While at the Denver Fly Fishing Show last Saturday, I got a chance to talk with Brian of Clear Cure Goo. A while back, he had been working on a version of CCG to use as a rod finish but had set it aside for a while. After I talked with him a bit, he handed me a setup to try out. Over the last 2 or 3 days, I have done some experimenting with this and it shows promise. There are some issues to work out and I am not really sure if it is my technique or a problem with the product but I wanted to let you folks in on what I have found so far.


Here is the setup. LED UV flashlight for curing and a 15 ml bottle of CCG Hydro. The bottle has an application brush in the cap that works just fine for our purposes.





The first wraps I am going to show you were done without CP and without a turner or dryer. After doing these, I did use a turner and like the results better. The first picture has bright yellow green Prowrap nylon and the second is white silk. As you can see, the Hydro does not penetrate the thread quite like varnish or other common rod finishes. I am not sure if this is due to not letting it have time to penetrate or not. I applied finish and cured with the UV flashlight. 3 coats, about 2 minutes total time. Yep. 2 minutes for a finished and cured wrap.








The next picture shows wraps of olive Gudebrod with bronze metallic tipping. This was done on a turner. Finish was applied and I moved to another wrap, allowing the finish time to penetrate and level before curing. The CCG Hydro is very thin and watery in consistency but takes very little to do the job. This is 2 coats. I cured a bit longer, too. I still need to work on application technique a bit. With the prduct being so thin and watery, it is easy to get too much on as can be seen where the guide starts to rise from the blank. Penetration was much more even as was the resulting color.





One adverse thing I am noticing is that the wrap has a bit of an oily feel to it after curing. Brian said to let it set for 2 or 3 hours and that would go away, but that isn't happening for me. The Hydro is supposed to be a tack free product according to the CCG website. On other product that is not tack free, it is suggested to either wipe the stuff down with a bit of alcohol or top coat with Sally Hanson's Hard As Nails. I wiped the wraps above with alcohol between coats and it seemed to take almost all of the oily feel away. As you can see, I had a bit of a lint problem but that can easily be worked out and prevented. I have yet to see what a day in the sun will do for curing, too.


I have done the one section on this rod so far. As I said, there is technique to be worked out but I see promise to this.