Here's my question: I have been using th concept guide system to correctly place guides on spining rods, using the reel that will be used on the rod. My understanding is that the process is designed to create two straight lines with the fishing line, the first from the reel to the first intersecting guide, and the second from that guide to the tip and out the tip. If this is so, when you put a reel on the rod and the rod doesn't intersect with the straight edge table or bench or whatever, is the reverse true? Do you try to have a straight line to the first guide, and another from there to the tip? Opinions?

It will throw things off by a bit, but it won't really harm the overall casting performance unless the reel is substantially different than the one you used for the set up. In other words, if the reel and spool are at least similar in size, you won't notice a tremendous difference. If the new reel is say, twice as large or half as large, then you probably will notice a drop in performance.

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My problem has been that I have reels of the same size, but the shaft does not point at the same angle. So I must use the same reel with the same rod or compromise. An added problem is that I don't always keep reels on all my rods, so I must remember which fit which. In fact, right now I have three 7' spinning rods with similar reels, all have the concept system, and I doubt if all are fitted with the reel I set them up with. Only I would know anyway and they are probably close enough. Old guys can get away with stuff like this, I think. John Butterfield

Once the line leaves the reel, gravity pulls it downward. That's why the reel spool upsweep has more to do with set-up of the concept, than it does with actual casting performance.

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Tom, what I meant was that the reel that my customer gave me, that he said was going on the rod I'm building, is the one I used for setup. It does not have enough angle to intersect with the rod. So I tried to use the two straight line theory in reverse as a place to start. It cast fine, and had no line slap then or when I static deflection tested it. It's a 6'6" spinning rod, and I have seven guides on it.

I echo John's concern about changing reels on the rod. I expect my rod will last longer than the reel. Also, I will probably recommend to my customer that he look at a different reel anyway. I think his is a bit too large for the rod he ordered.

But I have run into the issue before of no intersect on the blank. I'd love to hear if anyone else has developed a system they think works.

Fran, I've just started building spinning rods with the concept system so I'm no expert. I'm having the same problem with 2 8 1/2' rods right now that have Penn 5500's on them. What I did was tilt the rod a little so that the stem is not in perfect alignment , but close, and does intersect about 2/3 of the way up the blank. After test casting the first one, it does cast very nice and there is no line slap so I think I'll leave it.
But as I said, I'm no expert so would be interested to hear what others are doing?

I think Tom covered what to do when the reel centerline does not intersect with the blank. Isn't that in the online library?? Something about using an intersection point that was a certain percentage of rod length or where the action runs out? I know I read it in Rodmaker somewhere.

If you're sold on a certain reel you can always shim the rear portion
to increase the upwards angle.