In addition to absorbing the New Guide Concept Primer, I came across Fuji‘s Concept explanation (who I thought originated the idea to begin with) from the Anglers Resource/Fuji website on the left. Fuji promotes shorter and lighter weight (their 9 guides weigh less than 6 ordinary guides) that reduce side torque, more guides to aid in hook setting power, and at computer derived (but flexible) guide spacings. This is in considerable contrast to the New Guide Concept Primer.

Then I ran across Don Morton’s Equal Angle Guide Placement method again and found it could be used for spinning rods as well. The tip section guides are placed per this method as usual but the lower guides are considerably different than the Primer method. The line is pulled taut from the reel’s bail set at the outermost distance from the rod blank and routed to tip section guides and tied off (and the lowest guide becomes the intersection guide I assume). The lower butt, 2nd, and 3rd guides have the line strung through the rings as well, and are positioned up the blank until the line touches the ring at the top inside edge of each guide. This is considerately different than lining up the tops of the frames of the lower guides with a line extending the spool’s spindle as in our Primer method. Don says with no drag on the reel, cranking it will reveal the “line cone” and how it could be observed funneling evenly through the lower guides - this sounded pretty neat to me.

With considerable differences in these 3 methods and I assume there are others, is one really better than the others (with better meaning more efficient and not necessarily easier to do)? I’m still cracking up about the guy who caught the crappie that told him his butt guide position was wrong and ate him anyway!

Fuji's is not very effective at all and IMO is basically a marketing ploy for their Concept guides (Very good guides, by the way) The system fine tuned by Tom Kirkman in Rodmaker and the primer in the library above is the one usually referred to when discussing the Concept system (Fuji concept guides are good gudes for this system, as well as others) Don Morton's system, while NOT the Concept system is also good as are many other methods.

Personally, I prefer the Concept system (NOT Fuji's) to any other but your mileage may vary!



Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

Equation: N = e (n - 1) squared

Where: N = number of methods of New Concept Guide Placement Theorums

e = everybody who builds rods

n = those who say they know what they are doing

1 = coon ass disbeliever

squared = anyone who does not see the humor in this equation

Gon

Bill, you're Nuts!!!!!!!!!! LOL!

Mike

It could be that I should not have called my method "New Guide Concept," but while I've done a lot of work with it and refined the basic idea which I got from Fuji, it still seemed wrong to me to label as something of my own. I just came up with a very quick way to implement the particular variation that I came to favor. I do believe that it works much better than the specific system Fuji touts. However, at its core, it attempts to accomplish the same thing. Thus to me, it is the New Guide Concept System - just a variation arrived at from a bit more work with it.

There are many really good guide placement systems out and around. I know it can be confusing but you have to understand that they all work. Each excels in its own area. If I were you, I'd spend some time reading about the different systems and then when you have some time, take one rod and set it up according to each method you come across. Go out and cast it and see what you think. Over a few rods you'll decide which method you like the best and which suits your purposes better.

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

Although I don't put guides on top of rods anymore, when I was doing it I preferred Don's Equal Angle sytem. Here's how I set it up to work especially for me.

First I took a rod and really spent a lot of time fine tuning and tweaking it by test casting and static distribution. When I had gotten it just as good as I could possibly get, I put it on what was really just a blank chart. Then I drew lines from the guide positions that I had arrived at by much trial and error back to the center point. My chart was then based on a model rod that had been perfected by me by hand.

After that, any blank I put up on the chart would get the same results that I had so meticulously arrived at by all that trial and error. My work on that first rod could now be transcribed to all other rods by virtue of the plotting of that first one to create the chart. I haven' heard of anyone else doing this and all I can say is that it worked great.

Bill, those equations might work in LA, but here in eastern NC we find it necessary to substitute "possum" for "coon." Also, frequently we have to add a "J" factor. The needed corrections might be lat/lon related. Given that, variations are still possible & even likely.
Stan

Re: Concept Oops! The Ratio & Loaded Cone Method
Rich Handrick 08-04-05 14:51

A crappie I caught the other day was wondering about my guide spacing. He actually criticized my butt guide placement, saying “ it was clearly too close to the foregrip”.
I ate him. - Rich Handrick

Tom, Thanks for the history and clarification. You could always call it the "New Improved Guide Concept" :)

I think some of the confusion around the variations on the New Guide Concept and with Fuji's basic spacing is that people tend to forget that there are 7 or so parts of the system and that some of the parts are in tension with each other.

For example, improved sensitivity and balance would call for fewer guides whereas the parts dealing stress distribution, power transfer and minimum line angle through the guides would tend to call for more guides. So the goal is to optimize the spacing to take advantage of the parts that are most important to you. Although Tom's system is one of the best I've seen, it's virtually impossible to fully perfect this system as a full set of Concepts. To most that optimization involves spacing to deal with casting and load distribution with the minimum number of guides. Again, it depends on what you're after. But there's always the possibility of adding guides to lower line angles and/or change the power distribution, or on the flip side to take some guides out to reduce mass and change the balance.

mark