trevala rebuild

[andrew whitman]

I know.... but i love my trevala 66MH. i was using it as a light popping rod but the guides were crap for casting(or anything else). I carefully cut the old guides off and heated the old epoxy and peeled it off. The guide spacing was going to be different so I lightly sanded the blank. I didnt go all the way through the coating as not to harm the blank. I then coated the sanded blank with U-40 permagloss. it made the blank look new after a few coats. then i wrapped some chrome SIC guides i got from acidrod, made a butt wrap using the same basic style from the original trevala and its ready to go!
It casts better and looks nice now too. i have a stradic 8000 that sits on it and will be sure to catch some black fin, mahi and bonitas with soon. It was good practice for my next build. i am getting better with the flex coat and thread.

[FLATLINER]

Andrew, that looks awesome! Im liking the reverse stripper.

When I started to build, I stripped every rod in our house (about 15 of them, all custom) and rebuilt them!
I still have all of them. Honey lamiglas blanks and red/blue varigated thread!! I will never forget it!
Keep up the good work!!!!

[Sea Draggin]

Andrew, looks great. I would love to sprial wrap one of my cheapy diawa's. I'm just spread too thin to take on anything else.

[Ponce]

Very nice rebuild, looks great.

[FAT CAT MX]

Good work on the rebuild. I think most of us catch the addiction by rebuilding an old favorite.

Those Travala rods are good sticks. I have a couple myself and they are the only rods I use that I haven't built myself. However, I doubt that I'll ever rebuild them. Mostly because I'm too lazy to do the stripping and refinishing.

[andrew whitman]

thanks for the kind words. i casted it yesterday and it cast really nice, even into the wind. i hope to catch some fish monday and put some real bend in it. is it common for guides to be creaky when new? the guides arent fuji so maybe the metal is inferior? the wraps are slid and filled with epoxy.