Bob asked me a while back to do a quick how-to on clear wraps, so here it is!

First, for completely clear wraps, wrap the guides using white silk. Other colors will go transparent as well, but colored!. I usually use Pearsall's Gossamer as I like how it wraps and packs, but YLI or Gudebrod should work fine. Wrap with moderate or lighter tension. Once everything is wrapped to your liking, mix together 1.5cc of each part of some Flex Coat Lite and about the same amount of Acetone. Mix thoroghly. Once mixed the solution should be the consistency of water.


Now, take a small fly tying bodkin and dip it into the FC mixture. Wipe a small amount onto the wrap just in front of the end of the guide foot. The silk will begin to go transparent.


Work the drop of FC back towards the guide loop, adding more mixture if necessary. You'll want it to be pretty thick. What you are doing is chasing all the air out from under the guide foot.

Sometimes a bubble will show up no matter how careful you are. Don't worry about that right now, we'll deal with those shortly.


Once the foot area is soaked, work your way around the wrap until all the silk is coated. Continue on to the next wrap.


Once you finish all the wraps, go back to the first and wipe off any excess using your finger tip. Apply a second coat. This will eliminate the last of the tiny bubbles and shimmers.

If you have any bubbles under the guide feet at this point, take a small tube (a coffee stir stick or a piece of shrink tubing from a braided loop connector work great). Press this over the bubble and gently suck. If you get a good seal around the bubble, the air will be drawn out and replaced with FC mixture.


Let the wraps set for 15 minutes or so then wipe off any excess finish. Let the rod rest horizontally with the guides facing down overnight. If you don't let it dry horizontally the FC mixture will run from under the guide feet leaving bubbles and finish on the blank. Resting it with the guide feet down will allow the FC to flow into the space between the guide feet and wraps and drive out any additional bubbles as the FC dries.

It'll take the FC two days or so to thoroughly cure as the acetone slows things down considerably.

Once dry, continue finishing as normal. Easy! Works good on both graphite and bamboo.

The end result:

WOW! You da man.
Excellant as always Chris. Maybe I should try transparent so my tag ends don't show . Next project I'll be reviewing this (clear wraps-green tipping).

Thanks again

Where do you buy Acetone?

Bob

Thanks Brian

Bob

Anybody every try this on a graphite rod? I think I may give it a whirl for the next rod that I build.

Works just fine Will! I did transparent wraps on the Swap rod (this is after the FC/acetone but before the finish coat of FC):

Is that silk thread or just regular thread?

chris, you said swap rod, do you mean fund raiser rod?

Oops. You're right the fundraiser rod, not the swap rod.

Will,

It is white Gossamer silk just like I use for bamboo rods (with glow-in-the-dark tipping ).

Chris,

Acetone is pretty obnoxious stuff, and can eat away the coatings on graphite rods in a big hurry. My booth was next to Roger Seidler's (Flex-Coat Owner) at the Roud Builder's Guild Conclave a few years ago. Roger was using denatured alcohol to thin his epoxy rather than acetone at that time. I've tried it, and it works quite well.

Might be worth considering.

Harry

Hummmm denatured alcohol
I have some of that

Thanks
Bob

The 2 graphite rods that I did clear wraps on seem to be holding up fine, but as I've seen Acetone do some scary things, I'll definitely give the alcohol suggestion a go. Thanks Harry!

Chris,

What are you using to wipe the excess finish off the wraps?

Mark

My finger.

Carlin,

"It is white Gossamer silk just like I use for bamboo rods (with glow-in-the-dark tipping )." : Carlin



Hey, Hey, Hey! Holding out on us? Where does one buy Glow in the dark thread for tipping?


Toddfather

I picked up two spools on eBay a while back. In natural light, one is light blue and the other is yellow/green, but they both glow green. The thread is slightly finer than nylon size A. I could be talked out of a spool or two if you want some.

I think it is the same as this stuff, though it came on a bigger spool:
http://search.ebay.com/glow-thread_Fishing...QfsopZ2QQfsooZ2

After getting a great email from a gentleman with a congenial warning about messing around in epoxy and acetone with my fingers, I think I'll be switching over to using a spatula or piece of cane to wipe off the excess.

Here is one more pic of a transparent wrap on a rod that I just finished. The colored wrap is acutally a purpleish color done with YLI 100.

Chris, may I borrow that photo? It'll be an example of modern (perfect) wrap...

I'm flattered Pekka. You're welcome to use it.

This transparent wraps looking great Carlin!! But what kind of varnish do you use one your bamboo blanks? I always varnishing my bamboo blanks before I wrap them and then varnish the wraps. For blanks and windings I use Epifanes a oil basted varnish. I think this kind of varnish will not work with epoxy thinned with acetone or denatured alcohol.
Olaf

Thanks Olaf! I can't say for sure how the FC mixture would work over a full coat of standard varnish. I do seal my blanks with a mixture of Mike's Stuff immediately after sanding and have had no problems, but more than that I don't know for certain.

I'd suggest giving it a try on a test section or a part of the blank that won't be seen like under the grip.

Olaf,

I'm only 5 months late replying here, but the FC Lite will work quite well over either spar varnish or polyurethane.

Harry

I've made my first transparent wraps on an old Ebisa rod and put some pics on a Dutch forum. Almost immediately i got an e-mail about the risc of acetone in combination with the glue used to build the rod. Personally i think this risc is a bit exagerated, after all, if so, what happens? No splitting, since it happens under a wrap. Loss of strength? maybe, but then the acetone would have to penetrate the glue line quite a bit, besides the glue would be replaced by an epoxy layer.

Has any of you had problems with some kinds of glue in combination with epoxy/acetone?

Karel

I recently did an all epoxy guide wrap. No thread. It's basically the same effect as the old school transparent thread wraps. With the strength of modern epoxies, it's solid if it's done well. The guide frame will give out before the epoxy if it really came down to an all out tug of war test..

Man, way to leave me hanging goobie! Care to share your technique or any tips so we have an idea how it you did your threadless wraps?

heh heh.

a few secret jedi tricks but mostly clear hotmelt glue. At least that's how i did it.

I affixed each of the guides with the clear'ish hobby/craft type hotmelt stick which is weaker and it doens't take much to knock it off, but it is more clear which i what i think this needs.. The hardest part was, of course, lining up the guides without the thread holding it which normally allows for all that adjusting. So on this rod, most of my time was spent lining up the guides because there is no way to make adjustments after the finish is put on. It was a 7' bass rod with 9 guides +tip so there was a lot of heating and reheating the hotmelt. When i was happy with the alignment, i scraped the excess hotmelt off the blank and brushed on nice heavy bands of high build finish. It's probably best to not do any foot dressing to the show-side because it gets a little ugly but i guess this is up to you.

Hi Carlin

If a wrap can be made transparent does this mean that the wraps can be far from perfect ? If you cant see em you don't know if they are good or bad, right ??

Titus

In a way, yes. You would still have to fill in the gaps with something or other to level the thread, but you definitely won't notice smaller flaws like a few loose or open wraps or a slightly protruding guide foot tip.

Welcome to the forum Titus! Is that a pike in your avatar? If so, that is a monster!

I'm restoring an old "cheap" boo that is going to be used as a wall hanger at a shop. This is the first boo I've worked on. I'm starting from scratch. This was a kit rod and was not built to well. I've stripped everything off and just attached the ferules. Before I go any further, do you think I could touch up the blanks with spray SU, wrap everything, then finish my wraps with flex coat similar to what you've done? Also, after your first wraps dry, how do you put the finishing coat of finish on? Do you dip the blank or just use a finish like flex coat and finish the wraps like you would on a graphite rod?

Hey Chris,
Does this work just as well if i am using spar urethane that has been cut? Also, what happens if you wrap the silk too tight? Will lines show through?

thanks

Hi - Advice please. I have been given some U-40 LS Supreme Dura Gloss. The Resin R Compound has thickened up slightly such that I cannot draw it up into the measuring syringe. Firstly, should this have been kept in a fridge to prevent it thickening up,secondly is there any way to thin the resin without screwing it up.
This will be the first time I have used resin to cover the wraps.
Thanks

Someone told me that they heat it up in the microwave. I don't have one so I put the jar into some warm water. Worked great.

Thanks - Heated it up in hot water and it thinned down great.

Thanks to the guys who got the forum up and running again

Hi chris,

do you use 1,5cc Flexcoat A + 1,5cc Flexcoat B + 1,5cc Aceton or 3,00cc Aceton for the mixture?

When i made clear wraps with an decorated wrap with indian ink ( Tusche ) whats happend with the indian ink ...Blur it?



Many thanks

Bastl

Hi Bastl,


Yes.


I do not know. I have never used the Flexcoat mixture over indian ink. I would suggest trying a test wrap and see what happens.

Hi Chris,

thanks for the fast info

I would olso test with indian ink.. than i would tell you!

>> Very nice homepage !!

Bastl

Hi Chris,

your technik works wonderful... olso with indian ink


Thanks

Sebastian

Help,

What happened to ten days after you apply the formula referred to Flexcoat have not yet dried rings wrappers?
Thanks.
X

X,

When rod finish epoxies do not dry correctly, 99.9% of the time it is due to a mixing error. You must be very precise in measuring the resin and hardener. Mix thoroughly, for at least 120 seconds.

Harry

Thanks Harry,

this afternoon will try to be more precise with the mix and expand the mixing time. Suspected that the problem was there but perhaps also expect someone tells me a magic recipe.

Think this technique would work with white nylon thread? The nylon thread certainly seems to go pretty translucent with the finish..

Ken

Ken,

I think others report using nylon with success. I can't see why it wouldn't work, but haven't used enough nylon in the last 12-15 years to know.

Harry

Give it a try Ken, but when I tried it the wraps came out kind of milky.

Mike

Perhaps it helps... here I´ve got two old pics with white nylon thread. I think I took FC mixed with Aceton but the wraps came out milky like mike said.




friedrich

Thanks Friedrich! Those pics really help!

I think if I use nylon I will stick to coloured thread.

Ken

I've had best results with clear wraps with YLI Natural, and Flex Coat Lite thinned with alcohol. I just finished a rod that I tried YLI white with Diamondite on it, it looked greaqt in the wrapping room under artificial lite, clear as water, took it out in the sun and the clear wraps all showed a blueish/white tint, looked like crap, had to re wrap the whole thing. The only problem is finding Natural, I got it from Pinetree Quiltworks, but they seem to be gone now, I'll have to try some other sewing sites for it.
john