Removing/preserving clear coat and/or paint, etc.

[JasonGotaProblem]

Can I use citristrip on a painted graphite rod blank? Or is it sandpaper and elbow grease only? Any other safe chemicals?

Different rod, related question: my shimano teramar has that cool marbled finish. But I'm stripping and redoing the guides. Should i do anything differently to avoid ruining the marbled finish? Also that rod has definitely gotten a clear coat after wrapping. The guides will likely go to different locations. Should i plan on removing all the clear coat to make it uniform, or can i somehow fill in the spots where the old guides were? Do I need to worry about there being clear coat already there below my new wraps?

I love the action of the rod but now that I know how wonky the guides are I can't bring myself to use it til I fix it. I'm not a person who needs things to be perfect, just mostly right.

[steelfish]

I'm not a person who needs things to be perfect, just mostly right.

Im not your guy here, since I rebuild my rods for make them better on function and appearance I like to get them done the best possible, so I would wetsanded, NO grease or oil of any kind or any chemical that might affect glass or graphite on my rods before and while working on them, and painted them, 2k clear on them and leave the blank as factory before installing the guides.
there are few options to put new finish on painted blanks but none has the same durability and hardness of 2k

I must admit that I have restored cheap rods just installing more guides and sanding a bit where the factory guide was before without painting the blank or having it 2k clear on it, they just work much better and 90% of the person wont mind or even see the mark where the factory guide was installed (mostly because the blank is already with some boat rash or scratch from regular use on rock/beach, etc)

[JasonGotaProblem]

Dont get me wrong I'm not saying I'm gonna half #### it. But I know some folks who wont bother doing something if it can't be perfect. I dont need perfection. I'll be happy with 'works great looks really good."

I bought this from a charter captain. The 'perfect appearance' ship has sailed.

And if the finish has to be removed entirely from just below the largest guide, so be it. That might still look cool.

[oldmanjoe]

 The short answer is you can leave the clear on and guide it than apply more epoxy .
   Picture will help

[JasonGotaProblem]

   Picture will help

I'm sorry you'll have to be more specific.

[JasonGotaProblem]

Sorry, I'll be serious. I like the finish. If I can save it I want to.

[oldmanjoe]

   I thought you were going to post a picture of water coming out of kitchen faucet ?   



  I would try wiping on water base polyurethane to fill in the scratches for a quick fix .   It`s not as heavy as epoxy .

[oc1]

Nice snook.

[JasonGotaProblem]

Nice snook.

Thanks. First one on the rat rod. He was a lil fella but he sure gave the rod a good bend.

[Cor]

I will generally make a rod look as nice as I can reasonably make it without going to extremes.   I fish my tackle hard, on small boats, on big rocks so some scratches and damage is par for the course.      I don't like to spend a week making it look gorgeous, only to damage it again the following week!

There is one thing, I have always believed that some coating on a blank does give the blank  a little protection against minor scratches and dings, so I usually do coat it.

Even for a mat finish, I'll coat it and then water paper it with 1000 grit taking care not to do too much.

[JasonGotaProblem]

I pulled the guides, minus the bottom two which seem to line up right and the tip which I dont know why I'd need to remove for this rearrangement project. I sanded it mostly smooth but you can still see where the guides were. Also I sanded a bit more than necessary because all that clear coat is added weight that probably also affects the rods action. There's still likely enough in place for protection. I just gotta polish it back up.

But honestly the line tracked the blank remarkably well for a factory rod, I may end up using the same locations for the running guides anyway. Probably not, as I'd like to fit one more in there, and there is room for improvement. but maybe.

And I might not wanna admit this, but upon removing all the running guides and placing them next to each other I'm convinced it was an optical illusion and they're all actually the same size. OOPS! Oh well, it'll perform better for it in the long run.

Also, the specs for this rod brag about using gudebrod silk wraps. As such I could tell which guides had been replaced (different, and by that I mean more familiar wraps) and 3 of the 6 I pulled were not original. And also having seen how much of a nightmare it was to remove those original guides, I'd never use that stuff unless it was on titanium guides that will stay in place forever. No thank you. Looked great though.

I could not get a good picture. My camera refused to consider that it wasnt the background i wanted to focus on.

[JasonGotaProblem]

I am trying to decide if I need to move the bottom guide on the teramar. Doing the "table edge" technique the bottom 2 guides look perfectly positioned so I never cut them off. I have been test casting and I'm not experienced enough to judge by what im seeing. So I took some slow motion videos to the best of my ability not having a tripod (casting 1 handed holding phone in the other). Anyone care to give opinions on the line flow? Should the bottom 2 be moved? Btw there was like 15 mph winds that day, that affects it a bit.

https://youtube.com/shorts/Pdn5Vs9R6eQ



https://youtube.com/shorts/Ca7V4e6qlIk

I dont know how to embed these or i would have. Also my phone added the music. I wish it hadn't. Thoughts?

[oldmanjoe]

  What is the measurement between reel face and first guide ?    Are you going to decade that reel to that stick ?    Do you have a reel 
  with a bigger diameter spool to try first  .
   The line going out to the first guide looks good , hard to say about the first to second .   It looked like you had some slap , not bad overall.
   If you were to move a guide , i would move the first one closer to the reel face , in 1/2 increments .

[JasonGotaProblem]

The plan is to keep the rod and reel together. I am in fact rebuilding the rod that I bought for that reel. Specs wise its a 10-20# line (according to them) 7'-6" extra fast taper 1/2oz - 2oz lure. The reel is a spheros (SP4000XGSW) with a few upgrades.

As it sits the bottom guide is 23.75" above the spool at top of stroke.

You think the bottom guide should go down? I was thinking upward if anything, but there's no experience behind that opinion.

[oldmanjoe]

      You have slow motion video and a measurement to start with .    Now you get to test the theories  in or out  and take video for proof .
  I think that the first guide may be one and a half inches closer , just my guess.