I am restoring an old rod with a chipped white surface coat. In a few places I can see down to the bare blank, in others it is only a few layers scraped and scratched off. There seems to be a few layers as it has been redone a couple times. Should I try sanding the whole blank down to the bare blank or just smooth out the deepest places?

James,
Normally when redoing a blank, I generally remove all of the finish.

Use citrus stipper to remove the fnish. Apply the stripper, let it sit for several hours and then use a straight edged razor blade held at 90 degrees to the blank and scrape the finish off. Do not use the blade at a lesser angle to try to cut off the finish or you will likely cut into the fiber of the rod.

If you happen to get into a tough spot, you can use a bit of heat to further soften the finish to scrape it off. BUT go GENTLY with the heat. Too much heat will destroy the resin in the rod blank and destroy the rod.

When 90% of the finish has been scraped off, I use wet and dry sand paper used wet in finer and finer grades used length wise on the blank to remove the rest of the finish.

When redoing a blank like this - I prefer to leave the finish as a matt carbon or glass finish with nothing else other than a coat of wax on the finished rod.

The color does nothing for the blank except to add weight.

With no finish on the blank it can not get scraped or sanded off.

+1 to previous reply. Citrus stripper... Get all you can off. Then what I do is apply a second round of stripper and use a fairly course painters scotchbrite and sand(or whatever you call stripping with a scotchbrite pad) with the stripper still in the blank. Once the paint is gone I use 1200g wet sanding til I'm tired of sanding. I used min-wax spar urethane clear. One I did in a satin finish and one in semi-gloss. The semi-gloss looks far better than the satin. First time using that to finish a blank. First thought is its going to be too soft of a finish but as the days go by it seems to be getting much harder. I suspect in the end it'll do just fine.

when you're finished sanding all the paint off , don't re-finish it , leave it the raw graphite !