For guide placement I follow the traditional " bend the blank until it rolls to a relaxed state, mark the outside of the curve and place my guides on that side". I've done all of my rods this way so far.

However, I thought I read somewhere on this site once you get to heavier weight rods (and I don't know what the limit was) you should put the guides opposite of the effective spine. That makes sense as it would seem when fighting large fish, if the guides were on the effective spine side, you would be bending the rod in the opposite direction it wants to go and creating more stress on the blank. If the guides were opposite the effective spine, the rod would be bent in it's natural position and exert less stress on the blank - yeah or nay?

SInce I'm going to be building a few medium and medium-heavy spinning I'm also wondering which way casts farther/better? I wouldn't be false casting like a fly rod but realize when casting a spinning rod, even just launching the rod forward the rod bends backwards at first and then launches forward. Is there any advantage which side to put the guides for casting? Thanks.

Tim,

Spine has no effect on "where the blank wants to go" when in an actual fishing situation. Guide position determines this. Any rod with the guides on top, will attempt to twist when under load. The guides will want to turn or spin, until they are facing the direction in which the load is coming from. Twisting a blank is much harder on it in terms of "stress" than just flexing it. Blanks are made to withstand flex, but not so much twist. They'll all take a certain amount of twist or torsional forces, but past a certain point they don't like it.

All rod blanks resist bending or flexing - if they didn't we'd not have an effective tool to cast and fish with. Far too many people make too much out of spine orientation. There is no right or wrong location for the spine or guide placement in relation to the spine. The difference between the stiffest and softest axis is not very much, and remember that the two are rarely 180 degrees apart.

Flexing a blank by hand and loading one with a fish on the other end are two very different things. If you want to reduce twist, you'll have to locate the guides on the bottom of the rod, regardless of where you choose to locate the spine. Keep in mind that flexing a blank by hand does not approximate the same scenario as loading blank by a line running through a set of line guides. They are two very different things. Since we normally fish with rods that have line guides, with a line attached to a fish (hopefully), that's the scenario I'd worry about.

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



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/2005 09:56AM by Tom Kirkman.

Tim,
I completely agree with Tom. The stiffest axis and the softest axis are usually about 90 degrees apart. There are a couple of other things that you might also want to think about.
First, one of the things that spine is the result of is the way the material is put on the mandrel. The first layer of material has the graphite fibers running straight up the blank but the outer layers, the ones that have the most effect, actually tend to spiral up the blank due to the way the material is cut or the pattern that is cut in the material. This means the the spine will actually tend to move or rotate a little depending on how much the blank is deflected.
Second, when you cast the plain of your cast is almost never on the spine. With a casting rod, depending upon how you hold the rod, the plane of your cast may be as much as 90 degrees from the spine if the guides are mounted on the spine.
The bottom line, in my judgement, is that much too much is made of spine.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/2005 10:21AM by Emory Harry.

Tom, your post is very definative and easy to understand ..

Right now I'm finishing two XP 7-weights, a 9' 6" and a 10' 0", with matching accoutrements.
I spined these blanks, but really just out of curiosity (XP spines are almost imperceptible). I ended up putting the guides on the blanks' straightest axis, already determined and marked by Sage, but on any axis these blanks are nice and straight.

I spend MUCH MUCH more time sizing and spacing the guides. Spacing is the most intensive, most important aspect of custom building in my opinion. I sometimes take a couple hours on one rod to space guides. I'll get up and leave it and forget about it then come back with fresh eyes, fresh perspective.

If I can find a spine and find it again and again with my eyes closed, I put the guides on it (on the outside of the arch), even down to the butt section of multipiece blanks. But I'm not too worried about it.

You can orient the guides for optimum fish fighting/backcast power (inside of the arch) or for optimum forward cast power (outside of arch), but the difference is miniscule.

Josh Markvan
www.markvanheirloom.com

A guide (that will not flex) will resist the rod blank's attempts to flex when the rod is loaded. Regardless of: the type of guide; or the orientation of the spine; or the plane of the rod's flexion compared to the plane of the guide alignment; or the guides being on the "outside" or the "inside" of the bent rod.

That segment of the rod blank which is under & between the guide feet will be STIFFENED by the line guide's bridge; or even the single foot of a line guide (which has much less stiffening power than a double-footed guide).

So, that, I think (hope) answers one aspect of your title question. But is that STRESS significant or avoidable? ... IMO, the significance (magnitude) is small, and is avoidable (only) to the extent that you can use a single-foot guide, or a flexible frame guide. These days, the better guides are all flexible enough for their intended line ratings / applications, so that they do not unduly "stress" the rod blank. ...

But if I personally do have one rod-building superstition, it may be that UNDERWRAPS protect the rod blank from the compression and flexion stress of line guides. And that is also why proper preparation (shaping, grinding, filing, etc.) of the line guide's feet is (so) important

After that, this is mostly a matter of preference for spine orientation and the relative axis for guide alignment, ... or a blissful ignoring of the whole issue, because it seems well established that the orientation is essentially of minor significance, if not totally inconsequential.

METHODOLOGICALLY, you may wish to develop and use a certain orientation for you own purposes, just to provide some consistency to your rod-buildings techniques. (That would be me.) But to say that it makes a measurable difference in any performance parameter of your finished fishing rod would be a "claim" more than a demonstrable "fact". (IMO, the differences in such performance parameters is well below the statistical variance of the measurement itself, making a meaningful conclusion nearly impossible. The only conclusion, then, is that we cannot demonstrate a difference, ... and go on about our business, ...)

-Cliff Hall+++ Merry Christmas