Most people who have tried what Billy suggests, physically testing between a guides-on-top rod and a spiral wrapped rod, have not found any appreciable difference.

When I tested these two set-ups on a casting machine with no human input or error involved, I could find no appreciable difference in casting distance.

Because the spiral wrap appears to cast just as far and just as well, and because it does not have the tendency to twist under load that the guides-on-top does, most people who actually give it a fair test end up preferring it.

We plan to have some rods set up for casting at the National Rod Builders' Show in Charlotte in February. Anyone that wants can pick up the rods and try them for themselves. We'll use the same blanks and the best versions of each guide set-up we can and let people determine for themselves which they prefer. Granted, this means that some amount of human error, prejudice, inconsistency, etc., will be involved, but people with an open mind should be able to tell if one is appreciably better, or worse, than another for their own use on the water.

.............

There will always be naysayers about spiraled wraped rods, but all it takes is one good fish, you know like a 15 pound red fish with 12 pound test, to turn ones thinking around. I have a retired buddy who fishes the salt H2O at least two days a week for 9/10 months a year. His name is Charlie, so we will call it a Charlie story. He had always thought that the spiraled wraps were interesting but not interesting enough to have one built. I built an 843 Plain Jane on an inexpensive off shore blank. I told him that I was giving it to him but with one agreement. That being that he give it an honest try. That was in April and thus far this year, I have built him three of them crooked rods as he calls them. That's the end of my Charlie story. Point being that if you can get a fisherman to try them, they sell themselves.

Later,
Gerald Mc

What a great thread...

there is another thread on the merits of Spiral Wrap Casting over @ the Malaysian Fishing Net...

i reccomend it for novices like meself... i'm finding that there is a lot i do not yet understand... for example the importance of 'transitional' guides and there placement...

i need to learn more about the transitioning of the guides.

have a look at this intriquing thread @

[www.fishing.net.my]

you can also always find several superb RobBuilding forums, including this one at my blog.

visit:

[www.mind.net]

thanks again for all the input.

marc

I really do not want to get into this again because no one is being convinced of anything. However, I would like to comment on the statement that is made time and again about the primary advantage of a spiral wrapped rod having no torque while a conventionally wrapped rod twisting under load. The amount of torque is a function of the sum of the load on all of the guides times the sum of the moment arms created at each guide. This is the case however the rod is wrapped.
If a conventionally wrapped rod is held so that the line is directly over the top of the rod there will be NO torque because there is NO moment arm at each guide. If the rod is twisted to one side or the other there will be a small moment arm at each guide and the sum of these moment arms times the force at each guide will result in torque. If a spiral wrapped rod is twisted to one side or the other the same thing will occur but in the case of a spiral wrapped rod it will admittedly try to twist in a direction that will eliminate the torque while a conventionally wrapped rod will try to twist so as to increase the torque. This all assumes that the applied load is along the center axis of the rod. If it is not, or the load is off to one side or the other then the torque will be about the same for BOTH types of wraps.
Now the question becomes how much torque is there really. If we pick the worst possible case for the conventionally wrapped rod which is the rod being held so that the guides are off at a 90 degree angle to either side. This is the worst case because it creates the largest moment arms and the higher framed guides that are used the larger the moment arm. If we use Geralds example above of twelve pound test line right at the breaking point and high framed guides the torque will be at worst a few ounces. NOT ENOUGH THAT THE AVERAGE FISHERMAN WOULD EVEN NOTICE THAT THERE WAS ANY TORQUE.
Try it yourself. Take a conventionally wrapped rod, put a load on it but hold it so that the line is directly over the rod. There will be no torque. Now twist the rod to one side or the other and see how the torque increases and how much torque there really is. Now try the same thing with a spirally wrapped rod.
Sorry Billy, I know that this test is also anecdotal.

Emory,

Calm down and join the real world for a moment. You cannot hold a conventionally wrapped rod perfectly upright. There will always be rod twist under load and the greater the load the more the rod will want to twist and the more many of them will twist. You don't have to go far to find photos in many fishing magazines of fishermen with conventionally wrapped rods where the tip is twisted around 90 degrees or more. Proof of this is easy to find and many of us have experienced it firsthand out on the water.

With a spiral wrapped rod you can talk all about torque if you want, but what you will find in the real world is that the rod will not twist in actual use. Torque may indeed be present there as well, but the difference is that on a conventionally wrapped rod it will cause the rod to twist, on a spiral wrapped rod it will not.

It is fine to argue physics and moment arms and the like but most fishermen are more interested in how a rod actually performs while in use. And in use the spiral wrapped rod does not twist. At worst the rod follows the direction of the fish which will never be off more than a few degrees.

Conventionally wrapped rods are upside down, to put it rightly! They do twist and you can prove this to yourself while fishing. Likewise you can prove to yourself that spiral wrapped rods don't twist while fishing.

I guess I don't know squat about a lot of this but I do know which rod will twist and which one won't.

Take the two rod types and shove the butt end of the rod with the guides up top, into the end of a horizontal spine finder. Now string it up and hang a half full can of beer from the line (go ahead and drink that top half~I'm not advising just pouring it down the drain!) Now watch what happens. In the blink of an eye the rod will flip over, completely upside down. That tells me that torque or twist or something was working against that rod being right side up.

Now do the same with a spiral wrapped rod. Hang the same half full can of beer from the line. Watch what happens. Nothing happens. The rod sits there rock solid with the reel upright. If there is any torque there it's sure not twisting or spinning the rod so it must be a non-issue.

I've fished with both types and the spiral is much, much easier to fish with. This is especially true on party boat rods where the fish and loads are much larger. The decrease in force on the fishermen is evident to anyone who's ever tried a comparison of the two types. As long as the fish stays in the water or lower than the rod, you'll have one heck of an easier time with him on a spiral or acid wrapped rod than you will with any rod where the guides are on top.

No offense intended, but please don't tell us we don't know what we're seeing or feeling, we may not be scientists but we know when a rod twists and when it doesn't. We also know how much better a spiral wrapped rod handles all the way around. It's not our imagination. It's the real deal.

I still build both types depending on what my customers ask for. But FWIW, I've had a few multi-piece steelhead rods that wouldn't stay together when wrapped in conventional fashion. The tips would work loose and spin around to the bottom. Customers complain and the only way I know to stop it is to spiral wrap the darn thing.

Even when the transition guides span across the ferrule the two sections will stay put and in line with each other. This is the one fix I can count on when the customer will let me do it.

I think we may be nitpicking terms here. For all I know there may well be gobs of torque on a spiral wrapped rod. But I think most of us are not really concerned with whether or not torque exists on such a rod. What we're concerned with is whether or not the rod will twist in use.

Sprial wrapped rods do not twist when fighting a fish. Conventionally wrapped rods do often twist when fighting fish.

So let's not argue about torque. If we're going to argue anything let's argue about which rod type will twist on you when fighting a fish.

"Try it yourself. Take a conventionally wrapped rod, put a load on it but hold it so that the line is directly over the rod. There will be no torque. Now twist the rod to one side or the other and see how the torque increases and how much torque there really is. Now try the same thing with a spirally wrapped rod."

I just tried this. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? When I take the conventional rod and pull straight down, there is no torque. I cannot pull too far because the angle at which I'm holding the line (line goes from teh tip, back towards teh reel instead of straight down) coming from the tip is to severe, and the rod "jumps". I do this same thing with a spirally wrapped rod, and I can pull teh line any which way I want except up - and the rod doesn't jump.

Am I missing something?

PS - if conventional rods torque when fighting a fish, shouldn't spiral wrapped rods torque when casting? Shouldn't casting accuracy be affected with the spirally wrapped rods, because on the foward cast the line is above the blank, and the guides are on the bottom - same thing that makes a regular rod torque when fighting a fish should make the spirally one torque when casting?

Both will torque when casting, but not much because the load isn't very high.

The casting plane is 90 degrees to the guide set up on either type rod. But, a cast lasts for a few seconds and the rod is only loaded for a fraction of that time. That's why you don't feel it.

Fighting a fish is much different. You just ran Emory's test and found the conventional type rod lacking in stability. This is what most of us have been saying all along. Emory's own test proves the spiral wrapped rod is the one that won't twist under load.

As far as casting accuracy, it's a mute point. The line on both type rods is right near the tip, one just above and one just under. So casting accuracy is not affected and one is no better than another in this regard.

Brian,
I am perfectly calm. I have also seen the pictures of rods twisting but not any modern graphite rod. Every other layer in a modern graphite blank is called scrim and it is there to give the rod strength against shear and torque.

As far as your proof on the water is concerned, I am retired and all I do is fish and make rods. I fish Winter Steelhead, Spring Chinook, Summer Steelhead and I have a cabin on the Nestucca River in Oregon and in the Fall I fish 3, 4 or sometimes even 5 days a week. This last Fall I caught about 60 Fall Chinook ranging from 15 to about 35 pounds. I have some experience fishing and have never noticed a rod trying to twist in my hands. I do not doubt that there sometimes is torque with both conventional and spiral wrapped rods and I will agree that the spiral wrapped rod will try to twist to a more stable position, but I think that the torque is small. In fact, I think that it is the main advantage of the spiral wrapped rods but is very over sold by those advocates of spiral wraps.

Emory,

I don't believe that I have ever fought a good fish on light line when I was able to bring the fish to net while keeping the guides at 90 degrees during the whole fight. Biting my tounge but that is all going to say.

Later,
Gerald Mc

The rod does try to twist in your hands, and an experiment such as that outlined by Denny proves it. Or you can prove it to yourself on your next fish.

Emory, The next time you hook one of those 15 to 30 pound fish, put the rod butt in your gut and hold the foregrip with one hand. Now open your hand so that the foregrip only rests in your palm without you grasping it. Then watch what happens - the rod will spin until the guides are on the bottom. If you hold the rod so that it cannot spin (which is what you're doing) then you may find that the portion of the rod you cannot control (that farthest from your hand) will twist. I've seen many graphite rods twist over 90 degrees in upper area near the tip while fighting a fish.

If you do this same exact thing with a spiral wrapped rod, the rod will sit perfectly upright, even though you are not grasping the foregrip, reel, etc.

Boat and offshore rods are fitted with gimbals to stop this inherent twist on conventional guides-on-top rods. Wrap them in spiral fashion and you can throw away your gimbals - the rod won't twist on you (you may still want to keep your gimbals and nocks for use in positioning a rod in a rod holder, however).

The idea that conventional guides-on-top rods don't try to twist, nor actually do twist, defies all reason and experience. They do try to twist, and many actually do twist, graphite or otherwise.

William is correct in saying that what most fishermen would like to do is eliminate rod twist (torque is a non-issue), and the only way to do that is with a spiral wrap. All rods with the guides on top are inherently unstable. All rods with the guides on the bottom are inherently stable.

In my own opinion, the advantages of the spiral wrap are far too often undersold. It is vastly superior to having the guides on top of the rod.

................

Tom,
Twist is the result of torque as you well know.
I could try your experiment but I do not see any point because that is not the way I or anybody else holds a rod when fishing. I readily conceed that there will be torque but I believe it is small for most rods in most fishing applications. In your example just an ounce or so of torque would be enough to twist the rod. This amount of torque will not require a significant amount of energy on the part of the fisherman to keep the rod straight, In fact, an ounce or so of torque is not enough that the average fisherman will even notice it. Plus if the applied load (the fish) is not on center plane of the rod, is off at an angle, there will be torque for both conventional and spiral wrapped rods.
I do not think that the gimbals on an off shore rod are there primarily to limit the twist. Some are straight and obviously have no effect on twist. However, I will conceed the the ones that are not straight will limit the twist and on these very heavy off shore rods the torque could get high enough for the twist to be a problem. I have agreed in previous discussions about spiral wrapped rods that on these heavy off shore rods a spiral wrap may very make sense.

I do not believe that the twisting of the rod itself, or the tip of the rod twisting is really and issue with the possible exception of the case of very fast action rods, like Hot Shot rods, where the stress is concentrated into a smaller area. If this stress is a problem then consider this. Exactly the same thing occurs with a spirally wrapped rod except that the stress is in a different area. With a spirally wrapped rod the rod somewhere in the middle is stress because the guides and therefore the moment arms are at different angles. If the first transition guides are off to the left then under load the applied torque will counter clockwise and the guides toward the tip will have to apply enough clockwise torque to offset the counter clockwise torque for the rod to be stable. Therefore somewhere in the middle of the rod there will be a stress that results. However, I will concede that the strain will be lower because the stress in the case of the spirally wrapped rod will be in a section of the rod that is stronger.

Emory,

You're not being consistent here - you ask us to test a rod with the guides perfectly on top and yet accuse me of asking you to perform a test in such a way "that is not the way I or anybody else holds a rod when fishing." Surely you aren't serious.

The point of the test I proposed is to confirm whether or not the rod is trying to twist and the effort required by the fisherman to keep it from twisting (and it's a much more realistic test than what you proposed). You are indeed exerting effort to keep your rods from twisting when you fight those fish you speak of. You may deny this, but you are fighting your rods every time you fight a fish. That's a fact. If you're not, then you can hold the rod in your palm without it turning over on you.

Forget about torque - any rod with guides located on top will twist under load. Spiral rods will not. And yes, gimbals were designed to keep rods from twisting under load. On very, very large fish (fillfish, tuna, etc.) , the fisherman does not have the strength to hold the rod upright, as he might if he was only fighting a 15 to 30 pound fish. Thus, the gimbal was born. But it's not needed on spiral wrapped rods, other than for rod orienation when the rod is unloaded and in the rod holder.

And yes, I often fight large striped bass with the rod foregrip resting in a mostly open palm. I can do that because my live bait rods are all spiral wrapped. No way I could ever do it with my older guides-on-top rods.

...............

I really can't believe what I'm reading here LOL! Emory you need to spend some time on a party boat or ocean pier and watch all the fishermen fighting those conventional rods and reels. The reel flops back and forth as the fisherman struggles against any decent fish. You'll see the women and kids try to tuck the rod butt under their arm and fight to keep the reel from flipping all the way over.

Now give them a spiral wrapped rod and they can hold that rod easily and just as pretty as you please and concentrate on cranking the reel and getting the fish in without the outfit flopping back and forth and frustrating the beejesus out of them.

Tom,
I am sorry but I will not forget about torque. I guess we can call things anything we want as long as we all understand what we are talking about. However, in this case it appears that everyone does not understand everything that is being talked about and maybe a more precise use of some words may be appropriate. What you want to call twist I would call torsional strain which is the result of torsional stress. In other words a rod will not twist unless there is torque or torsional force.

I am not proposing that you conduct any test. I simply suggested a way of logically considering what is actually happening with a rod under load.

I can see how a bent gimbal will eliminate twist. It seem to me to be a clever approach to the problem with heavy off shore rods. It seems to me that they will also put the rod at a more comfortable angle when fighting heavy fish. However, I do not see how a straight gimbal will eliminate torque or twist.

Actually as I think about it more it seems to me that the weight of a heavy reel that is a little off center may result, in some applications, in more torgue than any guide positioning.

I guess you can hold a rod in the palm of your open hand in which case if you are not holding the rod with your other hand on it I guess it would tend to try to rotate or twist even with only an ounce or so of torque and in that case a spiral wrapped rod will be better. However, that seems like an odd way to hold the rod to me.

Dennis,
I am not arguing that there are no fishing applications where spiral wrapped rods are not appropriate. I think that there are fishing applications where they are appropriate. Your example may very well be one of them. I think that how the guides are wrapped on a rod involves a number of trade offs and there are advantages and disadvantages to both type rods. However, I think that there are those that approach the issue of conventionally wrapped and spiral wrapped rods from the standpoint of emotion or dogma and see none of the advantages of conventionally wrapped rods and none of the disadvantages of spiral wrapped rods and are not thinking about all of the facts or all of the physics.

Emory,

Do not confuse a gimbal with a uni-butt. These are two different things.

Holding a rod with a relaxed palm grip seems odd to you because you aren't able to do it with your guides-on-top rods. And, the weight of the reel does cause a rod to want to flip over, unless you're using a spiral wrapped rod with a load on it. Even a moderate amount of load on a spiral wrapped rod will right and stabilize a very heavy reel. (And it's torque that does that - we should be talking about how torque works for you on a spiral wrapped rod while working against you on a guides-on-top rod.)

Being able to relax with a big fish, one end of the rod in your gut or rod belt and the other, open palm, under the foregrip, is a nice way to engage a fish. You can use your other hand to wipe your brow, raise a beverage to your lips, or crank the reel handle if you wish. The fact is, once you are relieved of having to fight the rod, the entire process is much easier and far less hectic.

It doesn't matter if there are a million foot pounds of torque on every guide on a spiral wrapped rod - if it does not cause the rod to twist, does not harm the rod, and does not inconvenience the fisherman, then it is a non-issue. Conversely, even a tiny, tiny amount of torque on a conventional wrapped guides-on-top rod will cause it to twist. We know that - it's not an assumption but a fact.

I don't think anyone is approaching spiral wrapped rods with arguments founded in either dogma or emotion - only facts. Spiral wrapped rods do not twist when under load. Conventional rods with guides-on-top do attempt to twist and in many cases, do just that. This is neither emotion, dogma nor hard-headedness, it's plain fact based on using both types of rods in actual fishing situations.


..............

Let me see if I understand what Emory is saying~

Spiral wrapped rods don't twist but there is a ton of torque on them. You can't see it or feel it but it's there so this is a disadvantage to building and using them. Is that about right? Get real dude.

Fact~Spiral wrapped rods don't twist under load.

Fact~Sprial wrapped rods become even more stable as you increase the load on them.

Fact~Spiral wrapped rods cast just as far as regular wrapped rods.

Fact~Spiral wrapped rods do not allow the line to touch the blank no matter how far the rod flexes.

Fact~Spiral wrapped rods reduce stress and strain on the fisherman making it easier to fight a fish.

So if there are any real on the water disadvantages someone please prove them. I'm not going to concern myself with phantom disadvantages that only exist in someone's mind or physics book. I've tried both types on the water and I know what's up, or in the case of a conventionally wrapped rod, what's down.