from the ground up refinish

[herefishy]

I made a banty out of my old 3 pc bamboo, and just put a grip and reel seat on another piece of rod and stuck the mid section into it just so I could try it out, and loved the feel of it. Problem is I want to refinish it now, and put new guides on it, and starting with removing the old varnish - can I just sand it off, scrape it off, or use something like Citri-stripper? I think I will just have to live with the old tip-top, but might try to heat it - is that a good idea? If there is a discussion on this somewhere that I have missed, can you point me at that? Is there an easier way to get off the old guides than just picking at the thread with a razor blade? I am anxious to get to the fun part, but have to rein myself in so I won't ruin the blank.

[clyde holmes]

fishy, you might try alchol on a rag for the finish. Takes a little work but to me its not as messy. For the wraps usually if you take a razor blade and carefully cut on the top of guide feet the rest wikk unravel pretty easy. Lookin forward to pics.

[herefishy]

Thanks for the advice Clyde, but I think I found an easier way. I tried the alcohol(denatured, I presume), but don't have the patience for that - I kind of scratched it off with a single edge razor blade, and am havingn good luck getting just the finish and not the bamboo. Gotta be extra careful, though. Pics shortly.

[cheffy]

fishy,
Make sure you go slow and keep the blade flat. You don't want to round off those corners. after you scrap buff the rod down with a 3M green pad then steel wool. Wipe it down with the alcohol and you should be reay to go.
cutting the guides off is a breeze and try some heat on the tip. even if it is epoxy the heat should pop it. While you have the rod appart. check the ferrules. make sure the cane to metal and metal to matal fit is tight. Nothing worst than redoing a rod and having the ferrules click the first time you use it

[clyde holmes]

Careful with heat! Tip tops and ferruls are lethal weapons. They can take off like a rocket

[herefishy]

Thanks for the warning, would have never given a thought to the metal parts popping off, just thought they would warm enough to pull them off. Glad to know about the green pad and steel wool. I took some "before" pics, but can't post for a while because our dsl connection got assigned to someone else when we put it on vacation hold, so having to go the library route.

[J. Marcus]

Fishy:
I would be very careful in the use of any solvents on a cane rod. Even if they don't cause it to have an immediate problem with delamination, they can sometimes weaken the glue used to hold the splines together and cause it to delaminate under stress at a later date. When I scrape the finish off of a split cane rod I use a steel bar that is about 1.5 or 2 mm thick. When I sharpen it, I am very careful to keep the corners at an exact, 90-degree angle. I then lean the steel at an angle of about 5 degrees towards the direction I am scraping. This ensures that the steel cannot, using only a reasonable amount of pressure, cut into the bamboo. The idea of using a razor blade gives me the willies! You must have been extremely careful to not have damaged the bamboo that way!

Good luck,

J. Marcus
http://www.flyrodjewelry.com

[herefishy]

The green pad worked awesome! Took the little bits of residue off like a champ, then used the grey pad, and about a jillion coats of Tru-Oil - did you know you can get that at Wal-mart? Just waiting for the right thread to start the wrapping now. Yes, indeed, I was very careful with the razor blade, and am glad I didn't use the stripper. Thanks for the advice.