Hello,
I have come across several saltwater rods that look as if the sun has degraded the surface, creating a very "mottled" matte surface, almost bumpy over the entire surface of the rods. These were not custom rods, but are Penn IGFA standup rods, and appear to be very well made, all of which were defined as being from 5-7 years old.
My question is, is there a method of repairing or refinishing this surface to a high gloss surface? I have scanned through several pages of the posts here and have learned quite a bit, but was unable to find something directly related to this problem.
Thank you all in advance.

Repair no. Replace yes. When the top coat of finish has gotten to that extent you're faced with stripping it off and applying a new coating. Regular rod wrapping epoxy finish on the guide wraps and probably a urethane coating on the blank.

The blank is easy to strip. The guides will either have to be removed and then rewrapped or you might get lucky and be able to sand down to good solid epoxy and recoat.

Wow!, What a quick reply. Thank you. I can remove and rewrap the guides if needed.
I notice you mentions that stripping the blank is easy. What is the easiest way of stripping the blank. Would it be to use progressive grits of wet paper? If so, what would be a good starting grit? Or, is ther some sort of chemical process that would strip the finish without damaging the rod?
Thanks again.
Dan

Dan,

I'm sitting in UK about 12 miles away from the HQ of Penn Europe. I used to do quite a few repairs for Penn on trolling & stand-ups when the old CEO was in charge. Progressive grades of sandpaper will take them down but do it by hand, not on a lathe at high speed. I talk from experience. Whatever was in the Penn blanks 5 - 10 years ago, high speed on a lath with sandpaper will virtually `melt' the blank.

I am assumming that the blanks were the black ones (red & gold trim bands ?) if so be prepared to re-paint as well as there is a light , almost white primer under the black top coat.

I also understand that at that time there was experimentation with the UV resin drying coats (ie using UV light to dry in about 2 mins) which may or may not be responsible for the lumpy appearance. It may be possible to rub down the wraps but better to replace. Unless they are the stand-ups with Aftcos, the other ring guides & rollers they used then were, how do I put this???????????, not Aftco!

Regards Stan.

Stan,
These have all gold bands and are marked Penn International II IGFA1020 Graphite Composite. The guides are stamped AFTCO. I will begin hand sanding these
Thank you for the information. While I have used rods for over 40 years, I am a newbie when it comes to building. It is so great to have the resource of all of your folks knowledge in this forum so available.
Thanks again,
Dan Gilroy
Big Pine Key, Florida USA

Greetings Dan (Gilroy),

Recently, I was faced with fully refinishing my 'main' surf-rod because all the epoxy wraps had gotten sunburned (milky). First, I decided to try a 'test', I roughed up the epoxy-wrapped areas because the sunburn had concentrated only there.

I was prepared to 'fully refinish' if the test had failed, but that wasnt necessary.

I applied permagloss with a square of scotts towel about the size of a match-book and used a sqee-geeing pattern (in the dryer). After the first coating, it was abundantly clear to me that that was all that I'd have to do.
I chose to do this for two more coatings even though it looked good with the 'first'.

In the end, I did the same type of clean-up on three more 'sunburned' rods.

It looks like 'new'. and is ready for this year. The abrasive which I used was 'donated' by my plumber-friend.
It looks a bit like 'window screen' but it works very well including no deep gouges.

Hope my own experience helps,
Bob