I built a St Croix legend ultra a few years ago, and to put it bluntly it basically sucks. I really dislike the grip, and it feels like i didn't line up the spine correctly. Is it difficult to strip off all of the guides and remove the grip and reel seat?
The guides not too bad... The grip and reelseat... Pain in the ass. There are a lot of options though.. Here is what I would do.... Sand the grip completely off, but make sure that you do *NOT* damage the blank above the grip. This can be accomplished by chucking it into a drill and rotating it while pressing coarse sand papaer against it. Next the reelseat... The hardest part... I'd cut it off and replace the lost lower section with some old fibreglass or graphite or something. Since it won't be seen it won't affect the cosmetics, and since it's so far down, it won't affect the performance. For the guides, use a *HAIRDRYER* to head the guides up. Hair dryers are best because they will not scorch a blank like a heat gun. The slice from the bottome of the guide foot up to the ring... If you have the thread/epoxy warm enough, you can scrape it with your fingernail... Be forewarned, it is sllooooooowwwww going.....
ahh that sounds horrible. If it wasnt such a nice blank id forget about it, but it has the cappability of being a great stick. Thanks for the advice James! i think ill just look into doing the grip/reelseat, and guides on the lower section for now and see how it goes.
I recently used Zip-Strip to remove thread finish that wouldn't harden (probably due to slightly unbalanced portions). it worked nicely. Zip-Strip bills itself as "the original premium paint & finish remover; semi-paste." For urethane, polyurethane, and epoxy finishes," as well as paints. There is a caution: "may soften fiberglass or plastic," but I had no problem there.
The two rods I recently stripped, I just cut through a few of the thread strands towards the inside of each guide, then I was able to grab the thread with a tweezer and unravel the wrap, the rest peeled off. And you could always reset the guides on the spline, and leave the real seat a little off.
