Repairing Guides On Rodfather Cutty & Matt DeBalski's Sage One 31Dec20-01Jan21

I received a replacement for the broken section of the Rodfather Cutty fly rod from New Zealand. Here I briefly describe the repair which required removal of snake guides from the broken piece and re-wrapping them onto the new section. Cutting off an old guide is fairly simple if you don't care about the rod section to which it is wrapped; just use a razor knife to cut it off. The epoxied wrap largely peels off. If you need to retain the rod section or otherwise are just replacing a guide in place, then be very careful not to etch the rod - do the slicing directly on top of the foot of the metal guide. Once the guide is removed and the wrappings are fully peeled off, clean the area and guide gently with some acetone. Then, simply re-wrap and re-epoxy the guide to the rod mimicking the rod's other guide wraps. Good as new.

Matt DeBalski broke his favorite rod, a 10' 5wt Sage One. So Matt & his dad DD came over to learn how to repair a guide for $10 (plus beer - DD plied me with Juicy Bits, a fav Weldworks IPA) rather than a $75 warranty charge. Matt broke a guide in the tip section somehow - we both use rod vaults and they can be a problem if not careful when inserting rods; still, it could've been anything - I've done it too. Matt wanted to learn some attributes of rod-building so we spent several good hours fixing his rod, reviewing some custom Rodfather builds and my rod-building techniques. It was good to see him and especially DD for a bit. I sense Matt will be back to try his own hand at a custom build - we reviewed some ideas.