There has been recent discussion over on a West Coast board about the @#$%& Acid rollers...yet again. It seems there was a fish lost and people love to place blame on the Acid rollers. The scenario is that the line can sometimes travel up the roller and onto the frame of the stripper guide of the @#$%&. This isn't something new as I was involved in the first big discussion of this happening in late winter of '05. I did my own tests and confirmed that when SEVERE lateral pressure is put on the rod tip the line will indeed travel up the roller an onto the guide frame. BUT you also have to understand that this will also happen with conventional rollers...I tested those also. Long story short is that the @#$%& rollers have taken a beating as of late.

For more than a year now I have wondered about the feasibility of using a conventional roller stripping guide and have that transition down to the AA @#$%& Acid 180 degree guides. Now that the bumper system has made it's debut I thought this may just be too easy, but still I didn't test it. With the renewed concern about the @#$%& transition guides I thought now was the perfect time to try a 'hybrid bumper' acid roller system.

Now anyone that has ever used the @#$%& rollers knows that it takes a little extra time in setting up your guides. Not to mention you should set up the guides with the largest reel you expect the rod to ever see...even if it's not the reel intended for use. Wide frame reels wreak havoc on the transition guides if they are not set up properly in the first place. When I set up my hybrid test this afternoon I didn't even think about where the stripper should go (except past the point of the foregrip!). I simply taped on the guides and started my static test. It worked great right out of the gate! No thinking...no angles to get right........the bumper system isn't called the simple spiral for nothing!

I would love to show the pictures I took of this test this afternoon, but for some reason I can't upload them onto this site. I did however get them up on the other site I refered to earlier in this post (it looks like they use the same photo program that this board uses so I'm not sure why I can upload them there and not here).

Here is a link to my post there and the pictures I took of the HYBRID BUMPER ACID ROLLER SYSTEM.

[www.876*99]%^.com

Jay



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2006 04:56PM by Moderator.

If you will register and then respond to the validation email that is sent to your email address, you can upload the photos to our photo page. I'm sure many would like to see what you've come up with.

Roller present a problem not only for spiral wrapping, but in other scenarios as well. You need to keep the line down in the roller wheel groove and that can be hard to do with some set ups.

I'm probably prejudiced, but the Simple Spiral (Bumper) is the simplest and often most effective way to get the line under the rod. As in all things, simple evolution continues to improve just about anything. It only took a few hundred years for the spiral wrap to be invented, and another hundred for the Simple Spiral System to come along.

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The thing about the photo page is that I am already registered and can upload some, but not all, photos. Maybe the system is picking something up in my file path that it doesn't like? Anyway...I'll keep trying.

Jay

Two things to make sure of -

1. Always select a category for the system to place the photos in. If you don't do this, you'll get an error message every time.

2. Try to scale photos so they're not so large. About 800 to 900 pixels square is the maximum you'd want to try to upload. It is possible to upload larger ones, but they won't display any larger and take much longer to upload and for the viewers to download. Jpeg format is required and the extension .jpg should follow the file name.

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I've been thinking of doing the same thing cause I don't like the striper guide offset as it can result in cut hypalon when on a big fish along with the new problem of line jumping out of the roller which I'm not convinced will happen in standup fishing by an experienced angler.
I was gonna use the normal AA acid roller guide set I've had since they came out but your idea is even better as the acid stripper isn't needed with the bumper system. I'm just finishing a 760H for myself and I used a Aftco windon stripper to raise the line up over the regular HD51.
Now I'm thinking I'd like to use the Aftco windon stripper then @#$%& acid guides and tip with the bumper system. @#$%&(aka John Mantele) has suggested using stainless tape for the bumper however I'm thinking of using an HNSG Fugi probably at least a size10.
I'd like to see your pics when done.

If you want to keep the stripper and the next guide (the first 180 degree guide) without any offset, you'll have to be careful not to lift or move the line too far away from the blank. A little #10 HNSG might be okay, I haven't tried it. The closer the line stays to the blank, the less need for offsetting either of the first two guides and the less chance that the line will rub the frame or move out of the roller channel.

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Mr. Jim I've also experienced cut eva as a result of high drag and the offset stripper. I could have avoided this had I been more experienced at the time. All I needed to do was use a shorter grip...I guess I didn't think things through too well.

I am in the process of uploading the pics to this board. I didn't choose a catagory! Sometimes the simplest of things will hold up the world. Thanks, Mr. Tom

Jay

By the way, no that's not a new concept "no foregrip" offshore rod in the pictures! I was in a hurry this afternoon and grabbed a spare 30-50# blank I had around. I quickly taped me up some bushings for the reel seat and slapped on some guides. The grip wasn't important anyway. As a matter of fact...if the truth be known, there isn't a butt grip on that rod either! You just can't see it because it's in the rod holder.

Jay

Jay,

Something I'd like to see you try - move the butt/stripping guide and that first 180 degree guide closer together. The bumper guide is an addition to the regular spacing, not part of it. It appears to me that those first two guides are much too far apart. When this rod is under load I think the bumper will be carrying some load - it shouldn't ever come to that.

I think if you respace the butt guide and the first 180 guide so they are closer as would normally be the case, I think the line will ride deeper in the roller channel.

Again, I don't have your set up in front of me so I'm not sure, but you may want to give it a try.

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No actually you're right. After I took those shots I grabbed a short specialty blank that I'm rebuilding and taped these guides on it. The stripper & first 180 ended up being about 8" apart and looked much better than the setup above.

Jay

I would think that you'd not want them more than about 12 inches part at the maximum. 8 to 10 sounds good. Let us know how things work out.

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Seems like this is a hot topic! Jay, check out Stan's post up the page a bit. The set up my Son's working on right now has a 14" foregrip and was built for an Avet EX4/02. It has about 1/2" line clearence at the front of the grip, fully loaded.

Mark Griffin
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C&M Custom Tackle
San Dimas, California