Q: “How tight should guide wraps be?â€
A: Your guide wraps should be at least tight enough to resist the forces to which your guide will be subjected. If you want to be able to move the guide around while wrapping & aligning on the rack, then that same force will move the guide later as well. The thread finish is not an adhesive, and the thread finish does not magically secure the guide. (It does protect the thread from abrasion and moisture.)
Consider a guide on the rod blank. A force that is pulling the guide away from the rod blank is resisted by the thread’s TENSILE strength (NOT its TENSION). Even if the guide is slightly loose, the thread’s tensile strength could resist a force from this direction.
A force that is seeking to slide the guide up or down the rod blank is resisted by the FRICTION between (the bottom of the guide foot and the rod blank) and between (the top of the guide foot and the thread wrap). To make a long story short, this friction depends on the thread TENSION, not its tensile strength, and for practical purposes, this frictional force can be considered to be equal to the thread TENSION. Filling the tunnels along side the guide foot with thread finish helps create a block against sliding.
A lateral force that is seeking to make the guide rock or roll or list is only resisted by the compressive force of the thread onto the top of the guide foot, and the absence of a rocking fulcrum under the guide foot on the rod blank. That is why attempting to have a good fit of the curvature of the underside of the guide foot to the diameter of the rod blank is advised. (Mechanically, from the standpoint of a lever and fulcrum model against a rocking motion, it is better to have the radius of the curvature of the underside of the guide foot to be smaller than the radius of the rod blank. But the body of the guide foot still needs to be broad enough to lash it.) This compressive force of the thread wrap’s tension on the guide foot’s body has virtually no lever arm over which to operate as a restraining force, compared to a ring guide that may be 1 centimeter or even 5+ cm above the rod blank. Granted, such a lateral force is not an ordinary part of the direct fish-fighting forces, … but bashing a guide has probably been the reason for more guide repairs than the pressure of battling a fish. It is the TENSION in the thread that resists the mechanical advantage of this lateral force. Good thread tension may not prevent a guide ring from cracking, but it should keep a guide from rolling over.
IMO, an underwrap can improve the fit of the curvature of the underside of the guide foot to the rod blank’s radius; provide a cushion under the foot to protect the blank; and increase sliding friction; and damp any rocking fulcrum. IMO, -CMH.
Keep in mind that with whatever force that you are able to move that guide around on the rod blank while wrapping on the rod rack, that it will not take that much more force than that later to move your guide around after the thread finish has cured, and the rod is on the water. The thread finish is said to only add ~ 10% to the strength of the unfinished thread wrap. The thread finish is really not an adhesive, and it is not magic. It is the TENSION in the thread that holds the guide in place from shifting, more than the tensile strength of the thread.
Personally, I would rather take a few more moments while wrapping to ensure that the guides are properly aligned as I go along, and use a higher thread tension, than to rely on move-ability later to align my guides. That move-ability will remain in the finished rod. Small rubber bands can hold the guide in place while wrapping up the guide’s toe toward the heel. Too much tension at this stage can be frustrating, as the guide tends to squirt out from under the thread. Use a lower tension while coming up the toe. And adjust to a higher thread tension as you reach and move across the flat body of the guide foot while strapping it down. Don’t go “up†the guide heel-frame. That’s where the most movement of a flexed guide frame occurs, and that places the most severe tension on the few threads at that boundary. IMO.
Q.E.D. (LOL!) - ‘Hope that helps, … -Cliff Hall, Gainesville, FL-USA+++
Two Links to closely related discussions are:
Re: To double wrap or not Cliff M. Hall 11-11-05 00:53
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www.rodbuilding.org]
... I realize this may seem like a confusing distinction between two different restrictive forces: a FRICTIONAL force that prevents the guide from SLIDING around on the rod blank; verses a TETHERING force that prevents the guide from RIPPING away from the rod blank.
Thread Tension Measuring Device ?? Ken Driedger 09-07-04 12:25
[
www.rodbuilding.org]
In this day and age of digi this and digi that, is there a simple inexpensive measuring device that measures relative thread pressure/tension/around a cylinder, such as a rod blank, …?
