I will be building rod numbers 4 through 8 soon for myself and close family. Like the previous three, these will be walleye rods used for casting and jigging, and I will be using 6'3" and 6'6" blanks medium light fast and medium xtra fast from St. Croix- their SCV blanks- and one blank from Loomis. Pricey, but worth the investment.

My first rods were straight wraps and trim wraps without underwraps- great looking rods. I am now a full-blown addict, but it REALLY wasn't my fault. In viewing this wonderful board daily, I have come to a great appreciation for the beauty of many of the board members work as seen in the photo section for guide wraps, particularly those with underwraps.. The question- would underwraps be appropriate for both their looks as well as blank protection for these rods, or should I forget the underwraps on these rods in view of added weight that could compromise performance?

Thanks for all the advice and information.

How I wish I could make it to Charlotte....

John

Rods of that description do not need to be underwrapped and they'll perform better without them. Underwraps don't have the ability to protect the blank from anything.

Do make sure that your guide prep is carefully done. Flat guide feet with no sharp burrs on the bottoms.

.........

I've built a number of rods on the St. Croix SCVs. Those blanks are outstanding for their light weight, and you should build them to keep that weight down. So, no underwraps on those, please.

John,
Adding weight to a blank has the same effect, in terms of performance, as lowering the modulus of elasticity. There is little point, in my judgement, of taking a high dollar, high modulus blank like the ones you have chosen and then adding the weight of under wraps. You might as well have selected a lower modulus, less expensive blank if you are going to add under wraps. As the others have pointed out the underwraps do little if anything to protect the blank.
If you like the appearance of the under wraps you can use a false under wrap that looks just like a normal underwrap and will add less weight. However, on those blanks I would not. I would use light guides and keep the wraps short to get the best possible performance in terms of casting distance, ease of casting, senitivity and feel.

I hope I can pull this off with out starting a war or receiving massive attacks for being out of touch with the UP TO DATE methods of rod building but I just finally have to ask some questions. First you guys are right about blank protection, if you prepare your guided properly I doubt there will be any damage. Maybe some some stability to the guide so when it is bouncing around or in the bottom of the boat it doesnt get tweeked . The question to me is the weight part. I am only guessing but I a pretty sure I can get about twenty underwrapped rods out of an ounce of thread, even with color preserver what does that end up with as compared to rod, handle, guides, reel, line and a plug or jig? Can someone give me some figjures I can really sink my teeth into. I am really not trying to be a smart a-- I am just trying to find out what factual change there is in this circumstance. The second area is sensitivity. I fished professionally in bass tours for several years and found that most fishermen both bass and otherwise fell into mostly two catagories. One line feelers and line watchers. Yes you can feel strikes through the rod but do a test I have done hundreds of times at Shows. Take a high end blank hold it against someones adams apple and have them talk, feel the vibration then do the same thing with the same rod with and underwrap, guides and so on. I have foud it nearly impossible to detect a huge difference. Bottom line is I believe our craft is custom based and unless there is something trully detrimental that someone is about to do we should give info without making it sound like one of the ten commandments (set in stone). So John here is my 2 cents worth. No underwraps are not necessary. I am trully unsure what change underwraps would make if you use them. If you think they would add beauty and elevate pride in your workmanship - do it. I know I am going to catch it for this one but then no one has to agree with me either.

Whether or not you'd harm rod efficiency or sensitivity with underwraps has to do with how much weight you're talking about adding, where you're adding it and the overall weight of the rod in question.

A little extra weight, let's say 1/16th ounce total, isn't going to matter much on a stand up or heavy surf rod. You're not increasing the overall weight by more than a tiny fraction of a percent. But on must bass rods, 1/16th of an ounce will make a difference you can actually measure, and feel. (I doubt underwraps on your rod will add quite that much, however.)

How much does some extra thread and little extra finish weigh? More than you'd think. I found that on light rods with small guides, the thread and finish can weigh half as much as the guides. That ratio will drop, of course, as the size of the guides increases.

Emory is working on some figures now that should give us some actual numbers for thread and finish weight and how such weight, along with exactly where on the rod that it's added, will affect overall rod performance. Stay tuned.

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

Hey all,

Let see:
If Doc can take an ounce of thread to underwrap twenty rods and each rod takes 5 guides, does that mean we divide (20 rods X 5 Guides) 100 underwraps into an ounce to get each underwrap's thread weight. Then take the weight of each wrap thread times the number of guides on the rod and then add the finish coat weight to get the total weight that we added to the rod. Ok, that means to me I need have someone tell me what the weight is for one finish coat. Once I get the finish coat weight I will be able to build a weight model so that we can figure out how much we impact a rod by just putting in the number of guides we put on our rods.
Wow, another great model tools for us rodbuilders. Adding underwarps weights to understand the impact to the rod.

Or can we continue to build a great looking and funtional rods without all of the details. This stuff is way beyond my ablility to understand why I build rods for myself. I like underwraps. Then again, I prefer driving an 1954 Austin Healy 100-4 and not a Corvette. I may be a lttle outdated, but heck, I have a ton of fun.

We forget sometimes we build stuff because we just like to.

Hope you all are able to the humor in this email thread.

I certainly appreciate all the input into the question.

From a physics and mechanical perspective, I can appreciate that a small amount of weight on the end of a fulcrum or lever, (or a fishing rod), for that matter, can translate to a significant effect on the result. As it is, I am already routinely outfished by my wife in walleye by a 3:1 ratio, and I think it has to do with sensitivity. I think my solution will be, therefore, to load up the end of her rod ("But honey, see how pretty all those underwraps, guides, and thick finish are.....) while using the lightest single foot titanium guides with the minimal wraps and finish on mine......

Thanks again.....I cannot tell you how appreciative I am of your efforts in sharing your knowledge.

Best regards,
John Vander Zee

NACHO- what kind of 4x4 truck is an AUSTIN HEALY? does it have a cummins turbo diesel in it?

John,

It is not a truck, it is a very small English sport car build in the fifties and slow as heck. But when you going 60 miles an hour, you think you going over a hundred.

The wind in you race, the car bouncing around, the door making noise like they are about to open, the motor screaming at 3800 rpm, and it just made you really appreciate living. In fact, back then; Healy used a jeep motor in their cars. But it was a heck of a lot of fun. Like rod building is today.

i know what an AUSTIN HEALY is nacho, i was just showing you some redneck humor. i think they're cool to mess with, especially when ya stack em up and drive over em w/BIGFOOT. GIT ER DONE!

Nacho,
I used to owned an Austin Healy 100. I must have sold it 30 years ago. It was a really pretty car then and still is today in my judgement. I remember all of the things that you mentioned about it but what I remember most about it was the damn clutch and the damn carburators. The clutch went in about 1/4 inch from completely disengaged to totally engaged and you had to constantly be fussing with the carburators, Webbers weren't they? It had aluminum fenders, hood and trunk lid but a TRACTOR engine and transmission.

?webber side drafts? I think... never "right" ... just like the old Jags. Constant fiddling

Ken,
Yep, I think that is right. I owned that car for several years and I do not think that I ever had the carburators adjusted correctly. If Nacho still owns one he obviously knows something that I didn't know.

Revenge of the English for the American 6-sided all-bamboo fly rod!

John,

I'm not going to get into the debate on to under wrap or not. I underwrap most all my rod except fly rods but I also build heaver rods. Most of my rods are saltwater. I don't have to underwrap them but I do because I like the looks and more important my costumers want them underwraped. If you want to underwrap do so. If you want to underwrap but fear the extra weight then do a false underwrap. A false underwrap is a little more diffacult to do because you have to make sure of your measurments between guide feet is correct. By false underwraping you will add a little more weight but not as much as a full underwrap. Now you have 3 options to choose from. Have fun and do what you think you can live with. If you want to burn some thread take and wrap the blank with the 3 different setup. You will not have the weight of the epoxy but it should give you a feel for what you want.

Hank
On The Rocks Fishing
Wells, ME.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2005 11:47PM by Milton (Hank) Aldridge.

So many different ways to do something, so little time... We all said that this is addicting; and there's certainly no set and dried rules. For everything we gain, we might lose a little bit, but it all comes down to the builder and what he really wants to do-it's CUSTOM!!

For anyone interested they are SU carburetors. Great carby when you balance them properly.

To all the fellows that had the pleasure to drive an Austin Healy 100-4,

I never did get the Side draft SU carbs to be in sync with each other, but I did enjoy lowering the front windshield down and driving that car in the California Mountains and up Hwy 101. The sun and wind in your face- Wow that was great.

Do you all recall the electric over-drive, and the reversed pattern three speed, and how hot the floorboard got? I remember going on many day trips in the car, but I never did trust it to get me back home. But it really never did fail me. I recall one time when a freeze pug came out the motor block; I just beat it back into place, added water to the motor and drove home. It was just a fun and easy to maintain car.

That car was like driving a go-kart.

Sorry to distract from the forum, but that car was just plain fun to drive.

Nacho,
Do you remember getting in and turning the key and then hoping that you would hear that little click, click, click of the electric fuel pump? If you did not hear it you were not going anywhere and sometimes you would not hear it.