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[Ken D]

As per above, there's been a rash of fails here, where the rubber portion of the butt cap falls off.  At this writing, Redl  refuses to carry replacement butt caps, as the rods are made in Korea, implying too much of a hassle to bring in replacements. Good for me, as I'm putting down nice coin for replacing. Not so good for the sport, who needs to bring stick by for the fix.

Did we get all the duds up here, or is it happening down south as well.

[Dave]

Haven't seen that yet down here Ken and I have worked on a few of these rods ... the epoxy is as hard as rock and a real bitch to get off the blank without some damage to the blank paint ... hate doing guide replacements on these sticks as I never seem to get the final finish I want.

Dave, thanking the rod building gods for D size thread 

[Ken D]

Yes, they use interesting resin. I remove most of the humps and bumps, and use dollar store 1/2" wide "scotch" tape over the guide lengthening the wrap about 1/2 mm, with dark brown D. On the butt caps: This season alone, I have had 6, and in such a small market as ours, that's nasty.
I've only had 2 guides on the trophy's so far, and a few assorted other makes.

I use Bob Smith Industries 5 minute resin on all Trophy (and similar) re-dos. There's now a CAD rep in ON for BSI. Love this stuff.  Bit of a learning curve to obtain a bubble-free and level finish with about 2.5 mins to work with, but after a couple of decades with 5 min resins, no big deal  .

[Dave]

ah, my guru, again
I finally had the balls to do a scotch tape fix, covered over in D.. sturgeon rod for a big name guide.. a month ago... all's good so far

[Ken D]

I have used 00 thread (an animal hair thinner than A) along  with A, as an experiment, and it worked. It takes longer, and shows the resin flaws, but wraps with no gaps, as the tape is slightly smooth so you can bunch up gaps, which would be totally impossible without the tape. The thread would hang up in the valleys of the resin humps.  I use the D mostly tho. 

Thread tension plays a part too... I wrap with just a wee bit less tension, so if I get a gap, I can close it easily. I close gaps with the pointy part of a cooking bamboo skewer, as they are long, and cheap. I have taped 5 minute repairs well over 5 years on, and no fails. I see a rod (now and then) for another redo on another guide, and recognize my first repair, still strong, still good looking.