Thread: Old fiberglass rod

Bought an old 8' fiberglass rod wit an Abu Garcia 4500 CA reel at a thrift store. Reel seems to work fine and the rod still is flexible but is old and look a little rough. Any tips ou there for reconditioning the rod? Would like to use it for a live bait bigger fish rod for surf and pier.

How rough is rough? is it useable?
My #2 king rod is a 30+ year old 2 piece Diawa glass rod, it looks rough but still works fine!

I'd say you have two options, make any minor repair& use as-is
or complete strip down, new handle, seat & guides.
If you have the time the talent, the latter might be worth it. If not, then the former.

Originally Posted by SOverton

Bought an old 8' fiberglass rod wit an Abu Garcia 4500 CA reel at a thrift store. Reel seems to work fine and the rod still is flexible but is old and look a little rough. Any tips ou there for reconditioning the rod? Would like to use it for a live bait bigger fish rod for surf and pier.

I don't have many tips, but I will tell you that I have two old Garcia fiberglass rods (9 foot) and they are great for live or dead bait. The tips are so soft that the fish hardly feel anything as they take the bait. I have set mine up in a rod holder numerous time next to my newer rods and get almost twice as many hookups.

Does yours have cork grips? You can get cork at Jann's Netcraft or Angler's Workshop.

I have put cork on mine on the cheap (reaming by hand) and they are not so even. If you want it to look good and do not have the right equipment you might consider getting a pro to do it. My hand-reamed ones work, but they are not pretty. Same places have butt caps, eyes, reaming tape, and all the rest.

I used gorilla glue to attach the cork as it expands and seals, but it is pretty rough looking.

Rods should be re-finished with flexible epoxy, not the hard kind you get in a regular store, although I have used the hard kind (thin it) just on eye re-wraps and have not had a problem. I use regular thread, the heaviest WalMart has, but nobody is going to ooh and aah at my rods.

Work in progress. The lighter colored cork is what I have replaced. Where it is in the middle of a section of darker I split the cork ring after reaming it and slipped it over the butt.

One tip for eye-re-wraps. To end the re-wrap you make the last few turns (10 or more) over a sewing needle with the eye open on the end you are wrapping towards. Thread the needle at the end and pull it out using needle-nose pliers, pulling the thread under the 10 wraps at the same time. Trim and epoxy.

The more wraps over the needle the harder it is to pull.

guides are fine and the rod itself seems good. Cant find any cracking but is discolored in spots and the handle is worn out. cork just about gone and a little afraid of the reel mount. looks like it was in the sun for a while and been unused for some years. got time aplenty but little to no talent.

Cork is not hard to replace, but it's hard to do a really good job. The rings come with a 1/2 inch hole in the middle that you are supposed to ream out to the proper size to fit your rod butt. Reaming tape is just long strips of coarse sandpaper that you wrap around a dowel sized to match the butt of your rod with the tape on. The pros use tapered rods on a mechanical reamer and stop at the proper diameter.

Hard part is getting the reaming dead center so that the finished cork has the same thickness all around. I wound up using a dremel to do most of the work and finishing it on a dowel with reaming tape to get the hole circular. A good many were so uneven that I did not use them, but I managed to get enough that were fairly close. Order extra as the shipping is a substantial part of the expense.

If you use gorilla glue don't use much as it really expands. It does seal the gaps well, but is not pretty. I used a razor knife to trim the excess - of which there is a lot.

Also, if you do a total replacement of the cork they make synthetic stuff that is supposed to be easier to work with and more durable. It just won't have that "old timey" look.

http://www.jannsnetcraft.com/eva-foam-grips/

Frednic, you can do the same thing with a loop of thread instead of using the needle.

Originally Posted by jigslinger

Frednic, you can do the same thing with a loop of thread instead of using the needle.

...or a loop of braided fishing line, too. If the loop breaks while pulling the thread through, one must start over. You have good advice for reconditioning the rod grip. If the blank and guides/guide wraps are in acceptable condition, and you just want the rod to look better, a light coat or two of spray spar varnish will have it looking new again. Tape off the grips, reel seat and guide eyes first, though.

Another strong and quick way to do a field repair or complete rewrap of a guide is to use a backserve. I have used this for years on bowstrings with waxed dental floss to tie in various devices. It also works well for rod guide thread, repairs to jigs with thread-wrapped dressings, and its a great finish for braid-to-fluoro knots(I finish the FG knot with this technique).

Here is a link to a video of how to tie a backserve...there may be better vids around, but this is what a quick search yielded: