rebuilding rods

[Bass Whacker]

I had a buddy who had a fire in his house and his fishing rods got a bit warm. Some of the rods looked brand new once they were cleaned up and about 3/4 of them had alittle epoxy melt on the eyes or the eye insert melt out. He ended up giveing me all 23 rods along with top of the line shimano reels since he got them all replaced by the insurance. All the rods are st croix and are avids or nicer. It seems like a waste to just throw them all out. So my questains are:

Are these blanks all shot due to the heat, and is there a good way to test them? I need to know before i drop alot of money and time into retying these rods.

How does a person remove old guides and epoxy if I do dig into this project?

[Eric_Kruger]

If they got hot, odds are they will disintegrate under load. Not a fun experience. As far as the epoxy if that got hot it will be soft and you should be able to peel it off with a fingernail.

If you need to offload some of them shimano's......I can help with that too! haha!

[CAMAN]

Like Eric said they may just break. So before you go about disassembling them, thread some heavy braided line through them tie the line to a sturdy object and give 'em a good hookset. If they break, no loss, if a few remain intact give them a good inspection and start disassembling them.

***EDIT***

MAKE SURE YOU ARE WEARING SAFETY GLASSES and gloves, a full face shield would be a big plus also.

[Bass Whacker]

They all feel solid flexing them by hand , but I was also thinking i better try setting the hook hard a few times with each one. sorry Eric the reels are all staying in my personal collection.

[Bass Whacker]

Well I set the hook hard on all the rods tongiht a few times one blew up right away and 2 others you could hear some serious cracking everytime you you set with them. So now it looks like I have a pile of work ahead of me this winter. The epoxy is still very hard on all but 1 rod so any other ideas on how to get that loose would be great. Thanks for the help guys.

[CAMAN]

I've rebuilt a few rods and the easiest way I have found to remove the guides is first take a sharp utility knife and lay it almost flat to the rod blank on top of the guide foot. Carefully shave off the epoxy down to the guide foot cutting towards the eye, but DO NOT go anywhere near the blank use the guide foot to protect it. Once you get all the epoxy holding the feet shaved off, rock the guide back and forth slightly to break its bond to the blank and remove it. Then thumbnail to try and peel off the epoxy and thread from the ridge left by the guide foot. Depending on epoxy used it may or may not come up easily, use a hair dryer to warm up the epoxy, that should loosen it up enough to peel off.

[Bass Whacker]

Thanks Caman