Sea Fishing by daveonawave

Welcome to my how to section of my site. In this section I hope to share some knowledge I have obtained and teach you how to ........ 

I recently came across a problem that I'm sure many of you have had or many of you will have in the future. I broke an eye! two eyes to be precise! What were my options? How much would it cost to put right?

Option 1:  get the repair done in a tackle shop. This is the best and easiest option but will set you back up to £5 per guide and up to a couple of days to wait.

Option 2: Do it myself. Never done it before but how hard can it be?

Ok I decided to give it a go, what do I need? The answer to this is surprisingly little, no special tools are required. You will however need the following:

A cardboard box, new guides, a hair dryer, some 5 minute epoxy, whipping thread, a lighter, pencil, screwdriver, small brush, Stanley knife, scissors, tape  and a hammer (I never do anything without a hammer, just in case).

First things first, cut a v shape notch in both sides of the box to place the rod in, this acts as a rod turning jig.

 Now get the hair dryer ready and begin to warm up the epoxy around the broken guide to soften it up.

 Then using the knife remove the epoxy and the old whipping thread.

 Now you should be able to remove the eye.

Now just clean up the remaining epoxy/glue from the area with a ittle fine sand paper.

Now you need to get the new guide a work it a little. New guides normally come with 'blunt feet' and if you whip these on you will have an unsightly lump on your rod (and no one wants one of them do they). All you need to do is file the point of the foot down a little to get a nice smooth slope. I used sand paper here but I achieved the same result.

When you get to about 5mm from the end its time to use the loop trick. Make a loop out of some 20lbs mono (fishing line) and tape it to the rod with the loop end towards the guide and whip right up to the end over the loop.

 Now cut the thread leving about 10cm hanging and thread this through the loop.Now gently pull the loop back through the whipping. Trim the end and tidy up with a lighter.

 Now repeat the process for the other side andthe whipping is complete, it should look a little like this:

 Its now time  for the epoxy. I used 5 minute epoxy which is available from most tackle stores. Mix it on something disposable and make sure both parts are blended well.

Now simply paint it on making sure  that all the thread is covered. Keep rotating the rod to ensure an even finish. Make sure you work quick because as I found out 5 minute epoxy is really about 4 minute epoxy!

 Just kepp turning the rod for a minute or 2 and your done, easy as that. You should end up with something like this:

 Job done, any problems give me a shout.

Dave.