Today while finishing up my Seeker 1056 Great Lakes Trolling rod build I had a freak power outage while turning the long tip section, I was about 2 hours into the cure cycle on the Flex Coat High Build epoxy. I admit it, I panicked. I feverishly tried to convert over to hand turning by re-arranging my drying box set up, well it did not work out so well in the dark, and i ended up bumping the very middle guide on something and smearing the epoxy all to heck.

So I would like to know two things:

1. Should I sand the guide and go for a third coat or should I strip the guide and completely start over on that guide. Any reccommendations on this?

2. Anyone else have any power outage stories?

A delivery truck ended up knocking out my power pole, almost broke it in half. In less than two hours a brand new pole was brought in and power restored, im impressed.

Well, you can always try a little sanding and a third coat of epoxy. If that doesn't work you still have the option to strip, rewrap and refinish. It's only one guide.

..............

Has anyone else had a power outage while rod building?

Did you panick?

Epoxy is still very difficult for me, I still have a bit of nervousness when applying it, so anything that goes wrong just affects me even more. I am getting better slowly.

If I had actually used my brain I could have avoided this whole issue. What i should have done was went over to the drying motor and back off the tip section off its masking tape arbor near the female end, and then it would have been converted to a hand turner, instead I panicked and tried to re-invent the wheel, and just made things worse.

It is just one guide though, I guess I can live with that.

sand it an do it again new coat , you can cut the big lumps an sand the small ones or remove it all an re wrap like suggested above

William Sidney
AK

As someone that has never used any sort of turning device on my custom rods, you need to relax a bit and realize that even a power failure isn't going to spoil the epoxy. At least if you're aware it's happened.

..................

Any time that I have ever had something go wrong with a dryer - a few times, I always remove the guide and associated junk, rewrap, refinish and redry.

Good luck

Depending on how bad it messed up
Scoff the lombs carefull not to go into the thread Another coat and it should flow out and look good Nail files work well Can be split in two if to thick

I used to get excited about everything Now O Well Things happen Just relax and think of how can I fix this
Took a rod off the dryer to early Stood it up Well the finish saged nicely Took nail files sanded it down Took a while another coat came out nice

Bill - willierods.com

In an emergency you could use a cordless drill. Attach the butt end to the chuck and then wrap a ziptie around the trigger. SLOWLY tighten until it just starts moving.

If it had been two hours it might have been set enough to do fine. Although sticky it should have pretty well set as far as sags go?

The finish was barely starting to set and it was still very sticky when the error occured.

I cutt off the epoxy that was making the small hills and then I recoated the wrap today, it looks good.

The main problem was the small hairs that the epoxy picked up when the wrap brushed against the rod support, I dont have a roller system yet, just felt covered supports.

Once that cures all I have to do is add a small plug to the male section to keep out moisture and debris, then the rod is done.

This rod was a lot of work and some unique challenges cropped up, the Seeker 1056 blank arrived with very deep sratches just below the male furrel. This has happened to me on 3 different seeker blanks from two different vendors and always the scratches in the same area. I ended up re coating the blank Skip Morris style with two very thin coats of Polyurethane, That process took quite awhile but the rod blank looks very nice now. I also had to build a custom tapered reamer to ream out the foregrip wich was very large ID and that took time as well. A brand new 6501 C3 will go on this rod.

Hope to have it out in a few weeks.

Hello Jason.

I live out in the woods and the power has gone off many times, so I just start to turn the rod (motor and all) every few minutes just like I did before I got a lathe or dryer, just turn the motor by hand every time it looks like it is starting to sag or once every 10 minutes (if I don't notice a sag) until completely sure that it won't sag.

Tight Wraps.

Bob,

New Bern, NC.

I have plans to buy one of those cheap computer battery back-ups. I think it would solve all of the possible power failure issues. Right now, I won't coat a rod if there are storms in the area.

Had a dryer motor die on me. Had a couple of rods with wet epoxy (so I was freaking...rare time I was building for someone else and had a due date). Had no choice but to turn both (at the same time) by hand. Actually think they came out better than when turned by dryer. Maybe our host Tom is on to something:)

Russ in Hollywood, FL.

If the epoxy ran outside of your desired wrap area or onto the guide, then cut it off, clean it up and redo it. If it's more like you dragged partially hardened finish into a big glob and the blank and guide foot is clean, then i'd try for a repair first.

I would use a set of snips to trim 1/2 of a dual edge shaving razor so it fits into an exacto knife handle. They are much sharper and thinner than exacto or single edge blades. Cut away high spots and then carefully shave the finish down close to the thread. As long as you don't knick the thread you should be good. It doesn't have to be perfect, just get the high spots knocked down. Then recoat and you should be good.

If you nick the thread, you can always strip it and redo.

I don't like sanding small areas like this, especially if some of the thread is bare of finish. It's difficult to sand in such small detailed areas. You run the risk of scratching the blank or the guide with the edge of the sandpaper or fraying exposed thread. A blank or guide scratch are more serious and permanent than nicking your thread and having to re wrap.