What are some of the worst places you've gotten glue/epoxy/finish?

One time I'm installing an EVA grip, and am on my hands and kneespushing with all my might. Teh blank was on a Vinyl tile floor, and slipped. All th eRod Bond that was on the blank, brushed my beard, I didn't even notice. An hour later I go upstairs, and my wife is wodering what this white stuff is all over the side of my face. lol.

Applying finish at 200RPM, sometimes it gets thrown everywhere. Last night I was rushing, and ended up with beads of epoxy all over my fleece sweatpants & my sneakers.

Glueing the Fuji Ferruled reel seat, some glue seeped under the nut. I poued Acetone in there for an hour before it would rotate smoothly again.

Got Rod bond on teh floor, which I stepped on, and tracked all over the house. I guess teh noise which indicated my foot was sticking to the ground wasn't loud enough. Frtunately I noticed that myself and backtracked with a paper towel to clean everything up.

One day, I'm going to move my rod dryer to an upper shelf, that way I will no longer lean my @#$%* belly into a rotating rod while reaching for somthing at the back of the bench.

Regards......Doug@
TCRds

The first time I used a new syringe, I didn't realize that it was stuck when I tried to empty it into my mixing cup, pushed too hard and shot 3 cc of hardener onto the side of the cup, sending it flying. Got hardener on the desk, tools, winding equipment, blank, me, everywhere but where it's supposed to go.

sheesh...

Not long ago I had just put a rod I was particularly proud of my workmanship on, in the dryer and it had been turning for about 20 mins. My son handed my wife a school notebook to look at just as we were headed out the door. Not having time to look at it right then, she turned and kinda tossed it on the table....wrong table...landed right on the butt wrap @#$#$#% it was just tacky enough to grab the notebook and jerk the belt off the dryer.....Needless to say, I was a bit unhappy.....^*$&#^%@ LOL

HAHAHAHA - Doug - fortunately my drying box is above my bench, so I havent' been able to accomplish this feat. Hopefully someone on teh fence on whetehre to build a box, and/or where to place it - will learn from your belly.

Dave - WHOOOPS! Who would've thought 200 pounds of pressure on a syringe would make the contents explode all over the place?

Steve - that reminds me of the time my Dad went into teh attic to look at the rod I was building him (when I was working out of the attic in my parents house a few years back). The drier was on the floor, angled diagonally across the room. Apparantly, he bumped it, and the epoxy hit a blanket. The epoxy was pretty tacky at this point, and it seemed to catch EVERY piece of lint on that blanket. And the finish was pebbly from the surface of the blanket messing it up. It kind of looked like a Strawberry, with a little bit of mold, lol. Of course Dad denied touching anything.

Everyone know I blow the bubbles and excess finish out from under the feet of my guides with rubber tubing and a pen barrell. I guess now that I dont smoke any more my lung power has increased. Thus I discovered it is important to remove all tools, designs and what ever out from behind my rods when applying the finish. About every two weeks I bring out the scraper and do a proper clean up.

HELPFUL HINT. IF you still use mixing cups for your finish, pour your excess into one cup until it fills to the top. Center drill it and use it as a pusher head for marlin and sailfish. Works fantastic in Baja. Waste not want not. You can color it as you pour it in the cup.

This doesn't pertain to what I did but what happened. A few weeks ago I was trying to finish up a 8 ft Lamiglas to throw spoons and jigs with before my fall trip to the outer banks. Well it was Sunday and the Talladega race was on, it being one of my favorite races to watch I moved my dryer from my rod shop onto the dining room table so i could apply the finish and still see the race. After I finished and everything was looking really nice I migrated to the couch to watch while the rod was turning. Shortly I hear this god awful scream from our cat. I jumped up to find that our cat Misty had jumped on the table to see what this thing spinning was. Her tail layed over the butt wrap and I guess the finish was tacky enough to grab it. Well her tail was wrapped around the rod and was wound over itself like a lock. She jumped and pulled the dryer, rod and all off in the floor with her. Rod still attached to her. She was trying to make a get away and was getting nowhere fast as the rod was hung between the table and a chair. I managed to get her loose. Ended up with a rod that is standing in the corner now waiting to be stripped and several pretty good scratches on my arm. I just wish I had a video of it. I was mad as all get out at the time but it was really hilarious later.
HAGO!
Joe

Doc - could you expand on that method for removeing the epoxy web. When do you do this, right away, or after it has been turning for a few minutes? This is the one area which drives me NUTS, I hate that web, but I could never figure out how to get rid of it. Using a light epoxy makes it even worse, once it touches teh guide leg, it seemingly gets sucked up to form a nice big web.

Meow..Meow. ME.....YOUWCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! While curiosity didn't kill the cat, it sure did a good job of giving me a story to laugh at.

Great cat story....I've never had even a dabble of finish or epoxy on me, all my clothing, or anywhere else for that matter being the "neat freak" that I am...though while removing a new 32oz batch of flex coat from a cabinet above the fridge, part B slipped and did a 6 ft fall to the floor...cracked open at the bottles seams like an egg right on the hardwood floor.

Due to hype on a "new finish" and how "spectacular" it is, I bought a 32oz kit of it, must've been a bad batch because it never set up on a rod, part B in both bottles I think. Whipped them out back into 4 ft of snow ( had to pick them up three months later)....that product &%$#'s!!! I'll never use it again.

If they were both Part B, they would've both turned Brown. Sorta like when Micheal steps in some of Thor's special presents. lol.

Sure Billy, I will TRY to give you the short course of how Doc Ski applies and smoothes finish. DISCLAIMER "The following method works for me and is not meant to be inferred as the ONLY way to do it. As a matter of fact some cant get good results this way" Hope that works. First off I use Flex Coat and thin the first coat with acetone. I mix in a medicine cup with a brush. Not all that gently either. Right Nacho?(he had a heart attack watching me) I apply the finish with the brush while turning the rod by hand. Once I have applied the finish on about half the thread work I heat the finish with an Alcohol lamp which pops some bubbles and makes the finish more liquid and flow around easier. I then pick up my version of a straw(6" of rubber tubing with a pen barrel stuck in the end. First time through I am petty forcefull trying to do three things. #1 blow finish under the thread where the foot of the guide goes under. #2 re distribute the excess finish onto the wraps. #3 blow out ecess bubbles. After doing that to this portion of finishing. I go back and add some more finish to each wrap and do the same procedure again but not quite as forceful but forceful enought to keep the finish from getting too thick around the foot of the guide(I guess you call that a web).
Things of special note. This also works well on weaves and especially good for open crosswraps where sometimes a bubble shows up at the points. IF you thin your first coat the bubbles dont pop quite as easy. Dont spit in the rubber tubing, shake it out frequently. On a full stenght coat if you use this method to pop bubbles all you need to do is blow gently, to test what I say - mix finish in a cup vigarously, wait and let the bubbles come to the surface the just exhale slowly and gently and watch the bubbles pop like crazy. Also this little trick works good to force CP(if you use it) under the thread at the foot of the guide and pop the bubbles you might get in the CP in that area. Well I think that is the short version.

Michael here is my changing finish story from @#$%&. At our largest sport show of the year (Fred Hall) I was approached by a finish company who knew I used nothing but Flex Coat. He showed me examples of his product impressive. He gave me a 32 oz kit. I still had a lot of Flex Coat left and used it until just before the same show the following year. I was contracted to build a TOTALLY TRICK set of rods for Tiburon Engineering for them to put their products on and show off their products. I did 6 rods that were absolutely fabulous and worth a fortune and had a bunch of hours of decorative thread work done on a black and gold theme on the flat wrapping. I did them all with this new companies CP and finish. I was pretty proud of them. Delivered them to the Owner of Tiburnon at the show and went back to my booth. About 5 hours later he came back to me and informed me that he was @#$%& that I used dark gray vs black. Of course I thought he was nuts. I compared them with another rod I had done a week earlier and sure enough compared to my other rod they looked hazy enough to be a very dark gray. The reason I didnt pick it up is because I did all those rods in one batch right at the end and with the new finish and they all looked right under the house lights and nothing from the flex coat to campare them against. That is part of the reason I dont fix something that isnt broken. Now I test new products against the old with several different color threads and then look at them under different lighting situations from outside to different types of inside lighting.

Sorry to be so long winded guys.

Much appreciated. I will give this a shot on my guide wraps and see if I can figure something out. I also whip my epoxy to a Froth, then apply it with a brush to introduce more bubbles. Once the Propane torch is passed under it, all these bubbles are popped, adn eveythign somewwaht levels out (some finishes are MUCH better than others).

I hate coming upstairs after applying finish, or better yet installing a grip - and eating a finger food. The taste of Resin, or Hardener, or maybe Acetone or Denatured Alcohol ruins a good Oreo or Cheese Puff.

Doc said "Everyone knows I blow the bubbles and excess finish from under the feet of my guides with rubber tubing and a pen barrell"....................NOT EVERYBODY!!! Thanks for that tip, I'll give it a go next mix..... I hate those web things and gave up trying to get rid of them a while ago. (better to be long winded than have no wind at all)

I'm a walking disaster with glue. Since switching to rod bond I've saved a lot of carpeting, pants and shoes from puddles, but I still manage to get the stuff all over myself. No matter how careful I am, no matter how much I tape "handholds" on a blank, it slips or moves and I grab the glued section and by the time a handle assembly is finished, I've managed to scratch my nose, run my hands through my hair, pick up a coffee cup (to be handled again after I wash up, starting it all over again), etc. Incredibly, if I'm wearing an apron, I never wipe my hands on it. If I am still wearing work clothes though, I always wind up wiping my hands on my slacks and ruining them. Maybe it's the fumes, but the moment I open a bottle of glue, I temporarily lose 100 IQ points.

Case in point; Last week I discovered that when gluing up checkerboard rings with gorilla glue, it is not wise to lay them flat and forget about them. I temporarily forgot how much that stuff expands out. I had to spend a lot of time chiseling the rings off my file cabinet, though it did give me the opportunity to invent a few new cuss words.

Great stories here. Love the cat ones. Nice to know I am not the only one with furry assistants who ruin more than they help!

Neat tip, Doc. Never heard of anybody doing that and I'm going to give it a go also and see if I like it.

Still laughing over the cat. Glad to hear I'm not the only one to have trouble, half of my shirts have epoxy from leaning over to get something from the shelf above my rod dryer. Most of my blue jeans have epoxy patches from mixing and being a clutz. The invention of Rod Bond has been a great boon. My work bench is half fiberglass rosin and the other half true oil finished. The wood floor on my shop is half finished with tru oil and I'm thinking of just finishing the job, it might look real good with a complete coat of true oil on it. That way at least when I spill it next time I can just blend it in. Appreciate the humor from all, helps to make your day.

Let's just say that before I break out the glue or epoxy, I make sure that I have an ample supply of paper towel close by. No matter how neat I try to be I wind up with it everywhere I don't want it. I have had to go around the floor (lamintated) with a plastic putty knife and scrape off all the little bumps on the floor from the Flex Coat (good thing the wifey never seen them).

The cat story killed me.

All these stories have made me feel much better.
There's me thinking that the world is populated with rod building gods, and I'm the only clumsy one!!