White thread for guide wraps (invis. guide wraps?)

[Joshua Field]

Wondering if anyone has used white thread for wrapping guides - essentially looking like there are no guide wraps at all... I've never seen such a thing but thought it might make for an interesting design.

Pictures? Thoughts?

[AgMD]

I can't be shure w/o looking it up, but I think Garrison may have done this, using a colored wrap for the ferules. He did , as have many others, usually wrap with a light tan/brownish thread which when varnished ( no CP) becomes nearly transparent, with just a hint of the original color which was chosen to compliment the natural color of the cane. The tricky part of any transparent guide wrap is the guide feet. They are quite noticeable and therefore need to look good. They should all be shaped the same, same length, and the foot needs to be the same color as the rest of the guide. With chrome this is not so hard but if you are using black guides ( my personal choice) when you grind the feet you reveal all that bright metal. Older steel guides can be blackened w/ gun bluing ( Brownells Oxpho-Blue works nice) but a lot of modern snakes will not blue. I have been using black fingernail polish, sold wherever there is a goth culture. It is a good black brushing lacquer with a high pigment content. The best is, that since it is a lacquer you can varnish over it and the varnish will not affect it.
Snake brand guides, no longer carried by Golden Witch, and a bit pricey, have the best looking out of the box feet made today. All the same length, well tapered and if I remember right they took to the bluing just fine. If you find out who is selling these let me know.
Try some yellow silk, varnished, no CP. It also becomes transparent but looks different than white.
AgMD

[bscanman]

I used white thread for a repair I did to one of my old cane rods a couple years ago and it came out beautiful. Nearly invisable to the eye. It was a tip repair where a small peice of cane had splintered out while playing a big brookie in Maine. I fit in a matching peice of cane and put a sleeve wrap over the entire area. After a couple coats of spar you can feel the repair with your fingers better than see it with you eye.

Last I knew REC components carried Snake Brand guides.

www.reccomponents.com/html/guides.html

[Joshua Field]

I did a tip repair last year with an invisible wrap - Kim checked this out and give me his seal of approval Thats what gave me the idea to do invisible wraps for the guides. I'm going to try this in the winter... already have a partially built rod set aside for it.