I think I understand the principal behind the wrap but I am not sure of the correct proceedures. On casting rod where do you put the guides for the spiral wrap? Are they wrapped along the effective spine (the outside of the curve) or on the spine (the inside of the curve)? How do you go about static testing when using the spiral wrap? It seems a little confusing to me and yet I think it should be simple with a little help from someone out there. Thanks for your help!

I put the running guides on as if it was a spinning rod, and that ends up being the outside of the curve. For testing, I have the handle on already and mount the reel that I plan on using with the rod and run my line through the guides.

Greetings Lon,

I am in the process of building a couple of these myself, primarily for Musky fishing.

There are two great articles in recent issues of Rodmaker Magazine and a section in Dale Clemen's rod building book.

The summary is that you do indeed address the spine when building one of these rods. The whole idea is to use this method to eliminate the torque you experience when fighting a heavy fish with a conventional rod.

Basically, you find the spine in the usual way. Then, you flex the rod (carefully) until you've achieved a 90 degree bend. Note where the bend begins in the butt section. The spiral transition (spiral)guides should go in the non active area between the start of the bend and the handle.

You can use 3 or 4 guides to make the transition, again depending on whose style you are using. The remaining guides go "under" the rod (inside the curve) just as they would on a spinning rod setup. Use your regular guide spacing technique to set the spacing between the tip and the forward-most (180 degree) transition guide.

Experiment with the placement of the remaining transition guides, mainly watching out ensure thet the line passes through the transition in a straight a line as possible and that the line is always held away from the blank. Typically they are 4 to 6 inches apart.

Note that the transition guides WILL have considerable sideways force on them so use the shortest guides you can that meet the preceeding criteria. (The taller the guide, the more sideways leverage they will apply to the wraps)

Finally, make sure you test cast the rod with the guides securely taped in place to make sure all is well before committing to thread and epoxy.

Let us know how it turns out and maybe post a picture or two.

Skip

I generally put the spine at either 9 oclock or 3 oclock depending upon whether the person is right or left handed. I totally disregard it on heavier offshore rods, however.

..........

Lon,
I build up spiral wrapped rods like what Mike was saying. For casting rods, I always keep the spine centered as I've found that moving the spine off to the sides affects the casting accuracy for my style of casting. I've got two customers in the past who needed the spines on the sides for their styles of casting. you should experiment a bit on this. Also, I've seen some disastrous results resulting from building rods off the spines in saltwater using modern braided lines with high drag pressures against bad intentioned fish such as GTs that make yellowfin tuna fights look like bullheads. Good luck!