I have a problem,I was coating a rod with Flex Coat,but did not have any syringes,so I used the caps of the bottles,guess the mix was wrong,its bee 5 days now,and the rod is still a LITTLE TACKY,any chance it will dry in time? I am fairly new to rod building,never had this problem before......can anyone help?

TONY

that will never dry completely, u need to put another thin coat on, but before u do find something that will give u the right mixing amounts. or u will just b wasting your time an efforts.

Putting another coat on only seems to help. If you add the second coat and it dries. More than likely on the first hot summer day the epoxy will separate from each other and you will have a bigger mess on your hands.

Hate to say it but you may have to strip it & start over.

OK....now that we have the poor guy going in circles..... Saltheart your turn. whats your .02 cents?

Sorry Tony, but you should strip the failed finish off-like Mike said, the soft stuff will eventually leak out and you'll have a gooey mess on a nice rod. A heat gun on low helps to soften the finish sometimes but be very careful not to heat the rod too much-you should be able to touch it,any more than that is bad for the blank. If you can't get it soft enough to scrape off with a plastic scraper you'll have to bite the bullet and carefully cut it off with a double edged razor blade and re-wrap. Please be careful not to cut yourself or the blank. As for mixing, I've had real good results using S.S.. mixing spoons like Dale Clemens recommends in Adv. Custom Rodbuilding. Good luck!

It dpends. If it all cures but just a tacky surface , he may be able to fix it. If its soft throughout the layer , it has to be striped. Try forcing your thumbnail into it. If its hard and just tacky , recoat. If you can sink into it , yoo should strip it.

Its not nescessarily just pour measuring. Even if you measure correctly but fail to mix thoroughly , you'll have the same problem. You got to mix it a few more minutes than you think. Also , you may ahve a temp problem where you are curing. If the room is like 65 or below , the epoxy takes a long time to cure. Way longer than in a 75 degree room. try moving the rod to somewhere really warm , like 75 to 85 degrees for a few days and see if it cures any more.

If you decide to recoat , be sure you both mix thoroughly and measure accurately.

Get the syringes! One benefit besides correct hardening, is that you can mix smaller amounts of epoxy.

When building a 7 or 8' rod, I usually only need 1.5 cc's of mixed epoxy for the guide wraps. I draw 3/4 cc of each and mix thoroughly, and I've had absolutely no problems at all with epoxy.

I've used syringes since the beginning, and I'm sure they have saved me a lot of heartache. Highly recommended.

TH