Glass Help Please

[Wednesday Caster]

Got a superb deal this week...in good order a Higgins 9' boo and an 8'3" Heddon Pal 8306 Mark-1 glass rod- both for $20. I'm gonna switch and try some glass work. The Pal has red paint(?) and is well wrapped with 11 guides, 1 strip and tip. Looks like a previous owner added about 5 more guides because those areas were scraped to blank (tan color)and guides wrapped. I'm asking your help on:
1. How to remove all the red paint/coating?
2. What paint (and method: spray/brush) for the new coat.
3. Is epoxy or poly-u used to coat guide wraps on glass rods?
4. #8306 = 8'3" 6#?
Thanks for your help.

[dleo6446]

well, once agian Quinn you will get a host of answers to your questions, and I will share with you what I did on a Heddon Pal restoration for a collector about 2 years ago.

The old paint was a real pain to get off, but with a little elbow grease and some citrus stripper, I finally got all of it off without using any abrasives at all other than a sponge which created just enough friction with the citrus stripper on the glass that it went pretty quick. I washed it down pretty well with thinner thebn cleaned it with denatured alcohol. and went to work doing the restoration.

On painting the fiberglass, what works really well is the automotive grade paint at Auto stores and it is available in hundreds of colors. I would definitely spray it on.

the older glass rods wraps were finished in varnish, newer rodmakers are using epoxy, on the Heddon Pal, I would definitely use the varnish, keep her looking close to original as possible.

[Wednesday Caster]

Leo,
Thanks for your help AGAIN! My final approach was using acetone. Wife is gonna be pretty mad, but it removed all paint (even pink stains) from the blonde blank. I'm thinking now to keep it blonde. What would you use for a cover coat and application? Spray also?

[dleo6446]

oh man, that Acetone can be some deadly stuff, I used it on my boat yesterday. Took off a lot of stuff that had built up there for a while.

I would spray that thing. You should be able to find that honey colored paint, and I would use that. On the one I did, it was an original Pal in the old Phillipson style blank, reddish brown with the spiral unsanded look to it. sure did turn out nice with a couple of dips in Spar.

LD

[Wednesday Caster]

Leo,
I did not phrase my question properly. If I wanted to cover the creamy color of the raw fiberglass, what should I use to cover- spray polyU?
Thanks

[dleo6446]

Hey Quinn, you could do that but I would stay with a spar varnish or a wipe on finish, I dipped that one that I did but it was built on a phillipson blank or very similar to one. I have two of those blanks to build out now.

As much as you are getting into rod building and restorations, why don't you go ahead and build you a dip tube. It isn't that difficult or expensive and the results will amaze you.

[Wednesday Caster]

You are right. I should have done a tube months ago but we are moving in less than a year and have not had the desire to add anything to the garage when I've gotta take it down soon. Wife's got a list of things to do for the sale of our home to add.
Do you have a picture of yours or a link of to make one? How do you deal with storing the varnish in the tube?

[dleo6446]

mine is very simple but very effective and is patterened after one I saw at rodbuilding.org. I have a 5 gal bucket filled half way with sand and in the center of the bucket, is the 48" 1 1/4" PVC tube that is capped on the lower end and has a screw on tip for the upper end. I have a retraction motor that is variable speed that will withdraw the section being dipped at the desired rate. Most people will withdraw the section at a rate of about 1 -2" per minute. When not in use, the dip tube is stored in my drying cabinet, all sealed nice and tight so the varnish does not cure from air exposure. Total cost to set it up was around $30 including the tube the support hardware the bucket and the sand. I have plans of building a much more sophisticated one now that I will be doing a lot of rods.

[Wednesday Caster]

Wow that sounds pretty easy to set up as I've made the nuclear strength rod tubes from similar black pvc. Are you using the white or black tubes (does it matter)?

[Wednesday Caster]

Here's a picture of the glass rod I'm working on. The black and white sticker was well knicked up so I used a Sharpie to cover some of the knicks/scratches, covered the rod with 2 coats, and then wrapped with thread to match. Still have to wrap the guides and ferrules. Note I finally got the wrapper rigged so that I don't have to use the tea cup and phone books!!! Couldn't get the little guy away from the camera.