My kids bought me a blank for Fathers Day--a Riffle 'glass 7' 3 wt (I got to pick it out). Because my kids are adults and pretty understanding they let me start on the rod the day *before* Fathers Day (they weren't aware that I had already turned the grip on Friday ).

So Saturday morning I shortened the reel seat insert and glued the seat and grip in place. Saturday evening, while my two daughters and son in law pulled out an old VCR and watched a $1.99 used bookstore copy of Wrath of Khan, I happily wrapped guides. After a very nice Fathers Day dinner yesterday I cleared the table and started applying finish. By midnight I had two coats on and am letting that cure before I decide if I need a third.

I haven't tried a line on the rod yet but will do that later today. So far I'm pretty pleased with it. The wraps are Candy Apple Red, Pac Bay single foot guides, cherry burl reel seat insert in a nickel silver downlocking slide ring seat. I ran out of cork rings so I made an emergency run over to the local tackle store--Barlow's Tackle--and picked up a grip for $14. It started out as a reverse half-wells but I quickly turned it into a modified cigar. The cork is surprisingly good quality considering the price.

I used the Klass Kote that Don gave me for the wraps. It has an extremely long pot life and is much nicer to work with than Flex Coat. The only issue I had was I had used a black enamel paint pen for the inscription and even though it had dried for 24 hours the Klass Kote totally liquified the paint--something that Flex Coat doesn't do. I quickly grabbed some thinner and was able to get all the inscription off without screwing up the surrounding wraps. That's why you see nice bordering wraps but no inscription



The "measure wrap" at 16" to keep me honest

Thanks J! I'm not sure what Phil charges because I've purchased the "kit" both times. For $50 you get the reel seat, guides, grip, winding check, etc. The grip he sent worked great for the 5'10" but it looked a little small on the 7' rod so I didn't use it. This time I also saved the snake guides that came in Phil's kit and used some single-foots I already had.

BTW, Phil lists the weight of the 7' blank as 1.1 oz, but it's actually 1.75 oz. One of the reasons I shy away from fiberglass is because of the heft. This 7' is about as heavy as I want to go in a UL rod--it came in at 2.9 oz.

Did you go with the third coat? The first 2 should be completely dry overnight. KK is great stuff, but you have to hold your tongue just right to get that poured look with only 2 coats. You can easily see and sometime feel the thread weave underneath 2 coats. So while protected, it doesn't have that candy coated look of epoxy until a third and fourth coat of KK. If you started in the morning, I'll bet you could get all 3 coats from the same pot. Careful not to overthin though, it needs more viscosity than varnish to work correctly. Don

If the nub is really big, mask off all but the tip of a razor blade and cut it off. Careful though, you only have a very thin coat over those wraps and slicing into them is worse than a nub. By the way, didn't you learn how to wrap without leaving nubs? LOL.

I might as well let you in on the secret. The easiest way to avoid a nub is to bring the pull through up to the edge of the wrap, snip the thread as close as possible and pull the short tag completely under. Your pull through should go down as soon as you wrap onto the toe of the foot to give you enough wrap to trap the tag completely. However, if you pull alongside the guidefoot, there will not be enough tension to hold the tag. So, you can pull the tag completely out of the wrap, burnish the threads, then pull the tag straight toward you with pretty firm pressure, the rod being held firmly by the wrapping stand. Then get some tiny bladed scissors and snip the tag flush with the wrap under the tension you applied. The little tag will recoil under the wrap if all goes well.

If it does not disappear completely and if using KK or varnish, let the first coat dry about 30 minutes until sticky. Take your plastic palette knife and press the tag flat onto the sticky surface. You will need that darn loupe to see if it is flat. You can only do this with the first coat as after that the tag stays up until cut off.

With single foot guides you should take 1 1/2 turns in front of the guide, if you can. This puts much more pressure on the tag and blocks the tunnel at the same time. Don

Don, here's a closeup of one of the wraps. I don't think I want to go with another coat--it's kind of hard to tell from the photo but you can see the contour of the individual threads which looks kind of cool. More like varnish than epoxy. There are nubs here and there but none are very bad.

That is one pretty rod...I especially like the contrast of the cherry wraps to the blank....Nice Job...one heck of a nice Father's
Day gift that not only will the gift last for years so will the memories it supplies....Rob

See it now. You can go either way. The Just Enough or another coat. I have done it both ways, but almost always add that extra coat. Smooth, but you can see the individual thread turns underneath. It is called the "warp". I looked it up. Don

You need to do an unbiased review on the Klass Kote as it is a bit of a dark horse and one of the easiest finishes out there. I think it was formerly marketed as Hobby-Poxy and its biggest virtue was that it was impervious to small engine fuel for model planes and cars. This project turned out much nicer than your epoxy wraps. 1st coat to fishing in 12 hours. Can't beat that. I like the color combo you selected too. Don

Don your going have to give a KK tutorial. I'm starting to have an interest in this stuff.

J.

Beautiful.

I think all the elements blend so well, and the shaped seat insert is dynamite. Well done.