Hello, I have never tried marbling a rod before but am looking to start making some attempts. I have looked at some youtube videos but they are all on marbling small sections with many colors. I am looking to marble 4' section of an xh saltwater rod. I want a two tone with a color and black. The rod blank I will be marbling will be black, so am I able to marble just a single color over the black rod blank to get a good mix between black and the color? If so how would I go about applying the colored epoxy over that large of a section and getting an equal colors throughout the section of rod?

take your red pigment and mix it in to some finish and apply a thin coat of the colored mix with a spatula so it doesn't have brush streaks then place the rod in your drier and let it cure over night the next day apply a final coat of clear finish and it should be what your trying to achieve.

The best day to be alive is always tomorrow !!
Think out side the box when all else fails !!!
Wi.

The size of the section and how many colors you use aren't important in the general scheme of things, the unification of the pattern is something you'll have to eyeball for yourself, you have more time to do this than you probably realize, many think you have to rush things with epoxy when your starting out. I've really never seen a bad marble job, they all seem to have their strong points when you look at them.
You can practice on a piece of painted dowel, etc. till you feel comfortable with what you're doing on the rod if you like, no need to just wade in.
Hope this helps.

I have done marbling on my rods I have made but nothing nearly that large of a section. Some of them came out quite well, while others not so much. Mixing the pigment with epoxy is the way to go. Wait at least a day after marbling to then add a pigment free layer of epoxy afterwards.

Thanks for the guidance! If I paint the tip of the rod for higher visibility would I be better to put a urethane clear coat paint over the tip or could I just extend the clear epoxy to protect that paint?

Zach,
If you want the tip to be very visible, wrap the tip with neon bright thread in the color of your choice.
A florescent orange, pink, silver, or gold make excellent high vis tips. After wrapping with ncp thread, put on a couple of coats of thread finish and you will be good to go. I do this with all of the ice fishing rods. I also do it with rods that I plan to use a lot in dark or low light situations.

Good luck

Zack If you want a bright tip or have it glow you can purchase glow powder paint for jigs and mix it in to clear finish and apply it and you good to go and you save a bit on the weight on the rod tip

The best day to be alive is always tomorrow !!
Think out side the box when all else fails !!!
Wi.

That sounds more or less like what I'm looking to accomplish Matt. I'm not really worried about the weight as it is an XH rod and another foot worth of epoxy wouldn't be significant in my mind once 4' of the rod is marbled. I figured it would be easier to just extend the 2nd coat of epoxy to the tip rather than apply a second type of coating but was uncertain if that would hold up under flexing.

Epoxy is the worst thing you can put on the complete rod, it doesn't flex well and will peel and flake off over time, virtually anything is better than epoxy.

I figured that may be the case.. I had just seen shark rods like the Barrett rods and thought it would be cool to try and build a rod that was fully marbled like one of those. Except this is an 8' rod not a short shark rod.