That's a heck of a story! I must admit that I had a good laugh at your expense, Tom...but I also cringed at the horror of my finishing debacles, freshly brought back to mind.
I can't add anything to what Tony suggested...razor blades and denatured alcohol are your friends. Mixing full batches of epoxy will save your wraps and spare you many headaches...even if you have to dump some of it when you're done. The only other advice I can offer is to finish your rods in a room where you DON'T build them...and MOST DEFINITELY, where you DON'T tie flies. Wet guide wraps are just magnets for dust, feathers, stray pieces of thread and other things that make them look ugly. When I'm getting ready to finish a rod, I take my trusty dust buster into my storage room and go over EVERYTHING. Walls, windows, ceiling...everything I can reach. Then I vaccuum the floor, and it's back to the dust buster one last time. THEN I finish the rod, after saying a prayer to the gods of smooth wraps. Oh...and you asked about a glossy finish on your reel seat. The glossy poly would probably work, but be careful. You don't want to glop it on too thick, because you'll have a hard time getting the parts to slide right. If you want to get really radical, you might consider stripping the finish off the reel seat and starting over. But, again, be careful. Chemical strippers might play havoc with your nice nickel-silver reel seat hardware and getting a reel seet off is damn near impossible.... Anyhow, hope this all helps! Rix Benson __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com
