After reading the rod buidling book the thing I want to make sure of is that you do not actually glue the guides onto the rod right? You hold them there with tape and then wrap the thread onto them. You make you adjustments when its wrapped in the thread and the rod finish will permenently keep it in place? I also forgot to buy bushing to help attach my reel seat, is there anything else I can use?




Thanks
Al

Hey Al,

Tape is good enough to hold the guides while you wrap them. You wanna wrap tight enough to hold em but still be able to make minor adjustments before you apply the finish. The epoxy finish makes them pretty much stay where they are wrapped.

A lot of folks - myself included - use masking tape to make 2 or 3 "arbors" under the reel seat. I have read about some who use drywall tape - I think they mean the fiberglass type of drywall tape.

Good luck on your first build and have fun - be sure to post a pic or let us know how it turns out.

Jim

Al, i use the smallest electrical zip ties to hold the guide on. i think these are 4"long. are white polyethlene. they have a little slotted end. i pull it tight on the guide and clip off the tag. you can now position your guide aroung the blank. they are narrow enough that you can wrap half the length of the foot before you have to cut them off. to cut them off i use diagonal cuttong plier on the little slotted square thingy. they fly off. watch your eyes. you can buy them at home improvemnt stores in the electrical department. a couple of bucks for a big package. they won't scratch your blank and no tape residue. some guys use pieces of surgical tubing but i really like the convenience of these ties. the finish is going to hold the wrap together and in place. for bushings i have used masking tape bushings for all my rods but i don't know what size rod you are making. a proper busing may be needed if its going to be used on big saltwater fish. if your rod is a fly rod i think the masking tape will work fine. use 1"
tape and put three evenly spaced wraps on the butt section where your reel seat filler will go. build it up for a slip fit. slather it with rod bond making sure the spaces between are full. slide your seat on and make sure its positioned right. i like to use a slow set epoxy like devcon
or rod bond. i don't like 5' epoxy. sets too fast for me. easy to remove though since it breaks down with heat pretty easily. the choice is yours.

Thanks for the quick reply guys. I am using the rod for saltwater 30lb test mostly for stripped bass. You think masking tape will be ok for that? I was thinking of wrapping a gold thread the lenght of the guide and then placing the guide over that and then wrapping it on. I think it was called an overwrap? I liked the look of it but it said its mostly used on big game rods. Is that ok to use on my smaller rod?

Thanks
Al

sorry just 1 more quick question. What should I use to write on the rod with? To make marks for the guides and grips? Crayon?

i don't know if the masking tape is adequate for a 30ilb rod. i only build fly rods. as for marking guide locus use a china marker for that kind of thing. its white and comes off easily. buy it at a craft store or art supply.

Sorta can be trivia to your use of zip ties...sorta can be serious. You CAN cut the tag end off with dykes or diagonals but it is not a good idea. You can get what are known as flush cutters that will cut the tag end off flush with the head. If you use diagonals...usually it will cut at an angle and the part that still sticks ouf of the head is like a sharp plastic knife. You move your arm over it by accident in a fast way.....IT WILL SLICE you real good. Scars to prove it. Uh...hang on and I will look them up in Cabelas just for an example. Cheap ones by Excelite (Excelite 170M) will work. In Cabelas 2005 tackle craft page 47, the blue handled ones are called Gate Shears, in telecom work it is called a flush cutter..... There's a better brand name out there but I can't remember it. You can get good ones at Graybar. If you are real careful you can flush cut them with a good sharp knife. On the little ones used on the guides you might be pretty ok. But I gurantee if you use the larger ones to tyrap stuff, camping gear and the like and cut it of with diagonals, you are gonna brush past it and cut a nice 2-3 in slice in your arm. And it happens just when you least expect it, while you are reaching for something else....bam you got it. If you use a lot of tyraps in camping gear and such I would really suggest you get a pair of flush cutters. Just a safety point to go along with the use of the tyraps. Trust me. I have seen it far too many times for you guys to brush this off as no big thing. If you wanna see blood running down your arm and a nice clean cut for about 1-3 inches........Ask any telecom installer. Forgot I was on a rod building board......the the safety issue of it is still true.

Sorry.......sorta......

Jim

Hi Al,
I also have used zip ties to hold my guides on the blank and they work good! I have recently used
"heat shrink" tubing ( the type used for electrical wiring connections) and I find it also work very well
and allows easy adjusting when stress testing your guide placment. As for the reel seat, the webbed
tape is the best in my opinion. The "underwrap" idea is a good one, especially for heavier rods as the
thread protects the blank from the guide feet and it can also look great as well!
Good Luck! but most of all have "fun" and don't "stress" Tight Lines!!

Raymond_Adams Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Al,
> I also have used zip ties to hold my guides on the
> blank and they work good! I have recently used
> "heat shrink" tubing ( the type used for
> electrical wiring connections) and I find it also
> work very well
> and allows easy adjusting when stress testing your
> guide placment. As for the reel seat, the webbed
> tape is the best in my opinion. The "underwrap"
> idea is a good one, especially for heavier rods as
> the
> thread protects the blank from the guide feet and
> it can also look great as well!
> Good Luck! but most of all have "fun" and don't
> "stress" Tight Lines!!

Thanks. I ended up using masking tape but the space I need to take up was about 3/16 of and inch to fill space in the reel seat. I really dont think its gonna make a difference. I think the underwrap is gonna look good cant wait to position my guides and start wrapping. I found a bunch of zip ties.Thanks for the help.

Also I was wondering if anyone does this. Use a very fine thread and have it go lenght wise up the middle of the rod and use it as a refernce point when keep my guides in line. It would use a very small one so you really wouldnt see it when I wrapped over it and the parts sticking out I would just cut off. What do you think of this?

Hi Al

I like to use thin strips of masking tape to secure the guides whilst wrapping them. By thin about one eighth of an inch wide. These thin strips give more control over positioning of the guide prior to wrapping. It made seem mundane this but actually it's quite important. I wrap the tape starting near the actual ring taking say three turns around the guide foot. I then line up the guide and then take the tape down to the toe of the foot and take a couple of wraps around it and then go onto the blank. The turns around the toe of the foot lock the quide fairly well into place. I rarely have to adjust the guide after wrapping. On some guides this can really mess up your wraps if you have tp post adjust. Fuji SVSG are guides that don't adjust well after wrapping ,the threads tend to fall away from the foot where it climbs up from the toe of the ring and burnishing and packing does not always fix things. I find that using the std width of the masking tape does not hold on small rings at all well and is not so good at allowing adjustment as the thin strips which you can make to whatever size works best for you.

If you ever get into fly rods with very fine tips then I find the thin strips even more necassry, especially with single leg guides.

Personally I would not use electrical ties due to the risk of damaging my blanks when cutting off or even by applying too much pressure to the blank wall on some blanks.

As to arbors then I am a fan of good quality masking tape. If I had a decent metal turning lathe with a collett chuck and taper boring attachemnt then I would turn and bore out graphite arbors. Truth is though I have never ever had a reel seat problem when using tape arbors. I nomally use four under most reel seats.

Just another view for you to consider.

Regards

Mike

I just built my first surf rod, a spinner for striper fishing. I used single foot guides, which are not as easy to tape and then wrap as with two footed guides, where you can tape one foot and wrap the other. I found Flex Coat guide foot adhesive to be tremendously helpful. It held the guide in place, and if I had to make an adjustment after wrapping, I was able to do it. Fortunately, I didn't have to tweak more than a guide or two. As for the reel seat, I cut fiberglass drywall tape in half, widthwise, and wrapped three strips, to coincide with the front, rear, and middle of the seat. I buttered the tape with rodbond as I wrapped, applying as needed so that it would ooze through successive layers of tape as I wrapped. I felt the fiberglass and epoxy would stay firm and last longer against the load of fighting stripers and blues, and I'm very pleased with the result.