Hello Tom, I'm still a little confused about what's the difference between a spiral rod, acid rod, revolver rod and a bumper rod and where and what angle do you place the guides in each case if any. Still confused.
Brian

I don't want to take over your thread but maybe Tom can kill two birds with one stone. If you use the spiral wrap on a stand-up rod do you use the traditional turbo eyes or some other type?

(I'm the wrong "Tom", but...) "Spiral" and "Acid" are just generic names for the class of rods where the line starts out at top, then goes and finishes on the bottom. ("Acid" is sort of a joke: What was the guy on when he made the first one?) "Revolver" style is a particular type and layout of a spiral rod, developed and promoted by Rich Forhan. Among other things, it uses two transition guides and offsets the 1st and 4th guide slightly. You can find details by searching here, it's an effective layout, IMO. "Bumper" style is new, simple, and described in a recent Rodmaker article. It uses one small guide halfway (both axes) between a single guide on top and the first of the bottom guides. There are still other ways to do a spiral, such as the "O'Quinn" style.

All names for different methods or systems, but all result in the line moving from the reel to the bottom of the rod. Different ways to do roughly the same thing. All have their place and some work better than others for certain applications. There was an article in the Volume 6 #5 RodMaker that detailed pretty much all the various spiral wrap systems that have been around over the years.

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Get that back issue. It will explain it all. It's cheap and also has pictures LOL

Just out of curiosity, does this back issue have the simple spiral (bumper) system discussed as one of the spiral wrap variations? I'm looking at building my first spiral rod (musky), and would like to use the simple spiral, but the curious/engineer in me is making me want to look at all the spiral options!

No it doesn't. It's one of the last issues. Check it out [rodmakermagazine.com]

That's what I thought - I might just order the simple spiral back issue - that's the one I'm sure I'll use anyways (I'm a simple kind of guy)...

It is the KISS method for spiral wrapping