"We have not succeeded in answering all of your problems. The answers we have found only serve to raise a whole set of new questions. In some ways we feel that we are as confused as ever, but we believe we are confused on a higher level and about more important things."

Author unknown

Sun.13:00 - Jim Rippe - For a Spiral Wrap rod, with transition guides on the RIGHT-hand side (because you are using a bait-caster bass rod), IMO, your options could / should consider:


Colby-Kirkman Layout: Re-read the above for yourself. Until I am able to read Colby's RMM-8(2) Article, and see it in diagrams and / or photographs, I would not disseminate my current (mis)understanding of it to you.

Three Transition Guides: at 0, 90, 180 degrees, over a ~14 inch span.
First / Stripper Guide: at ~0-zero degrees, ~18 inches forward of the reel.
Second / bridge guide: at ~90 degrees, ~8 inches forward of the stripper.
Third / gateway guide: at ~180 degrees, ~6 inches forward of the bridge.

Three Transition Guides: at ~(30-45), ~(120-135), ~180 degrees; over ~12".
This layout sort of "eliminates" the 0-zero degree guide from the series. It has the first guide acting as both the stripper guide and the first offset guide, at somewhere around 30-45 degrees. The second guide gets the line below the blank's horizontal plane (at 90 degrees), and now flexing the rod will help pull the line away from the blank. This is a small torque lever that can be tolerated. (All designs are a compromise of priorities). The third guide ("gateway" guide at the 180 degree position) immediately gets the fishing line on-axis with the running guides completely under the blank, and effectively minimizes the rod torque inherent with loading. This hybrid approach may be the more / most suitable.

Four Transition Guides: at ~ 0, 60, 120, 180 degrees, over a ~16 inch span.

These are just suggestions for your consideration, to provide a first approximation. More specific angles and distances would be discovered by you once you tape guides on the rod, and flex and cast it. The guides' ring height and diameter, as well as your rod blank's diameter and flexion in the transition zone, would affect this fine tuning. As all the other builders have implied, and especially as Charlie Smoote and Chia-Chien Goh have said, you have to size and position the guides as your blank requires. Get the line below the blank, in the shortest distance, as close to the reel as you can, while keeping the line off the blank, and letting the line cast as smoothly as you can. If you can find a suitable balance of all those parameters, then you will have satisfied the bulk of the design criteria. LOL ! Best Wishes, -Cliff Hall, Gainesville, FL-

Noel - That quote says it all. Thank you. -Cliff-

Charlie: Don't remove those guides, if any, on the top, on that two-piecer. But add any necessary bottom guides and (perhaps) one transition guide. Then, except for spine effects, you have an ideal setup for testing conventional v. spiral wraps. And imagine the looks you will get from your buddies when you show up on the water with it.

In page 2 or so, Mr. kirkman asked for a list of disadvantages of spiral wrapped rods. Being that I'm in a hurry between functions, I'll just hit a few that I've discovered while tesing nearly 60 different variations on the spiral wrap.

1. When fighting truly formiddable fish on spiral wrapped casting rods using reels of high drag pressure and braided lines, we have yet to find a spiral wrap that can take the pressure. For example, on a Calstar x-tra fast rated for 20-50 at 7 feet long, we were using spiral wraps for casting poppers for GTs. The spiral wrapped rods casted beautifully. No problems there. Hooked the first few small fish and still no problems. Hit a monster and we clamped down on the drag going to a full 16 pounds of drag pressure. The fish was landed, but careful inspection showed the epoxy on onoe of the transition guides giving way. Sure enough, during the next battle, the guide was coming loose. This happened with several different variations of the spiral wrap on numerous occassions.

2. When using a blank with one very straight and very prominent spine, we found that certain casting styles decreased distance with the spiral and some increased distance, so that versatility was affected whereas the conventional on the top wrap provided consistent distance through all attempted casting styles.

3. When using a rod with one very straight and very prominent spine, certain spiral wrap variations actually increase wobble. When the correct spiral variation is found, it works fine, but no increase in stability over conventional.

4. with rods having just one very straight and very prominent spine, if the spiral is used and is not placed on the spine, the casting accuracy is just as scattered as a spinning rod built off the spine.

5. with rods again of great quality spines, and of heavier classes, I've still seen the rod's desire to flip during a fight if it's not built on the spine.


These are just a few. However, notice I never mentioned blanks with several spines, because I've found spiral wraps to significantly enhance rods with either multiple spines or twisting spines. Like I said before, IMHO, spiral wraps are simply another tool in the repertoire to use when the blank requiring that style of guide wrapping is encountered. I don't want to choose sides between Mr. kriman and Emory, but I'd have to say that everyone is entitled to their own opinions whether or not somebody else disagrees. If the spiral works for you, then great. If not, then also great. that's your style. Cheers.

Chia has a good post. Looking at his NO. 1 tells me that more guides are better then less. If this happens with a heavy fish, then the fewer guides that bring the line to the bottom of the blank is not good. To much pressure on them. This tells me that it is wise to use more guides for the transition so there is less pressure on each???
He also stated that it happened on several variations of the system???
Or rather that Tom stated it.

Goh - the trans guides moving, that's the result of the line not touching the bottom or top of the guide ring. The line pushes the guide to the side of teh rod, as opposed to into it where it is fully supported. THEre is no supprt on teh side of a guide, which is why this happened. I noticed the epoxy cracking on my stripper guides which I offset way off center - I will not do that again.

I do not agree with this, maybe I do not understand: "5. with rods again of great quality spines, and of heavier classes, I've still seen the rod's desire to flip during a fight if it's not built on the spine."

Are you saying while fighting a fish, the rod is trying to twist upwards away from the fish? Or something else?

Billy
I can not understand that spine thing. Guides down as spinning rod and rod flips upwards????
What interested me was that about the guides coming off the rod due to pressure. I understand the line should "push" the guide into the blank. Press in the center.
But as stated it happened on several different types of spiral wraped rods???
That is why I am thinking it is MUCH better to have more transition guides then the Trend to go with less???
Common sence?? More trans guides - less pressure on each guide
The O'Quinn way sounds better

Chia's post is saying that Tom Kirkman said that??

Also would a single foot guide with the Forham wrap be stronger then a casting guide wrap?
Casting guides have the thread wraped over two feet - single foot guides have the thread wraped " around " the post. Even wrap it 4-5 turns?? 6-7???

I did not intend to have a debate going here. Just listing the things that my group has foudn so far. Like I said, we've tried around 60 variations of the spiral wrap going anywhere from one transtion guide to seven and at all different angles and spacings. For Billy, I meant that during a fight with heavier class rods where the rod blank had one very straight and very prominent spine and was no built on the spine, we noticed the rod still wishing to flip (not twist!) back to the spine. If it were just one isolated occurrence I would chalk it up to just some strange chance happening. It's happened so many times that i had to list it. This is of course under exceptionally heavy drag pressure on fish that have sounded and are either on another downward run or are pounding away and still very green.

I don't havey enough of a physics background to be able to explain the results. The results are there as they happened and I'll let the people who know more than myself figure out why certain things happen. My rodcrafting teacher told me why he thought we got such results, but that's just one guy. To hear a great, well-informed analysis of this stuff would interest me to no end as I like to know why something happened and not just have results to speak by. I did not say that Tom Kirkman said anything other than ask for a list of disadvantages to the spiral wrap in his debate with Emory. I have nothing against either person and respect both of them greatly.

Bill, like I said, I just don't have enough of a physics background to know why we got such results. If I did, I'd be writing a book and making money, but since I don't, I'm still just a poor grad student making sounds on a violin that make people think I skin cats for a living. If you happen to find answers and solutions, please let me know. Cheers.

Who ever said what ever makes no difference.
I was just thinking of the guides coming out, and then thinking of the Forham wrap as posibly being stronger then the double foot casting guides?
I still also go with a spiral wrap and do think they are better then conventional.

Bill,
Forhan wrap locks a guide in from being ripped out from getting yanked against such as how he described why he had to develop it. BTW, that's another disadvantage to the spiral wrap! The Forhan locking wrap doesn't prevent the guide from slipping side to side under the thread. I'm guessing (not sure) that the guide started cracking the epoxy due to side pressure and not from any other force, but like I said...I'm guessing. I don't choose whether one guide wrapping system is better than another. rather, I feel each system has its strengths and weaknesses depending on the blank. That's based on my own experiences. Conventional wraps also have their own disadvantages. I've yet to see any perfect guide system. A perfect guide system would allow the line to travel along the blank adding no additional weight and yet enhancing the properties of any blank ever produced. It would also protect the line from rubbing against the blank,etc. Like I said, there is no such guide system that I've seen yet because as soon as you add the guide, the blank gets heavier. Also, interline blanks add weight from the way they have to be built ot allow the line to travel through them. not only that, the addition of the SiC ring at the tip adds weight. So I just choose the guide system that fits each individual blank best. If it's a spiral, it's a spiral. If it's a conventional wrap or fuji concept, so be it. But that's just my take. Like I said, everybody is entitled to their own opinions because each person has different experiences creating their opinions. Sorry that I misread your inital post there. As this thread is getting long enough, this will probably be my last post on this topic. Hope to see you on the water sometime!

Chia: I understand what you mean about the forham. The guide and the threads could move.
I got to take a blank and try smaller and maybe more guides closer to the blank. Maybe a real stiff blank and put a heck of a lot of pressure on it and see if I can move them, or break the blank LOL
Thanks for the reply