This is just info, I don’t know if I would try this, but I might.
This last Saturday I was at one of my clubs confabs and the author Robert Ketley
was giving a demo on repairing the crack that develops in the belly line of a WF line. I’m not cutting and pasting from any of his published articles, I’m going from memory, no old guy jokes here folks.
Materials needed:
One stitching needle with a blunted end, the eye should not exceed the diameter of the needle.
Super glue.
Acetone for stripping outer coating from fly line.
Aqua Seal or Knot Sense.
Bobbin threader.
You’re tying vise.
A good sharp straight edge.
You’re going to remove the head from the belly, install the stitching needle in your vise with the point away from the vise. Take your head and slide it on the needle where you cut it about ¾ inch (if you have a rotary vise you can use it like a drill to insert the needle) and punch it out through the outer coating to about half way down the needle, now take the needle with the head on out of the vise and return it to the vise with the eye sticking out.
Remove the rest of the belly line from your reel, were going to use the end attached to the reel. Remove ¾ of a inch of coating with acetone not the Scotch that’s on the work bench’ take the inner core fibers and put them through the needle eye, add super glue to the fibers and pull into the head, trim and seal and you’ve repaired the cracked line.
It’s not easy to do, so I would suggest a couple of dry runs. I asked him about its strength and he returned he’s had no problems with the repaired line; he had landed a 20 lb stripper on a line repaired this way.
Rick