Here's some photos of one of the glass rods I built this winter. This was the "no expense spared" rod.components were:

--chrome "Snake Brand" snakes
--"Snake Brand" nickel silver agate stripping guide with yellow and amber agate
--Fenwick style modified halfwells grip
--knurled nickel silver winding check
--Struble nickel silver downlocking reel seat with amboyna burl insert
--vintage loop hook keep from Golden Witch
--Gudebrod chestnut A nylon thread
--Gudebrod metallic gold thread
--8 coats of Gudebrod rod varnish

I've got my new Bronson Royalist loaded up with a new Cortland Sylk 4 weight. In a month it might be time to fish here!











Sorry about the photo quality, the rod is nicer than the photos let on. I have another (this time vintage) rod that'll be done this week -photos forthcoming.

Beautiful work! If you don't mind me asking, did you coat the chestnut thread with cp before applying the varnish? Or is it without cp? That color looks stunning on the Lami blank.

The Bronson reel looks sooo fine with the rod.

I look forward to seeing photos of your next project.

Mark

gypsy,
The thread was coated with about 3 coats of CP first. I spent a lot of time trying different thread colors so I wanted to be sure it wouldn't change a lot when it was coated.

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

-Aaron

I never thought chestnut thread on a Lamiglas would look this good. I thought wrong. I like how you wrapped the trim too. REALLY NICE! You used varnish? How do you dry the varnish? I was told you can't use a drying motor; that you have to rotate the blank by hand. Is this true?

Scud Dog,
The stuff I used is called "Gudebrod Rod Finish". I'm not sure if it is the same as "Varnish", it seems very different from any varnish I've seen. It is "soap and water clean-up" and has NO smell whatsoever.

I use a small sable brush and apply it very sparingly, just dabbing it on. It levels itself because it is almost as thin as water. It dries VERY quickly -I can put a coat on and then apply another coat because the first wrap I coated is already dry! It goes on so thin that I don't use a drying motor at all, I just rotate the rod every few minutes for about 10 minutes and then it's dry.

I think this stuff is not the same as the Gudebrod's rod varnish that Picketpin used, especially if it takes two weeks to dry.

It's also very economical. I've done four rods with my one bottle and it's still 2/3 full! At this rate it'll be about $.50 a rod ...

Yes, you CANNOT let this stuff freeze. I ordered a bottle of cement from Gudebrod and it froze in my garage after it had been delivered and it was ruined, looked like cottage cheese.

I definitely chose this stuff because I liked the look and the idea of the easy cleanup (I really hate dealing with epoxy, every time I touch it I feel like I'm taking a year off my life!) I didn't buy it because it was cheap! I hadn't heard about the glass varnish or I probably would have used that because it would appeal to me a lot.

I hope this stuff lasts, I perhaps naively trusted the Gudebrod name. If things go horribly wrong I have a bunch of Flex Coat Lite I can slap on them!

-Aaron