First off let me thank you all in advance for sharing your experiences and patience with me. I'm about to take my second retirement and wanted to try rod building to occupy my spare time.

Now for my "Rookie Question": I have an older Allstar rod that the clear coating is coming off all up and down the rod. Some places it's just flaking off. Really weird cause I have another identical rod that still looks as good as new.Should I remove the guides, sand it down and start all over again or is there another option??


Thanks

It is hard to make spot repairs in these type cases, and overcoating everything usually results in the new coating just peeling up as the old one continues to lift and flake away.

If you really want to make the rod look good as new, then yes, strip it down and remove the rest of the old coating by scraping or light duty chemical peel, and refinish. It is also possible to refinished between the current guide wraps if you don't want to have to do a total rewrap of the rod.

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You mention using a chemical to remove the old finish. Which is better chemical or sanding?? In any case I will prolly remove the guides and completely rebuild the rod to make it look good cosmetically.

Sanding can damage the blank. There is little margin for error in modern graphite rod blanks. I'd use something like Citristrip, although you may find that the old finish can be scraped off without much trouble.

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Ed,
That is what I would do. i.e. remove the guides, remove the finish by either sanding, citri strip, or a combination. When I sand, I generally use wet and dry in a bucket so that I can contain the water.

But for the bulk of finish removal, I just use a razor blade, held perpendicular to the blank and scrape the finish off the rod. Also, you can take a piece of glass, and while wearing gloves use the sharp edge of glass, or another option is to use a sharp edged ceramic tille to remove the finish. Both glass and ceramic work amazingly well to remove the finish.

Good luck

I got the cork removed and found "loads" of epoxy underneath (Hood nut cracked had to replace it all). Will Citristrip remove the epoxy as well as the flaking finish??

Ed,
Doubt that the Citristrip will remove the epoxy.

But, the epoxy is easy to remove.

Take a heat gun or alcohol lamp, or butane cigarette lighter as a heat source to heat the epoxy. Combine that with a straight edges knife or a box cutter held perpendicular to the blank and epoxy. As the epoxy softens from the heat, just scrape the blank and epoxy in line with the blank and the blade held vertically. By holding the blade vertically, and scraping in the same direction as the length of the rod, you will not have to worry about the blade getting under a graphite fiber and stripping it from the rod blank.

With the right heat source you should be able to completely clean up the butt section of the rod blank is under 5 minutes.

Good luck