I never have understood why the rod guide industry just doesn't create guides that are ready to wrap to begin with (no grinding required) Could it be THAT hard to taper the feet and make a nice standard for everyone to use. Most guide sizes would surely dictate whats needed application wise.

American tackle has started grinding their own and I believe they are on the right track, I hope others follow and the end result is guides we can all JUST WRAP....wouldn't that be the **** ?

DR

Makes sense to me. I hate grinding guide feet. Think it has to do with $$ more than anything myself.

Phil

Hopkins Holloway grinds theirs and I believe pac bay does also. You still need a little touch up but no major task.

DR
The forgings can't go to 0" , well it could but constant checking of STAMPING DIES means more cost, same with grinding, add in grinder, wheels, coolant, cleaning,electric, floor space, a person to grind, then an inspector.
How about the bottom of foot ? that needs work too.

Dave von Doehren
PRRODS......If man built it , man can fix it.and if man built it man can break it !

Seeing guides from some of the companies guide who sell them "Pre-Ground", I'll do my own thank you. I'd HATE to see Fuji grinding guides for me - all that would do is increase the cost of teh guides, and I would still have to grind teh guides myself anyhow. If I was building factory custom rods, I think pre-ground would work just fine, hundreds of rods using size D thread, the way companies are currently grinding them is just fine.

I agree with Mr. Vivona. The guides that are preground would be better left alone for the individual user to shape. I spend more time shaping and getting the boogers off of them than if I just had a fresh guide to dress.

It's not much fun to do, but for me, I'd just as soon grind the guide foot taper myself to get what might work. Stan

With the techno available today, I would think that creating a perfect metal guide foot would be a simple task, it just cannot be that hard. We create thousands of items in tiny tolerances everyday and sell them for pennies, why not a rod guide, it's surely not rocket science. :)

DR

I don't like grinding but I would rather do them myself. I have never seen a "pre gound" guide that was useable (for me). The side grinding would vary a lot between blanks so I don't see how they could be done. The same guide would overhang the sides of one blank while having a big shoulder on another.

I much prefer trusting myself to do things the way I think they should be. IMO, our world is to "cookie cutter" now.

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!!

I am with Billy and the others about grinding. When I get a order of guides. I just set down with my gring/polishing wheel and grind/polish for a couple of hours. So when it comes time to use them all I have to do is a little tuch up. Just my 2 cents
Good Wraps Bob I hope you all had a GREAT TURKEY DAY

I hate grinding them too BUT HOWEVER if they would be perfect to begin with, I couldnt tell my customers that my rod features grinded guidefeet that factory rods dont have...

Hi Duane,

Good topic. Its something all guide companies have encountered and until now have only utilized manual grinding techniques. Unfortuntately grinding is the only way to accomplish the task with the current progressive die stamping systems in place. Basically flat stainless steel on big rolls goes through a stamping process that makes the frame. The material is the same thickness so a taper cannot be created. The end could possibly be stamped again smashing the foot however the stainless is incredibly hard and this may not be possible with the existing material or machinery. Plus squashing a frame that averages .029 - .044 thick would create a much larger and wider foot that wouldn't be perfect either. It still wouldn't be completely flat and the sides would have to be made more narrow to fit blank diameters better. Most component companies (even Fuji) have guides made in China or Korea because labor is the cheapest cure for products that require extra processing.

The primary reason for offering guides with a ground foot is to decrease the labor involved in guide foot preparation for the manufacturers. I can tell you that using an employee to grind guide feet is not what manufacturers want to do with their labor resources. I myself used it as cruel and unusual punishment for line workers that didn't appreciate their positions. Torn fingernails and blister burns make great motivation for finding that silver lining in the dark cloud of the rod assembly line. With grinding being a hand process the results are seldom perfect. In fact, in a recent transaction we negotciated guides for a modest rod line where they will require approximately 5,000 sets of guides. Using 9 guide sets and accounting for single foot guides nearest the rod tips, I would estimate there to be as many as 67,500 guide feet that need to be ground. This is a good reason for manufacturers to accept our grinding even if its not perfect. Many custom builders appreciate the benefit of a quick touch up rather then a full grinding job as well. Although many prefer to do it all themselves please understand that most component companies cannot afford to double SKU's and increase inventory levels accross the board to offer guides with both ground and un-ground feet.

After saying all this we are still trying to find new ways of offering better products and American Tackle is currently trying to address this exact topic. More will come about this in the coming year.

Darrin Heim
American Tackle Company

Darrin, thanks for that post.

As custom rod builders we probably should be glad to have something to do to make things work better. Craftsmen often take something that works and modify them to make them work better for a given problem or somehow come up with an improved solution.

Much as I despise tapering guide feet, Darrin's comment seems to give new meaning to that task.

Stan.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/2005 10:07PM by Stan Gregory.

Darrin,

Thank you.

Ive been pleased with your grinding efforts, like you mentioned, I for one really like the "touching up"-if at all-of the guides that AMT is producing. Personally I believe it makes our job easier and it's far from being a cookie cutter, or using the grinding fact as a marketing tool for us builders, if we touch them up, they are ground in my eyes.

Improvements are NICE and thank you for addressing this issue, here, and in the coming year especially. Keep us posted, we look forward to seeing the future product.

DR

tsk tsk. lazy. just plain lazy.

C'mon, its not that hard. I just (maybe 20 minutes ago) ground up a bunch of fuji's. and a 50 ring guide has a big fat rear foot.

Darrin, cant you make a machine that like grabs it, and spins it and grinds it and flips it again and grinds along the axis and then polishes it and spits it onto a conveyor where your QC people, ever diligent, eyeball it then turn (but not too far!) and put it on another conveyor that loads it onto a little carrier running on inverted rail that takes it to a paint booth where its painted by stinky people who cant wear deoderant cause it could cause paint pitting or layering and then baked under expensive lights and then carried in special trays by a person employed solely to carry those trays (he better run if he's workin for me) back to QC? Huh? Darrin? LOL!

I'll grind'm. really.

Levi,

This post wasn't about being "lazy", it was about the reasons why someone hasn't created guide feet that don't need it, or hardly need it. If you love to grind, we understand :)

DR

I wuz just kiddin about the lazy part. Yeah, its tedious. But some guides are already really expensive. you know?

Agreed Levi!

Most of the time when a new product "makes it", they do increase costs. Over time these costs usually fall to competition and the end result can be a better product for about the same costs (or even less, if mass produced and eveyone picks it up as lesser costs due to multiple obvious reasons). This is not always true as you know, ......but it's nice to think we all could be on the winning side as consumers by having a better product.

DR

Put me squarely in the camp that would rather do it myself. Biggest problem I see with "pre-ground" guides is that very few people are going to agree on what the "perfect" guide prep is. All I know is that the pre-ground guides that I currently use are a royal pain in the butt compared to unground guides and require twice the effort to get into a suitable shape for what I consider "perfect."

My point in the above post was to sortof make fun of all the effort and stuff that would be involved for a manufacturer to grind feet, versus us, Maybe some people make alot more poles, or have alot more guides on their rods. S'all. I'm not so obsessed that I'm gonna lose sleep over a little squareness in the shoulder. Yet.