They're are many different ways and concepts of choosing what guide sizes and how many guides you want on your fishing rod. My suggestion for you is to go on mudhole.com and look at the guide kits. You can buy the kit if you're not completely sure what to get or you can look in the description of what guide sizes they use. This way you can actually visually see what the guides will look like comp
Forum: rodboard

You can find some adjustable weighted butt caps if you look on most rod building websites. If you don't like the look of it or if you've already bought the butt cap then I imagine it would be safe to epoxy some lead weight into the inside of the butt if it fits well.
Forum: rodboard

I found color 343 to work great for that penn senator dark red. Now I did use it in a size D so I'm not sure if that would change the color darkness after I read a post pretty recently about thread color with thread sizes. I wish the best of luck to you
Forum: rodboard

I have a color that looks exactly like it because I rewrapped a friends senator rod. I can see what the exact color is when I get home but I'm going to be out late tonight
Forum: rodboard

Glad to here this. I've yet compared a custom rod to a factory rod with the same blank. I might have to build an scV and compare it with my friends scV
Forum: rodboard

I believe they should work fine. A friend of mine has an inshore saltwater rod and they look fine on his. But I do believe he washes all his rods down after he uses them
Forum: rodboard

when I'm doing a larger section on a rod I like to do a couple really thin coats. Using a faster rpm rod dryer might help with it some. But try putting barely enough finish to coat the blank and you'll get flatter sections
Forum: rodboard

I have to second Jared about the differences in the testor paints. I've tried a blue color that I couldn't write with at all, but with the silver color it seems to write a lot easier and that's what I use with all my rods now.
Forum: rodboard