I have always thought that the distance between the guides is what mattered with guide spacing. I also thought that this is what gave you good or poor casting distance. After reading posts and library articles, I get the impersion that the things that are really important are load distribution and having guides follow a straight line by their heights (Fuji new concept system). Please let me know if I have this correct. I am a new at this and want to learn best practices. Thanks!!!

Well, you'd want the line to move along a straight or nearly straight path as much as possible. A gentle curve or bend isn't going to hurt much because line is highly flexible. But, you won't want it following a roller coaster path up and down between guides - which is something that most of the commercially made rods supposedly sporting the New Concept System tend to feature.

Good casting distance also comes from keeping the rod light, particularly the tip. Weight you put there used imparted energy to stop and start it, rather than going into casting your lure or bait.

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

This is only what I tend to do, but I usually start at the tip the first guide about 4-4 1/2 " Then adjust according to line path. Adding about 1/4 - 1/2 " as I go down to the chock guide.I usually do not go to 5. I just don't like the distance.
The butt guides if I start to get a distance between them over 9" I will tend to adjust, or add another guide. On the chock guide I some times go one size larger. Tends to round off the angle. For me anyway.
Casting and fly rods are easier cause the line comes off the spool in a straight line already so there are no " pigtails " to get under control. The above is for spin rods.

the way i understand it you basicly want the line to travel along the rod (loaded or not) at roughly the same distance all the way along a bit out doesnt really matter so long as the line doesnt dip or belly too much and never touches the rod even under full pressure.
as for casting most people believe the preconception that the strength of a person matters It doesn`t the rod is actually a spring (or rather a catapault) the more load you can impart into the rod ( the better you compress it {the more bend it has through the start of the cast }) the further the weight will travel.. for example place a ruler on the table hanging over the edge place a screwed up piece of paper on it and "twang" it.. now try it with progresivly stronger bends see the paper travels further.. its teqnique that practice will bring quite easy timing is the most importent factor
like when i was taught to shoot a fly i had major problems with my wrist "breaking" cure they strapped it straight then i dropped the back stroke.. cure they made me cast directlyt in front of my face after a couple of days with a sore nose i gt out of the habit of dropping.

That is why all blanks are rated for a certain line, lure weight, or fly line. It takes a certain weight to load the " spring " properly to throw the weight of the lure, line used on it.
It is good to ask if a certain blank you want to use will work with the line and or lure . This way because most blanks may not be rated correctly, some one here could tell you if it works. Hopefully some one has built it.
The CCS data site has figures that lets you know what the blank will work with. Good system to set up if you have the room too. The search engine here will also give a lot of info on certain blanks.

Dan,

The guide spacing, IMO, is one of the most important things in building a rod but only so far as it determines the optimum line path and stress distribution for the highest efficiency. That is why I don't feel that guide spacing charts are worth the paper they are printed on except as a starting point (my opinion) For example, a generic spacing chart would show the guide spacing for a 7 foot spinning rod. Now a 7' UL, a 7' jigging rod, a 7' musky rod would not all have the same guide size/spacing for maximum efficiency.
Also, Don't confuse the FUJI concept system with the New Guide Concept System in the library above. Two different animals. The Fuji Concept guides are great, the placement system @#$%&!! The one in the library above is excellant!!

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

I agree with Mike about the importance of guide number, size and spacing. The guides serve several functions, line control and stress distribution on the one hand and on the other hand rod performance if the rod is going to be used to cast. The more guides the better the stress distribution but the poorer the rod performance. Generally the larger the guides the smoother the line can move through the guides, less friction, but the more weight that is added which reduces the rod performance, reduces the rods resonant frequency.
Size of guides.
It seems to me that the line path through the guides should be as straight with as little contact with the guides as possible. Any time the line contacts the guides there is friction which results in a loss of momentum, the speed of the line slows down. Plus when there is friction between the guides and the line slows down that energy is not lost it is reflected back down the line toward the reel. The result is often back lash. But it is a trade off. The larger the guides the more weight that is added which reduces the rods resonant frequency which reduces the tip velocity when you cast so the rod will not cast as far or will take more effort to cast a given distance.
When you cast you store up energy in the rod on the first part of the cast. The amount of energy is basically a function of how much force you apply and how rapidly you apply the fore. But part way through the cast the rod takes over and releases that stored energy. The rod determines how rapidly the energy is released, how high the tip velocity will be, you do not determine that.
Number of guides.
The more guides that are added the better the stress distribution but again the more weight that is added. I feel that many rods, both factory and custom, have too many guides. I do not buy the logic that has often been used in the past to determine the number of guides. That logic was to use enough guides and position them so that even with maximum deflection of the rod the line does not touch the rod so that there will be no friction between the line and the rod. This makes no sense because when the rod is at maximum deflection the line is not moving. If the line is not moving there cannot be any friction between the line and the rod. In fact, when casting the line starts to move as the rod starts to straighten and the maximum line speed is when the rod is virtually straight.
The effect of the added weight of guides on the rods resonant frequency increases roughly logarithmically from the butt to the tip. This suggests that a little larger guides for the first guide or two is not a big problem but the size and number of guides gets much more important as you put them closer and closer to the tip.
I try to step the guide size down quickly from the butt to the tip and use as small guides as possible toward the tip. I also position the guides and use a number that will result in the line touching the rod when the rod is at the maximum deflection. If the line is not touching the rod I feel that I have too many guides or they are not positioned properly.
I do not worry too much about stress distribution. The stress on the rod will increase or decrease roughly in proportion to the distance between the guides. In other words if I use one less guide on a rod and this results in about a 10% increase in the distance between the guides the stress will also increase about 10%.

IMO.....The main purpose of guide spacing is to distribute the load onto the blank.

If you have a 25 block tied to the end of your line and assuming no drag is coming out.........if you had 5 guides .....)you lift the weight off the ground....I have no idea what the weight would be on each guide.....but I do know that if you had 10 guides you would be pretty close to having half the force on each guide as with 5. This is a bad analogy but I think you get the picture.

I usually take the recommended chart set up and touch it up so I get the best even distribution on the blank as I can. My focus is on how will the rod bend when I have a fish on.

Unless you get really radical with guide sizes I think the weight of the line you cast will have a much greater affect on casting distance than where you put the guides.

Certainly, the characteristics of the blank, type of guide used, weight of whatever your casting, and line type & weight will all have an impact on the distance you can cast.

Joe,
Sure the type of line and the weight being cast will have a major affect on casting distance. But unless I misunderstood that was not the question.
If all you are interested in is the load distribution, which is just another way of looking at stress distribution, then use a whole bunch of guides. The more guides you use the lower the stress will be. The problem with this approach is that the added weight will turn what might have been a fine fishing rod into a club.

mmmm baseball bat fishing
wack the fish oto the shore as they jump hey now theres a new sport
could catch on and be interesting

Dan L. Eaton - Below is a small excerpt from another very good Thread on this subject. Open this Link and read EVERYBODY'S balanced contribution (13 Replies). As said in different ways above, the Spinning rod has at least three zones of different functions, different guides, different spacing priorities. If you think in a "TRIFECTA-ly" way, you will remember to keep the BIG PICTURE in mind (function, form, feel).
IMO, -Cliff Hall+++, Gainesville, FL-USA*****


Re: Choke Guide - New Concept System ... Cliff Hall ... April 6, 2006
[www.rodbuilding.org]
"...First of all, an Intersect Point that extends out past the rod tip is not as uncommon as we may like it to be. But, technically, the Reel’s Upsweep Angle actually has relatively little, if anything, to do with proper guide placement. This convention for placing the “choke guide” was adopted as a convenient methodology that worked in the majority of cases. … Well, what to do in those “exceptional” cases still confuses many.

You will have to CREATE an Intersect Point, based on a synergistic approach to guide placement that considers several design goals, and guide layout methods. Your unified approach must work together toward the best consensus achievable under your rod-building circumstances, given your rod-design goals." -ETC, ETC, ...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2006 09:40PM by Cliff Hall.

Dan,
I was so busy running my mouth off that I missed the point that you were asking about the guide set up on a spinning rod not a casting rod. Sorry. You can ignore my tirade on the line touching or not touching the rod. But the other basic principals on spacing and number of guides still apply whether the rod is set up as a casting rod or a spinning rod.
In my judgement the primary advantage of the concept system is that it uses smaller and lighter weight guides near the tip of the rod which will result in better rod performance than if you used the older cone of flight set up that required larger and heavier guides. However, I think that the Fuji recommenations are for too many guides, but Fuji is in the business of selling guides.

Emory,

I am not suggesting that a blank should be filled with as many guides as possible. Merely trying to point out that you need enough guides to distribute the force onto the blank so you get a good even bend. IMO this is the most important part of setting up the guide positions on a rod. It is NOT the only consideration.

I believe I did answer the question.....I said IMO load distribution was the most important. My post could have been more concise and clear.

Joe,
Yes, I am not sure that it is the most important but I agree that it is important. It seems to me that the static method does a better job of this than some of the other guide positioning schemes because the blank is deflected and then the guides are positioned consistent with how the blank bends before any guides are added so the position of the guides does not tend to force the blank into some unnatural bend and as a result end up with higher stresses.
I guess that I am a bit of a crank about the number of guides because I think that the reasoning behind the recommendations that are often used to determine the number of guides does not make sense and as a result many of the rods that I see have in my judgment too many guides. On lighter rods that will be used for casting the weight of just one additional guide can have a significant effect on the rods performance.

One of the first things I learned is a " bare " blank will give the best performance. So now I tend to go more for the Ti frame guides, and even the re-coil. Still think the ring guides give better distance when used for casting. But the re coils are interesting.