Terry O'Brien

I've used masking tape for decades now and never had a problem. Roughing up the inside of your reel seat with a coarse rasp, rough the blank a bit as well with paper add lots of epoxy when you assemble works great. Ive had opportunities when Woodstream [Fenwick] was here in town to check out some of their reel seat failures. They used the tape method but used a cheapo epoxy glue and then to speed things up they heated it which started to turn their epoxy kind of foamy and it lost its ability to keep from spinning on the blank

For the guide carefully cut it off with a single edge razor blade, cut along the guide and you should be able to remove guide and wrapping. Small areas of cracked or flaking finish can be repaired with light sanding with fine paper, clean off then rub some of the finish you use for the guide over that spot, try to blend in as much as possible

I like JB weld for epoxy work

I agree in this case more is better. Ive often used 9. Spiral setup eliminates some of the line touching the blank but I didn't find I needed less guides. Also found casting distance to be affected. The only place I use spiral now is on flippin sticks and some down rigger rods

I still have my Skyline 5'6" graphite rod with their better than average pistol grip and I will be taking it to the grave with me