hey every one ,

I just laid out the guides on the 8'6' st croix legend 4wt fly blank.

I did a static distibution test and came Up with 14 guides not including the tip top I went to town and left no geometry to speak of .

St Croix lists 10 guides on their website but 14 seems to take most of the angles out . Im using fuji Titanim SICs.

Have any of you set this blank up with Fuji single foots? Im sure I can take a few out esp in the butt section as I set up three guides in the stripping section to eliminate the sine wave loops that occur . Should I only have two guides there ?

any insight will be most welcome !!

I would have not gotten this far with out all your help Tom K, Elrod (Jon), Andrew White. Rich G, Scott B and many others Thank you too much !!

Happy wraps "John"

For #4 wt. i think it is pretty much! 10 guides including tip-top and stripping, is enough i believe!
Why didn´t you build this rod as suggested by the manufacturer?

Alberto,

thanks for tuning in, Ive only built a small handfull of rods and own a few factory rods and have found that the factory setups are genaric at best.

Also many factory setups dont take rod action into consideration. St Croix as much as they make a nice product their spacing chart is the same no matter what blank they use.

A 9' legend Ultra which is somewhat fast action will have the same spacing as a SCII which is slower.

Another thing I thought of last night was that since my reach is rather short I need the stripper much closer to the butt than the factory charts call for, thus I need to add additional guides to keep things tight in the butt section.

Ive had to add a stripper on two of my factory rods to get the placement right for my reach.

its actually very uncomfortable using a rod with the stripper up too far! your always having to extend your reach to grab line on the retrieve .

Happy wraps "John"

Always trust your testing. If it takes 14, then it takes 14. For St. Croix to use 14 guides on this rod would cost them a considerable amount of money when you factor in the extra guides on perhaps many thousands of rods.

But you can be assured that St. Croix will use enough guides to provide adequate stress distribution. Otherwise, they would have far too many rods being returned for breakage due to tensile stress between guides.

Test cast your 14 guide set up several times. Remember where you have those guides located (write it down). Now back up a bit and try to set it up with 12 guides - you don't have to remove all the angles, just keep them from being exteme. Test cast again and see which set-up is better overall in terms of casting distance and how the rod performs for you.

If the 14 guide set-up is the best, stop there and use the 14. If the 12 is better, write down the spacings for that set-up and then try a 10 guide set-up. Test again. At some point you will find a number that seems to be optimum. It may well be 14, but it may be 12 or 10.

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

Agree with Tom. On many 9ft 4wts I end up with 13-14 guides. I should mention that this setup is using collector guides as Don Morton has suggested. Good article explaining in one of the past issues of RM. I believe it was included in the Equal Angle article. Just always keep in mind that it is performance that mandates the guides, not asthetics or the "norm". Certainly too many guides will degredate the recovery of the blank to a point of being inefficient, but remember we want to keep the line as close to the blank as possible without it ever slapping the blank. Keep "chatter" to a minimum, give good support to the blank, make it stable, and make it "feel" balanced.
As Tom mentioned, test, test test, it is the only way to get it "right".

I have just completed a 8ft, 4pcs, #4 wt.
On this rod i have placed 12 pcs of single foot ceramic guides (Supa Glide from H&H). Any less would not have done the trick. Especially in the back cast, when You perform a double drag with a light line, its important (for me anyway) to keep the line away from the rod.
So to obtain this, I prefer guides that keeps the line not so close to the blank. What do You gain when You want to keep the line as close as You can to the blank? Have I missed out on something?
Kind regards.
Goran.

The farther the line is from the blank the greater the torque effect will be. If your guides are too high you will get some twist on the forward cast and it won't have anything to do with nor can you stop it by positioning the spine in any certain location.

Hi Mike.
Thanks for Your input. I have quit using traditional snake guides years ago, allthough this type of guides will keep the line closest to the blank. I would not hesitate for one second to put single foot ceramic guides instead of snake just becuase they will give a little extra distance between line and blank. (And less friction of course..)
The max distances Im talking about is from the strip guide and forward;
12mm, 10,5mm, 10mm, 8mm, 7mm, 6,5mm up to the tip top.
In Your professional opinion; does this really decrease the rods potential to cast good? Have not noticed any twist beside the one from my wife when she is in a dancing mood.... (Just kidding.)
Would like to have some recommendation about max distance between the line and blank when building fly rods.....
Kind regards.

The further you move the line from the blank the more it will tend to twist on the forward cast.

What you are doing will not stop the rod from casting well. Getting the line lower and closer to the blank, without it actually touching the blank, may result in it casting even better.

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

Just to add to what is said in earlier posts. Yes, single foots raise the line slightly off the blank more than snakes, but in the use of snakes in my experience the line hits the blank. The blank produces much more friction than the ring of a single foot. So my reason is concepts are low to the blank, yet are able to prevent the line from hitting the blank. Some of this may be attributed to my lack of knowledge in placement and usage of snakes. Out of personal experience, single foots provide greater distance, better static deflection, easier to wrap (half the wraps and finish). Don't know the truth on actual weight debate between snakes and singles, but would seem to think with half as much finish and thread, that singles would either be no more or even less weight.
Again, I am speaking out of personal experience and what I have confidence in.
I also use Don Morton's design of collector guides on all my flyrods. I don't know if snakes allow the use of this or not.