I am building a Rainshadow IST1025F Steelhead rod and am going to make it a spiral wrap. I've built a couple one piece spirals before, but I am unsure about the guide placement on the butt half for a two piece. Does the transition have to be made prior to the ferrule? It looks like it's going to be a quick turn if I keep the turn on the bottom half. I am guessing that it would have to be at 0, 90, and the first guide on the top at 180. Can I put the first guide at 10 or so to get the turn started sooner? It doesn't look like there'd be room for a bumper guide.
Is that right?

There's always room for a bumper guide because the bumper guide doesn't factor into the actual spacing of the rest of the guides. It's an addition to, not a part of, the regular guide spacing.

Put all the guides on top like you'd normally do for a complete guides on top casting rod. Space them as you would if you were doing a standard baitcasting steelhead rod. Once you've done that, flip them all to the bottom excect for the very first (butt) guide. Do not change the spacing when you do this, just flip them from the top of the rod to the bottom of the rod. You're done.

Now if you don't want the line chafing against the side of the blank between those first two guides, go back in and install a very low frame guide on the 90 degree axis and exactly halfway between those first two guides. Do NOT alter the spacing of the guides in any way. Just put the bumper guide inbetween those first two and go fishing.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2005 10:24PM by Tom Kirkman.

Thanks Tom, I guess I was trying to make it more difficult than it is.

More doing and less thinking.

Hello Jay
Your going to have a great steelhead casting rod using this blank. An important custom design feature using spiral wrap placement is to get the best possible casting performance.
Depending somewhat on the reel the customer intends to use. You may find that the butt guide needs to be rotated some to make the line travel evenly through that guide. What can occur is that the line will "dwell" longer on one side of the butt guide than the other side as the reel line guide travels back and forth during casting. This causes more friction than necessary to properly guide the line. Which translates into less distance for the cast. So by rotating the butt guide 5 to 15 degrees in the direction of the spiral, depending on the reel used this slight increase in friction is eliminated.
Merry Christmas to you and yours
Sincerely Joe Kassuba

Also Jay,
It might be possible to place only the butt and bumper guides on the bottom section and the rest of the guides on the upper section.
I'm not sure about the IST1025 your working with but my preliminary test tells me that will work on a HS1021 that I am building.
That way I can demonstrate to anyone the difference between a casting rod with the guides down or up just by rotating the front section.

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

On a rod of that length, I'd be shocked if you couldn't get at least your first two guides on the butt section, plus the bumper in between, if you use that method.


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Jay,
I am familiar with that blank and I think that you will find with most 8 1/2" steelhead rods that the second guide will fall very close to the ferrule. This means that you can put the second guide on the ferrule, reinforcing the ferrule at the same time, and the first guide plus the bumper guide on the butt section. I think that if you attempt to get the transition to take place on the butt section before the ferrule you are going to end up with too many guides on the rod.