After finishing a recent fly rod I noticed a creeking noise that I suspected was a burr on one of the guide feet. I took apart the wrap to find both feet had been pushed into the blank, which then snapped as I tested its strength. I learnt a lesson from this and spent much longer in the preparation of the guides for the next rod. I was confident that the feet were smooth and slghtly rounded before wrapping the rod, I also wrapped them with slightly less tension. However this rod has developed the same creeking noise on nearly every guide!
What am I doing wrong? I guess single foot guides would eliminate this problem but thats hardly a solution. I heard underwraps mentioned but am not sure how they work.

Please help me!!

Read the post "Are underwraps necessary on a SW1087" a few posts from this one.

Of course the arguement about the added weight of underwraps will be made.

You ensured the guides were not wrapped so tight the guides collapsed into the blank, so this cannot be a reason for this failure.

The blank may have been sanded too thin during manufacture , but I have never seen a blank fail due to this (yet).

An underwrap is nothing more than a bed of thread for the guides to rest on. The purpose of using uderwraps is to eliminate direct guide to blank contact. The added weight from underwraps is negligible.

Lou

If the feet were pushed into the blank, that's your reason for breakage. And this would have happened with or without underwraps.

Underwraps can greatly undermine blank performance, depending on what percentage of total added weight they constitute. Don't be fooled into thinking otherwise. We'd done the tests to prove it. And, you really don't need those tests - you can feel it in your hands. Anyone blindfolded, can heft and shake two identical rods, one with underwraps and one without, and tell which is which. At least up to the point where we'd be dealing with heavy surf and boat type rods.

Get the feet flat and smooth and use less tension and your breakage problem will be solved.

As far as the noise is concerned, this is usually a result of the epoxy finish stretching around the junction of the guide leg/foot and the rod blank. It's not going to hurt anything. Usually it goes away with some use. It does not indicate anything is wrong nor did it have anything to do with your blank breakage.

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One more thing about tension, since that was the source or your breakage. After the guide is wrapped, you should be able to shift it slightly from side to side with moderate pressure from your thumb. If you can't, you're wrapping too tight. This is particularly important to remember on thinner walled graphite blanks.

Keep in mind that thread tension is cumlative - it increases with each turn. Don't overdo it.

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Johnny , if you are talking about a fly rod , the added weight of underwraps will be even more pronounced on such a light rod , making blank recovery much slower .
Lou , I have seen 1 blank sanded too much , it was a GL3 ,which I still have the sections (2 broken pieces of the tip section , 2 pc rod ) It failed about 1/2 in below a guide 20" from the top , when I was testing it before delivery . One "side " of the blank was paper thin , I still don't know why it didn't break while finding the spine , but it didn't . I'm not sure if it was sanded too much , or the material wasn't in the mandrell the right way when it was made . It actually looked like there wasn't any overlap at that spot
Have Fun , John

Got Fish ?

Thanks everyone for your help.
I think the broken blank was a combination of rough a guide foot and too much pressure on the wrap. Im confident that the second rod had easily smooth enough guide feet so lets hope its just the epoxy settling. Ive given it some pretty thorough test casting and its still in one piece, I just need a fish on the end for it to prove itself.
As these rods are 7'6" and 8' fly rods it sounds like underwraps are out of the question.

Johny,

Whilst burrs and edges are important and should not feature on any guide I believe that we give far to much importance to them as potential cause of blank breakages. I have re- built many factory rods which have had the most horrenduos burrs and sharp point etc. Absolutaly no damage to the blank. What type of guides were you fitting. Two fotoed guides invariably do not have flat feet. That is to say when you offer the guide onto the blank the feet do not rest horizontal onto the blank surface. If there is a pronounced angle staring at the toe and the foot near the guide ring is well off the blank, you have a potential diaster on your hands. The wrapping pressure will flatten the foot down but becuase you have not broken the grain in the metal on the guide the action of memory as the guide keeps trying to return to its origional shape casues it to migrate into the blank wall. You need to manually set your guide feet by say using medium sized Engineers pliers. Be careful as you can set up stresses and crack any ceramic liner if present. You bend a little at a time and check often. Single leg guides need no such adjustment. Some guides are positavely evil in this regard and nedd a heck of a lot of bending to set them properly. Snake guides I particulary dislike.

Get the feet almost flat get the thread tension right and providing the blank is a good one. You should never ever get this problem again

Mike O.

Your right Mike, the guides were relativly cheap snakes and I did come across this problem. I tried to bend them flat but possibly not enough. The blank was also quite cheep and very light, though better not to say what make it was as Im sure most are perfectly well made. I also remember twisting the guides after wrapping to align them, this could have scratched into the blank as well.
Every rod I make I run into new problems but I suppose it gives me an excuse to keep building and improve on the last!

It only takes a few extra seconds to rake the guide feet along and across a chainsaw type file (non-tapered) to not only make the feet flat, but apply a slight concave shape to them to match the convex shape of the rod blank.

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Johnny Morant - "I also remember twisting the guides after wrapping to align them, this could have scratched into the blank as well."

If those guides had a spur or burr on the underside, and you had to rotate them for alignment purposes, while under the over-wraps, on a naked rod blank, you can practically guarantee the trouble you had will occur.

It's just a matter of time until the correct conditions conspire to stress the rod in a small arc and / or repeated flexion cuts a longitudinal groove across the circumferential groove (score) that you created during alignment.

And, as TK said, With new epoxy thread finish on an unused rod, the guides & wraps making some tinkling sound when flexed is not uncommon, until the new "shoes" have been broken in. ... -Cliff Hall+++