I am building a steelhead / salmon casting rod that has line rate of 10-20lb in the spiral guide configuration. I am not sure how many guides in total and what size of guides I should get for somewhat long blank of 10.6ft (Rainshadow IST1265F). For the transition guides, I am thinking to use LNSG in 16, 12, 12, and 10. The rest of guides will be something like LNSG in 8, 8, 7, 7, and 7, total of 9 guides. The top will be FST size 7. I have searched the threads and saw spiral guides examples for shorter rods, but I wanted to know if there are things I should watch out for longer rods in spiral guide configuration.

- Is spiral guides effective for longer blanks?
- Is 9 guides too few for 10.6ft blank?
- Are the guides too small or large for the blank?

I believe there will be no definite answers until I temporary place the guides and try, but I would like to get some idea where I can start.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Spiral wraps are great, you could lighten the tip up a bunch if you went to LSG guides from 10 on down. I'd also go with one guide each while sizing down to the 2 ea 10 LSGs. 1 ea 8 than all 7s. I'd buy 10 just to be safe.

Spiral wrapping is effective for any casting rod. It's even more important on the longer blanks and can reduce the overall number of guides you need on the upper portion of the rod. This is always helpful. I can't tell you sizes and numbers without having your stuff here in front of me, but it sounds like you're on the right track. I do think you may end up with having to use one or two more guides. Think about SG guides on the underside of the rod. With the Forhan wrap they'll be plenty strong enough for that blank and will reduce weight a little.

Nice choice in blanks, you'll be happy with it. Don't be nervous about starting with a 12, 12's and 10 in the transition should work well, depending on the reel you plan to use. You can easily make the transition in three guides. As William suggested, have you thought about switching to single foot guides from the turn to the tip? Less weight, less wrapping, same good casting. You will most likley end up with a few more guides on that 10'6'' but the sizes are right. Most of my steelhead rods will have 1-12, 1 -10 and then 8's and 7's in single foot. Only test casting will tell you if your combination is right. Good luck, let us know how it turns out.

Keiichi-san,
For that long of a rod, I would advise starting with a size 16 guide going into your transition. Follow with two 12s and two to three 10s (depending on how you decide to position your transition) followed by LSG in 8s and 7s. Depending on the length of your handle, etc., and in order to ensure the least amount of unnecessary strain while fighting the fish, i would advise for an absolute minimum of 11 to 12 guides because that's how many I might use if just building for a spinning rod - of course depending on the characteristics of the blank as I've seen some blanks that are so stiff that I can get away with far fewer guides. As far as whether the guides are too small are large firstly depends on your line set-up. If you're tying a lot of knots into your mainline for setting up shock leaders, etc., you may wish to increase the average size of your guides with your smallest guides being 8s. Being that it is a longer rod, I would also advise you try a variety of different transition placements to optimize your casting as one well noted rod crafter in Malaysia found out that properly wrapped spiral rods can indeed outcast traditional wraps on rolled tubular rod blanks. The spiral wrap hasn't proven to carry over as many of its advantages in the GUSA blanks and even less so in the Cape Fear Hextech blanks, as far as I've seen (whcih could change the more I experiment) but for the blank you're discussing, it seems a great idea.

Thank you very much for all the great tips. Rod building in general requires lots of experience, many trials and errors, but asking the experts kind of shorten the path. I really like the blank. It is in green color, very nice. One thing I noticed was that by wiping out excess epoxy using denatured alcohol took out a bit of blank’s coating and color. Is this normal? It is still green, but I was just wondering. I am going to order LNSG 16, 12, 12, 10, and 10, then three LSG 8 and four LSG 7. Just in case I need more guides. My reel will be Shimano 200DC. Main line will be 20lb spectra, and shock leader will be 20-30lb mono depending on target species. I just like to cast as far as I can to catch halibut from surf, yellowtail, white see bass, barracuda, and bonito from jetty and rocks using metal jigs and heavy minnows. I’ve been using spinning outfit and been successful, but I just like the feel of bait casting reels when fighting fish. Thanks again and let you know how it goes!

I have never built or cast a spiral wrapped rod but I find it hard to believe that they can "outcast" ( I assume that is for distance) a standard guide configuration. The additional friction has to reduce distance more than any other advantages the spiral wrap has doesn't it??