G'day all,

I will try to explain my problem as best as i can.

I have had a 10kg class game rod returned to me from a customer that i built up for him before xmas.
He says there is a problem with line touching the frame of the stripper guide when there is lateral deflection of the rod tip.

The blank i built this on is a sabre 6455L with AFTCO (new type) standard roller guide set. These rollers are the A frame type, not the older style rounded type.

I had a close look at the guide with the rod under load both in the vertical plane and with a sideways deflection, and the line does touch the side of the frame, and to my horror, with a little as 180mm sideways movement from rest.

My customer is a shark fisherman with a vast amount of experience. He is telling me that when a fish is closer to the boat, sudden changes in direction by the fish will obviously cause the rod tip to deflect and with the line and rod under load at this critical time, could cause the line to depart while in contact with the guide frame. He told me that he thinks this is what happened to him while fighting a tiger shark on his 15kg rod last year and lost it after 4 hours. That rod also had the A frame type of roller guide. He had another builder change the guide on that rod to the older style, rounded guide with no further problems.

During the set up stage of his rod, i used the static deflection method to determine guide placement, with the reel attached ( Tiagra 30) and loaded with line. I used five different weight settings , 25%, 33%, 50%, 66% and 75% of the breaking strain to determine best position of the rollers. Whilst doing this, at no time did i ever think to look at side deflection under load as a factor in the placement of the rollers. I thought, IMO, that the rod would be pointed at the fish at all times. I guess i need to factor this in in future.

I have been looking at the guide and its placement closely for a couple a days now, and im not sure what to do, as i still think the guide is correctly placed.

Has anyone experienced anything similar to this and if so, what was your solution?

Did i make a mess of this by not considering the implications of a side deflection?

Thanks for your time.




Regards,

Peter.
Rods On The Fly,
Newcastle, Australia.

Static deflection does a good job at telling us where to put the guides, but does not take into consideration the lateral movement of the rod tip. At this point I don't know what you can do to stop this. I believe that this is just an inherient problem due to roller guide frames. We don't worry about it with ring guides for obvious reasons, but rollers are different. If your customer is really concerned about it, his only recourse may be to convert to rings (very acceptable on the rod you mentioned). He obviously had previous experience with this type problem on at least one rod in the past and should have known better himself.

Heavy sideways motion on a imobilized rod will cause the line to run up a roller guide and touch the frame. Best of luck.

Jay