As the thought of test casting and moving temporarily attached guides fractions of an inch over several hours just to get an extra 2-ft out of a cast nauseates me, I find I usually revert back to the Advanced Custom Rod Building (ACRB) book by Dale Clemens for guide spacing. Now, not to doubt the benefits of static distribution testing, new concept guide spacing systems, or any other yet to be discovered celestial methods for determining guide spacing on various rod types, I have created an Excel spreadsheet for coming up with guide spacing based upon the method presented in the A.C.R.B. book by Dale Clemens. In what usually takes me 20-minutes of fumbling with a calculator and tape measure, I can now do in ooooohh, 10-seconds. If anyone would like a copy of the spreadsheet, e-mail me and I’ll be happy to send it.

The method associates different rod types with “factors” that are used to calculate the spacing. Please don’t ask me why freshwater spinning rods have the same factor as surf casting rods….I have no clue, only Mr. Clemens may be able to answer that…I just tried to simplify the method presented by Mr. Clemens.

Bret Rahe
brahe@gvtc.com

It shouldn't take you 2 hours. In the classes I used to give, most people got their spacing and down and tweaked in less than 20 minutes. If you use the New Guide Concept System set up that I outlined in the online library article, you should be dead on for spinning rods in about, well, a minute or two. And no further tweaking is usually necessary.

I'm sure your spreadsheet will interest some. Thanks for providing it.

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Agreed. It seems as though a common question I see asked on the board is for guide and spacing recommendations. The most common response recommends static testing and/or the new guide concept. My thought was that most of these are probably from people new to rodbuilding without much time (such as myself) to delve into the different methods. They are just excited about building a rod (as I usually am) and need some help getting started. I don't build many spinning rods, but for the last couple I used the new concept system and it worked great....as you said it would......

Regards....Bret

If you remember it, come back periodically and offer your spreadsheet again. This site moves so fast that many may miss it over this holiday weekend. I know many new builders will find it helpful and it's probably a lot better than just a generic spacing chart which doesn't take all the variables in rod models into consideration.

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Bret,
Thanks for sharing!
George

"By jove, I think I've got it?".....the spreadsheet that is. Ditto George.

THANKS FOR SHARING.

Jim
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