Hello all. I was doing some rough measurements for a 13 foot Rainshadow blank and am somewhat confused. My choke guide ends up around six feet from the butt of the rod, that leaves seven feet left (84"). If the guides are to be put approximately 5" apart until the tip-top, this means about sixteen guides. Add these to the four other guides and you have a rod with perhaps twenty guides total (give or take a few that may be removed during the fine tuning process).

I have built float rods in the past using Loomis's spacing chart and have never needed this many guides. Granted, it was a different system but if you really have to put twenty guides on a thirteen foot blank, don't you loose any of the advantages (e.g. less weight) you are trying to gain by shifting to the smaller guides?

As usual, any opinions/advice would be more than welcome. Thanks, Tom.

You do not have to put all the guides 5 inches apart. You can progressively space them just as you've always done, but they should all be as small and low framed as possible. Plus, they should all be identical size.

Your intersection point sounds about right. So after that, you'd just put as many of your smallest possible guide as needed for good stress distribution.

The reason the article suggests a guide every 5 inches, is beause most common spinning rods are usually on the order of 5 to 8 feet long. In those instances, a guide at every 5 inches is no big deal and an easy way to set this up. On those rods of lengths such as your's, you just have to use a little judgement on how to place all those guides along such a long blank.

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Thanks, for the advice. I'll use my old rods as a rough guide and work from there.
Tom.

Aloha Tom. I build rods on steelhead blanks in lengths similar to the one you're building. On 13' rods I've ended up with 13 guides, 14' with 14 guides. I use progressive spacing as Tom mentioned and combine that with static testing. On my last 13' I used 11 guides from the tip to the choke guide then 2 guides from the reel spool to the choke guide.

Hi Mark. I hope you do not mind the e-mail but I was curious what were the rough measurements for you last rod. I am trying to keep this rod as light as possible and your system really seems to keep the number of guides down.
Thanks,
Tom.