Varnishing wraps - oh what did I do wrong?

[skondolf]

Recently picked up a Crown bamboo fly rod off Ebay. Rod was in decent shape and fishable except for a loose ferrule on the butt end and a couple wraps that were coming unwrapped - all on the butt. So, I figure this would be a good learning experience with bamboo, varnish, etc.

Well I glued up the loose ferrule with Rodbond, purchased a quart of Man-o-war spar varnish as well as some Gudebrod nylon "classic twist" thread green/black as it closely matched the older wraps on the other rod sections. The wraps came out nicely packed and I was excited to get the varnish applied.

Took some varnish and put it in a clean glass jar with about 25% naptha to thin it some and applied the 1st coat with a fairly stiff brush and only enough to 'wet' the thread wraps.

The wraps turned almost BLACK!! No visibility of the twist. I could approximate the same look with electricians tape! I did NOT use CP.

I see pics on this board (and others) with wraps that are just beautiful and while I can understand I may not get that same level of results I can't believe my results would be so different.

I'll be cutting off these wraps and starting again but not before I figure out where I went wrong. Suggestions?