takes a solvent based C.P. I use to use something called Al's
color preserver just for silk A size thread and soak well into the thread and then turn on the motor for about an hour and repeat the step.
Haven't tried the 50:50 mix of color lock and alcohol. I can see some experimentation ahead of me. If anyone's tried this, I wonder what the results were. Thanks again for the hint, Ralph.

Rich
Solyrich Cusotm Rods

I recieved a lot of emails over this subject awhile back.. All the emails said on coat of color preserver is all that is needed.. This Color Lok bit is very frustrateing because of color lok failure on silks while restoring bamboo.. Most all robuilders are not useing any color lok anymore.. I have about 2 or 3 rewraps on every bamboo rod .. Sometimes I get failures after 2 nd or 3rd dipping.. I have tried every trick in the book, then a Guderod rep turned me onto Guderod 840, I put 2 to 3 coats full strength on wraps then I use two or three coats of Spar Urethane on wraps and I have had excellent results.. I just got finished with a new bamboo flyrod and it was Hunt flamed ans I used Scarlet Guderod silk wraps and I use no color lok, and some wraps are darker than others, so I guess punt?? The next thing to tru is Laquer or varathene as a color preserver, but I dont like useing this because it makes wraps brittle.. Im glad you posted this Ralph because I need just 1 coat full strength would not work on silk wraps.. Thanks Dave

Ralph

Not sure what is going on where you state that white color preserver won't work on silk, but I use flex coat and it works for me. You can see pictures of my weaves several issues ago (jumping rainbow trout and sturgeon)

Kerry

How many coats of CP do you use??