Guide adhesion, lessons learned through failure

[JasonGotaProblem]

I've been stewing on this one for a bit, debating if it warrants a thread. Ive decided that yes it does because the ones I'm unsure about starting tend to be the good ones.

If one wishes to go light on epoxy for guides, is there a good way to ensure that a sufficient bed of epoxy is under the guide foot? A rod that I built had a guide get knocked 30° out of alignment during rough transport on the way to the first test run. I pushed it back in line and fished it that day, but the next evening I cut that guide off only to see that not a bit of epoxy was behind the foot. In fact I was able to pull the guide out of the wraps vertically. I re-wrapped that guide and was more liberal with my epoxy application, but  now I'm wondering if maybe i should cut off and redo all the guides.

I used pacbay thread and flex coat epoxy, though I'm certain the issue was user error.

And I am certain I took a pic of the blank where the guide had been but can't find it now.

[steelfish]

Jason, Im not expert specially on light builds but what kind of guide it was? a single foot one? when you said "not a bit of epoxy was behind the foot" do you mean there wasnt epoxy under the foot.

I understand that what keeps the guide on the rod is the thread wrap and epoxy add a bit more of adhesion but mostly is there to cover the thread from being cut, scratched, etc that might cause the guide to become lose on the rod, of course if you put plenty of epoxy to cover the foot and even part of the leg of the guide that guide will be more secured to the blank, but what really keeps the guide on the blank is the thread, thats why on trolling rods or heavy duty saltwater rods you do a triple wrap what means 1 underwrap 2 wraps over the feet of the guides to really secure the guide when dealing with 40#-50# or more lbs of drag on a fight

if the foot of your guide was completely flat on the blank there is no space for the epoxy to flow into so, you wont find any epoxy after the epoxy job but make you to put some epoxy on tunnel/hole from the curvature of the leg of the guide and the thread wrap, fill that tunnel with epoxy to prevent water to get there and cause corrosion on the long run.

PS: for single foot guides theres is also a lock-wrap that you can make on the last 2-3 wraps with the thread, start the wrap as always and continue wraping the guide, when you see is almost enough room for 2-3 more wraps then at the middle of the wrap make a loop and lace the guide with it and pull, the thread will look straight and similar to a normal wrap, then repeat 2 more times and cut the thread. you will have a locked guide that will not be pulled out as easily as you said you did it.

https://www.rodbuilding.org/library/forhan.html

the single foot guides on this rod have that locking wrap https://alantani.com/index.php?topic=33808.0

[Midway Tommy]

Alex posted while I was typing this and I haven't read it, but interestingly enough I prefer not to have any epoxy under the foot except for what closes the hole at the ring end. I purposely use Pliobond General Purpose Adhesive under the feet to give a flexible bond. I want the rod to give a little bit under the guide foot.

It would my non-professional opinion that two things happened, especially if you could pull the guide out the front. The first issue would be that you didn't wrap the thread tight enough. The guide feet have a wider spot with a notch to prevent the guide from sliding forward if the thread has been wrapped tight enough. The second issue is that there wasn't enough color preserver and/or epoxy applied to soak in and bond the thread to the foot.

In all the rods I've built (25 or 30 so far) I have never had a guide come loose.

[oldmanjoe]

 Hard to say with out a picture , but it could be starvation or a small pocket of part a or b  [ mixing ]

[jigmaster501]

The guide should be stable after wrapping. The flex coat can penetrate under the guide feet if you use flex coat light or something similar and I like to have all guides facing up when I first apply epoxy to the rod. Liberally coat the guide feet while the epoxy is fresh and thin. Don't spin until you coated the guide feet and it saturated. Then start spinning. A toych of heat early will help penetration too. After that, move to the diamond wrap or whatever you have which is basically aesthetic.

[DougK]

never had that happen, in dozens of rod builds ?
as others say I don't believe you need epoxy under the foot. If the thread is tight and the epoxy has saturated the thread the guide won't move. Did you use color preserver ?
Maybe warm the epoxy bottles a bit before mixing, then do as jigmaster501 says.

Most of the time these days I use old-fashioned varnish, warmed and thinned a bit for the first coat. Once that sets up the guide even singlefoot is locked in. Another couple of coats for appearance and it's solid for as long as the rod might last..

[jurelometer]

Agree as well.  I have never removed a guide that had epoxy under the foot.

The epoxy finish does not glue the guide to the the blank.  The thread lashes the guide to the blank and the epoxy both adheres the wraps to the blank and the individual wraps to each other, locking the guide in place, as long as you get enough penetration. Since nylon and epoxy do not play that well together, the bond can be broken when you need to re-wrap the guide.

Something very similar did happen to me before.  I did an emergency replacement of two guides once with nylon fly tying thread and 5 minute epoxy.  I mixed a single batch of epoxy,  the first guide coated held fine, the second guide seemed fine, but started rotating after a day or two of fishing.  Since the finish had started to set, the epoxy did not penetrate, and as the guide rotated, it just lifted the thread off the blank. Penetration is the key, not how much  epoxy is added.  Once you get past the top of the thread, you are mostly  adding abrasion protection.

If I am not doing underwraps, I wrap with tighter tension than is generally recommended.  While it makes it harder to get a pretty wrap that climbs up onto the foot nicely, I think it contributes to a stronger hold, but I am in the minority here.

Heating up the epoxy a little (per the manufacturer's directions, usually before mixing) will give you lower viscosity at first, but heat shortens work time, so it will get thicker faster.  Not a huge fan of high build finish myself, as the viscosity is generally higher. And sometimes it is worthwhile to not try to coat all the guides in one batch if you are not a speedy pro rod builder.  Come to think of it, I should take my own advice here - more than once, I have screwed up the last step of the build trying to coat all the guides in a rush.

Incomplete mixing or inaccurate measurement could lead to weaker bonding, even if the epoxy cures, but my money would be on that failed guide getting coated a little later than ideal in the work time window.

-J