Need help reconditioning chipped rods

[Steve Foss]

Hey all:

I'm no rod builder. I bought a GLoomis downrigger rod (9' Premier PMR 1084C in excellent condition) at a garage sale for $15. Only thing about it is the finish is pretty chipped up. I got a Lamiglas G1318-T downrigger rod at the same sale for $5 that's in the same condition.

Guides, tip, cork, butt, reel seat all in flawless condition, just a lot of chipped finish. These are quality rods that got knocked around quite a bit by an Alaskan salmon charter boat captain, as evidenced by the chipped finish. I baby my rods and would like to see these looking great again. I've already scrubbed down the cork.

Now, I've done a lot of spray finishing of wood as a woodworker and finish carpenter, but I'm looking for tips on how to buff down the rod (600 grit wet/dry sandpaper, for example?) and spray on new finish with something I can get in a spray can.

What say you, oh experts?

[upnorth]

Steve if you try to sand it, which you can, the issue you are going to run into is the guides. The are going to get in the way and spraying over them with either paint or varnish is not going to work out very well.

Depending on how deep you might be able to go after them with fine steel wool and tape off the guides and spray a hard finish varnish or maybe perma gloss. But you may still run into issues with lines at the guides.

If they are really fine polishing compound might work and then a nice coat of wax like you would your car.

The best thing to do would be to pull the guides off and sand it down and use some thing like perma gloss with model type paint in if for color. You could actually soak a sponge with the mix and run the the blank through a small hole in the sponge to get a nice even application.

[Steve Foss]

OK. If I need to pull the guides to make this happen, I'll just fish with the rods this coming season and then ship them off to a pro so I know it's done right.

If it comes to that, I expect there'll be as much labor cost as (or even a bit more than) having new rods built. So much for getting sweet rods for darn near nothing.

[crazyice]

Or you could always just fish with them the way they are and still have decent rods at a great price! Plus you won't feel so bad banging them around a little bit either.

[Northlander]

Sell them and get some shorter downrigger rods. I found anything over 8' to be a pain.

[harvey lee]

Or you could send them to me and I could fix them up cheap and have a real deal for myself Steve.

[Steve Foss]

I like 'em this long, Steve. With inland lakers, I only ever have at most two rods, one on each downrigger, so moving a bunch of rods around like you L.S. guys have to do isn't an issue, and those long rods load great and set a mean hook!

Until I bought these I'd been using two 8.5-foot steelhead spinning rods fished upside down and mounted with baitcasting reels. Worked pretty good, but when I saw a GLoomis in excellent condition and the Lamiglas, and for those prices, well . . . total no-brainer. I can live with it if they look bad.

Tom, frankly I'd like to avoid adding one more project to my list, but of course if I sent them out for reconditioning I'd want them back.