I am very new to rod building. If I am using SIC guides is it worth the price difference to pay for fuji guides? The type rods I will be building are mostly saltwater boat, trolling, and stand-up rods. The smaller rods will be 7 ft 30lb class mostly for king fishing. The stand up's will be 5 1/2 ft 80lb class mostly for grouper fishing. Until now I have mostly used the mid range penn rods.

A local shop I do repairs for has a company make rods for them using Pac Bay SIC guides and overall considering the numbers sold they hold up quite well as many of the rods are abused. That being said my own preference for custom rods is Fuji.
John

This goes back to my orginal question. Is it worth paying 2 to 3 times more for Fuji? Are they 2 to 3 times better? I think if I was using rollers I could understand using Aftco as opposed to Pacfic Bay. If you are using SIC guides can there be that big of a difference between the two brands? I am not trying to be cheap I just want to know if they are better what makes them better?

Fuji rings seem to be more highly polished and their guide frames do not seem to rust as quickly. Not at all on the Ti frames and those aren't plated they are actual titanium alloy.

I would be the first to agree that the competitors are improving greatly though. I wouldn't be scared to use any of them.

I beiieve that you get what you pay for in guides, as well as many other things. In my opinion, Fuji guides are clearly superior to PacBay.

Hugh Miller

Another vote for Fugi, why take a chance with cheaper guides, you get what you pay for-jmo

Another option. Although I use primalry Fuji SIC's I have tried the new Cabela's titanium carbide guides. They only come in doublefoots but the rings are Zirconia ceramic with a titanium coating on a chromed stainless steel frame. They are very strong and they say have the same heat dissipation as SIC. I don't know who makes them for Cabelas but I imagine it's Pac Bay. The prices is very attractive and I imagine they will hold up well to salt water. They have them listed online and in their tackle craft catalog. I built two flippin sticks with them, one on a Perigee blank that came out just awesome. Check it out.

Dan,
Forecast guides have beautiful titanium carbide plated frame guides, as does Pac. Bay. You're right, they are a very nice alternative and very durable. The zirconia ring is nearly as hard as SiC and have superior heat dissipation.

Fuji will rarely have disagreement about it's good product. The others are very good, and many styles available for more choice.
Personally, I love Fuji titanium, but be prepared to pay the higher cost. very nice.

We've got lot's of good response and comments about the titanium carbide frame guides, including the ones with black hard ceramic ring material. very cost effective with quality durability and appearance.

Rich
Richard's Rod & Reel

Let me tell a story: There were 5 monkeys in side of a cage with a set of stairs and a bananna on top. Every time a monkey would climb the stairs ice cold water would spray on all the monkeys. After a while they all learned not to climb the stairs. One day they switched out a monkey and put a new on in the cage. He tried to climb the stairs and all the other monkeys beat him up. After that they placed another new monkey in the cage and of course he went for the bananna and the other monkeys beat him up. They did this 3 more times untill all the the monkeys were new monkeys and still none of them climed the stairs but none of the monkeys knew why.
Are we just wasting out money or are these fuji guides that good.
The information I would like to know is about rusting and about heat
dissipation. I don't want to buy something just because of prefence.