I have an old St. Croix bait caster medium heavy dark green 6ft. 8" or so. A friend made it for me over 20 years ago and all the eyes are lose and spaced like they did back in the day, I am not a stranger to building new rods as I have built about 20 including an SCV spinning bass rod that I just finished and love. I remember how sensitive this rod was for jigs and pigs and have time on my hands.

However this is my first resto project and I would like help with the following.

1. Is it worth it? I do have plenty of extra Fuji guides alconite on hand.

2. What is the best way to take the old threads and epoxy off with the least damage to the reel.

3. The guides was wrapped with excessive thread lengths and I wrap with shorter ones as we do today. For strength and cosmetic value should I wrap the length of the old length and do and overlap to secure the guides with the smaller thread and epoxy lengths that I desire? Never have done and overwrap. Do you completely epoxy the first wrap before putting the second wrap over it with guides or not?

4. the handle is a solid grip cork that is dried out but the bones are still good. Thanking of covering with wynn grip or spiral and glue a small rope around handle and put heat shrink tape over it.

I have already figure out the guides and distance that I want to go with but would appreciate tips on the above as this seems like a doable project.

Thanks!