Kansas and Oklahoma had one of those 100-mile-long garage sales and I picked up some stuff today. One item is this glass rod with no name. I bought it in a bundle with four bamboo rods - $42 for the lot. So, about $8.50 in each. Anyway, cannot find any markings on this - any ideas?



Also picked this one up for $5. figured it'd be good to learn how to remove a reel seat, install new cork, and then install the real seat back on. for $5 I'll use it as a student.

Ya, I didn't see either one as a gem, but something to practice and play around with. The Yellow one (picture won't zoom for some reason) but it is a Great Lakes 55185 and the bottom half of the cork handle has been chewed on by a mouse or something. So, I have been wanting to start playing around with repairing rods - I figure all of these I purchased have something to give me experience. Between these two Glass rods and the four Bamboo rods I need to replace a cork handle, ferrules, and guide and a Tip-Top eyelet that is missing - tip is not broken, the eyelet has just come off. So, I am spending a little time on the Proof Fly Fishing site and gonna give things a whirl. I mean even if I screw every one of them up, I mean, put them in the trash bad, I am only out $55. If I learn what not to do - that class is worth $55.

I believe it's brown glass, and the photo doesn't have generous light.
Harnell rods also don't show scrim wrap.
Best short-notice photo I could snag.

Okie dokie, I thought it was black from the quick glance I gave it and the wrap colors are similar to the Harnells I've had.

what is scrimp wrap?

a little harsh perhaps, still accurate and funny ;-)

I have several Fenwick blanks built by non-professionals, and the color choices on threads suggest some folk think red/yellow on black would be spiffy.. ha.

honestly as Tom says that rod isn't worth your time.. build a new rod on any one of the cheap modern glass blanks, it will be 5-10x better..

It's certainly true that whoever finished that rod didn't place much value on it and slapped it together with cheap parts or what was left over.
But, me being me, I'd probably strip that rod and rework it just because it's there, I've redone a couple of really cheaply finished rods and by moving the guide placement and usually adding a couple made petty nice casting rods out of them.
Sure you could practice wrapping and applying finish on a dowel rod or on a top of the line blank, but the dowel won't cast well and you may not have the confidence to start with even a moderately priced blank,if think it might be ruined. With that blank, you first get to practice the strip and clean involved in repair or renovation, perhaps some really light and fine sand paper work and the the repainting and installation of new components, you can either just do guides or take the seat grip off too, leave the ferrules as is or remove and place with better ferrules or remove and change to spigot or sleeve, and if at any time a major disaster occurs, you can still salvage all the new hardware components for use on another blank.
And personally I'd use spar varnish or spar urethane for wrap finish rather than epoxy, but that is something you can play with on these kind of recycled blanks too.
It's a playground, have fun.
all your how to questions are asked and answered in this old thread viewtopic.php?f=6&t=38734

And I thought I knew all of the one liners. Good one.