I am building this spinning rod for a captian currently in Iraq. Does anyone know if G. Loomis uses a 30 or a 25 for the first guide?

Thanks

David Banaka

hello David i always use 25 guide starting out on steelhead rods if thats what your building.... surf rod then a 30........

Just use the concept guide system...Alconite, 25 is a good start, thats what I use but I don't copy loomis I saw a 10' 8wt production rod of theirs with only 8 guides and tip. They try to cut too many corners. The standard rod building rule of thumb save a static load test is one guide per foot of rod plus tip and better rods have more, but like just one more guide, not 3 or 4 as is a common mistake for the novice rod builder to over guiding. Plus loomis likes using two ceramic guides on their a higher weight 2 piece fly rods, then put 3 guides on the butt section but just 4 inches before they hit the ferrule they put a sz 6 single foot wire guide, then the tip section expands at the sleeve type ferrule and invites line slap, which has a significant amount of friction involved. I had tore tie mine and put on a 3rd ceramic ringed guide to lift it up and over this happenstance. Looomis sheds one guide on the design of a rod and that reduces alot of cost when building 500 rods. I'd rather run an extra guide which has far less friction than line slap and distribute the load along more points on a rod instead of short guiding a rod and possibly making a stress point...like just ahead of the ferrule due to greater spacing between guides

The factory rods unless they have changing them recently have a 20 ring size that matches the spool diameter of the 2000 size reels which a by far the most popular reels on these rods.