Writing on rods
How to get nice hand writing on your home built fly rods
By Dave Lewis
| With an addendum by Bob Petti |
We got on to our current formula many years ago and have stuck with it.
Lots of paints work well. I always suggest hobby paint or various colors of correction fluid. Folks have used white shoe polish, acrylic paint, powdered water color paints, tempra, and a whole host of others.
But the one main key to it is technique, I guess. My wife Mary Lu, who does all the writing on our rods, is very meticulous and very persistent.
The pen used is an old fashioned quill pen. You can see in the background the mixing cups Mary Lu uses to mix the inks she uses.
You will note that the color is the same as the trim wrap I use on the rod. We always try and match the writing color to the trim wrap. You can see that the pen tip is quite small. Mary Lu uses a small brush to fill the pen.
I have all the info written down on a sheet for her to use while she writes.
She always cautions me to read over the rod after she is done because she some times writes the wrong thing and I some times give her the wrong thing to write.
I scuff the writing area with steel wool first and clean the area with solvent previous to her doing the writing. I follow up with a clear coat over the writing with polyurethane.
The gold and white are opaque enough to use at least on gray blanks, but the other colors are really quite transparent. I would never use any gold or silver metalic stuff on my rods, though. That would clash with my style. If you look at some pictures of my rods you will realize that the colors we use are not gold or white, but lots of in between colors. Those colors are best mixed up from quite opaque paints. When all graphite blanks were gray, you could write on them with India ink, even, and it would show. Now practically all blanks are much darker colors and writing needs to be much lighter and more opaque to show up.
I never clear coat with epoxy. It creates a very heavy, burried under glass, three inches long area ahead of the grip. That is so "factory" and so tacky looking. I clear coat with one coat of polyurethane. The resulting coverage is so thin that the paint of the letters is raised within the finish and can be seen as a relief. It is all part of a style that I have stuck with and has become part of my identity as a rod builder.
Craftsmanship is of utmost importance in any endeavor that falls under the broad category of aesthetics, but ask any artist and he will tell you that it is his style that makes his stuff special.
| Dave Lewis Phone (US): 540/867-0856 Dave Lewis runs Performance Fly Rods |
| Addendum By Bob Petti Writing on rods is tricky business. If a person doesn’t have good penmanship, they are probably better served getting decals made from a place such as Decal Connection where they can make as many or as few decals you want for excellent prices. I was blessed with decent writing skills, so I enjoy putting my own personal touch on a new rod by doing the writing myself. After a lot of false starts with various techniques, I’ve finally settled on one that works for me. The writing instrument I use is a cheap craft store gel pen – my brand is “Gelly Roll” - in either silver or gold. They come in a zillion colors, however, so get what you want. Not all pens work the same – some will skip or false start on the blank and not flow smoothly – but they are cheap enough to try a few brands until you get one you like. The pens I have write perfectly on the blank once it has been deglossed with a bit of 1000-grit wet/dry sandpaper. The process goes something like this:
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