While setting up a 6' med. spinning rod for my dad last night, I noticed that the intersect point was exactly at the end of the blank. I tried to place the guides like that, but I couldn't get, what seemed to me, proper placement. Should I create a false intersect point x" from the tip and build from there?

Thanks,
Scott

Short answer: yes. Happens to me often enough, so I use what I call a pseudo-concept layout. Drop down with four guides reasonably quickly, then hug the blank out to the tip with fly guides. This gives you one of the main benefits of the system: reduced weight near the tip.

What I have done when this has happened for me, put the blank in the position of a 90 deg bend. At the point where the blank starts to make its curve, I put the intersection guide at that location.

Scott, i also do as Mike has stated.

Regards......Doug@
TCRds

Or you could buy your dad a new reel for his birthday- one with a steeper spool angle...

I measure up from the reel and put the intersect point at about 45" from the reel spool face. I do this same distance on all my freshwater spinning rods no matter what reel I use. Then I use the table or straightedge method as written up in the library here to set my guides up. I've found it to work very well.

Check out this related Thread for some very important additional comments by Tom Kirkman, Charlie Smoote, and Tom Doyle.
Spinning reel angle Levi Farster 12-05-04
[www.rodbuilding.org]
[http://www.rodbuilding.org/read.php?2,123904,123904#msg-123904]

In brief, the reel angle may not give an elegant intersect point, and that is by no means some fatal flaw in the system nor reason to not use that particular reel. The rest of the Concept guide system (quick choking, lite weight) is more important than the intersect point, as disconcerting as that surprise may initially be. -Cliff Hall, Gainesville, FL-