I've only built about a dozen raods so far. I have noticed on a couple of them that once rod is flexed, the ends of the guide feet will create a small crack, perpendicluar to the rod.

Is this due to improper guide prep? I prepe the feet to the point that the thread climbs up htem easily - but maybe I need to thin them more?

I almost always make underwraps, and use flexcoat high build.

Maybe I should start the guidewrapes closer to start of feet?

Thanks for you ideas.

John

Underwraps and long guide wraps due add unnecessary weight, but they do not cause cracking. That is due to a combination of things, but the two main causes are guides that do not flex at the same rate at the blank (they're usually much stiffer) and guide feet edges that are two thick - not ground to a shallow enough taper.

You can try grinding or shaping them to a finer taper and will probably find that this helps at least some. But to totally eliminate it isn't always possible.

Do a search on this board and you may uncover some ideas that some of the other builders have on this subject.

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Cracking is common, and I have found that it can only be reduced and not completely eliminated.

As Tom said ensure a good fine taper on guide feet. Where I can get away with it I double overwrap the guide feet, and don't use color preserver. The few extra grams of weight from the double overwrap make no difference when the rod/reel already weight 10-12 lbs. Trolling rods, some heavers, heavy jigging rods all get this treatment with greatly reduced cracking.

Lou

I agree with the guide foot taper idea, and also the fact that it is hard to totally eliminate such cracking.

On some of my older rods, however, I have the finish cracking under the guide leg, right at the beginning of the tunnel. Most of them are composite blanks. Should I strip and re-wrap? All it does is make an irritating clicking sound when the rod flexes.

May throw a few roms into the can but we've argued this often over here.

If we are talking about the same thing, small white rings around the guide foot ends (?)These marks are commonly called "stress marks"

This is a personal opinion and open to any disagreement or agreement. I think a better term would be "striation" marks. When CP is applied it is possible that it does not fully dry within the threads if the finish coat is applied too soon. When the rod is flexed then, almost on the microscopic scale, the threads separate, i.e. viewed side on they form "V"'s with each other. This allows the un-cured CP to show through as white rings.

One method of alleviating this (apart from allowing your CP to dry completely) is to flex the rod vigorously after the first coat of finish and by so doing create these marks. You then blank them out with a pen of the right colour (one reason a lot of commercial builders use black or dark overwraps) and then apply your final coat(s).

I fully realise that this is not a particularily wonderful idea but it does work. If someone can advise me on a better method I would really love to hear it as I dont particularily like doing this myself. Sadly when you are a bit pushed for time it works but I am certain there must be better methods around.

Obviously correct preparation of the guide feet and even on occasion thinning them slightly to suit the blank is the best possible method but I am talking about after the first coat had been applied, assuming you do not have the time to re-wrap etc.

I would also love to hear some suggestions on how to alleviate this problem. It can be a pain at times.

Stan.

It's not the CP. This happens on rods with or without CP. You just can't take a rod blank that flexes at one rate and bind a rod guide that flexes at a different rate onto it and then seal over it with a hard epoxy finish and and not expect something to crack or break lose. It has to.

And for the record if you want to make some wraps and coat them ONLY with CP and then flex the rod as much as you want, you'll never have these cracks. It's when you coat the wraps with epoxy and the guide has to move underneath it. The epoxy is not soft enought to allow that movement without stretching or tearing which is what we call cracking. Color preserver on the other hand is soft enough and will give enough that it doesn't develop these cracks.

William,

Thanks for posting that idea. Gives we "new builders" something to think about.

Stan

John,

You could try reducing the metal around the toe of the foot some more but be careful you don't overdo it. I see some guides that have been reduced to almost razor sharp dimensions and then you can expect the ends of the guides to snap off due to movement against the high build or maybe cause damage to the blank surface.
I am not actually very convinced that the actual preping of the toe makes that much difference to this problem, which is caused by movement of dissimilar materials. Whether the guide has a fine honed toe or quite coarse, that toe is going to move and do it's damge.

With current epoxies I think we are trying to sove a problem that quite honestly we can't.

The needs that we have in a high build finishing epoxy have cotradictions. We would like hardness for scratch resistance, Toughness to take the knocks and flexibility to help prevent the problems mentioned. Snag is we can't with current material technology have all the characteristics we want.
So this problem just ain't going to go away for a while yet.

It shows up worst on salt water rods with std stailess steel frames where you get rust and staining to.

I have over the years learned to live with it annoying as it is.


Regards mike Oliver.

Cracked finish allows water to get into the wraps and corrode the guides/discolor the threads. It's a pain in the butt.

High build epoxies just cure too stiff to allow the guide foot to flex inside of it. What about the thinner/lighter build formulas, like Flex-Coat Lite? They say this is the stuff for very flexible rods, like fly rods.

The design of the guide has at least something to do with this. Designs that don't allow much flex, that "hinge" under the ring rather than on top of it, are subject to cracking. Making the guide foot thinner, which allows it to flex somewhat, reduces but rarely completely eliminates this.

What is needed, are guides made with graphite/nylon frames. They would need to be "hinged" under the ring to keep the rigid ring from sitting in a housing that flexed and caused them to pop out. Such guides could be far more flexible where needed and wouldn't be prone to this cracking at the foot edge.

Such a design would also eliminate rust and corrosion, deformation, etc. Daiwa at least gave this a shot some years back, but the design was lacking in some ways. At some point, surely some guide manufacturer will revisit this idea. Steel framed guides are dinosaurs.

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Tom,

Yes I remember seing a guide that came from a rod made by Masterline that had a plastic frame, about 15 years ago It was in the Fuji BSHG type of frame. It did not stay around long and I never saw any available as components.

It must be a difficuly process to get the strength required as well as the flexibility.

Regards mike Oliver