greetings all-

i have finished wrapping my guides. thanks to all who helped and forwarded me info.
my wraps are snug and it takes a bit of effort to scooch them about- so i think i am good there.

now i am stuck aligning the guides to be straight. originally, i marked the spine in a few spots along the length of the blank with a silver pencil between every other guide. that mark has diappeared now.

i know that the reel seat is dead on and the tip is dead on. i have spent 1/2 hour the last couple of nights trying to get them all lined up but it seems that the more i do, the worse it gets.

my problem seems to be i can not get the guide foot straight on the blank or the top of the guide perpendicular to the blank access and in the right place.

i am sighting the blank and trying to move one at a time. i have tried it with the guides up and the guides down.

any tips to getting them just so?

also- how long to let the wrap finish final cure before i use the rod? i will be using flex coat rod wrapping finish and plan on doing 2 coats.

thanks in advance

dennis
chicago, il

Run a very visible line from the reel out to and beyond the tip top and tie off with just enough tension to put a very slight flex in the rod. Now look at the line. Is it straight? Adjust the guides until it is. The line should sit centered in the bottom (or top depending on whether this is a conventional casting or spinning rod) of each ring.

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also err on the side of waiting. Give the epoxy a 24 hours to cure before trying and a few days befoore any hard use. Think of it this way it has tqaken ya this long to build that rod its worth however long it takes to feel comfortable its fully cured.

I just got to use my rod today. I waited 3 days before I even flexed it (which was today). I caught two fish, they were small and released.

Let's fish,
Chris

On the guides, I usually put them on with tiny rubber bands that I make by slicing small flexible tubing sold in model shops for model airplane fuel lines. I slide a bunch of them on the blank before I put the tip on. Just space them out slide the guide foot under and do my static defection test When I have the guides in place, I turn the blank so all the guides are on the bottom and tweak them until each guide has an equal amount showing on each side of the blank and then wrap them.. It's better to have them lined up before wrapping and then eyeball it by looking through the butt guide and see if any final adjusting needs to be done (usually have to do a little final tweaking)

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!!

Something else that may help, is when you are doing your final adjustment, try not to look at the entire rod. If you know that your seat and tip are dead on, and run a line as tom mentioned, start at one end and work your way down. Move to the next guide only when you are satisfied that the last guide was good. If you just try to get close with all of them, and then gradually tweak them all into final position, you'll go nuts. One guide at a time. Line up the first guide with seat and tip and line if you use it, and try hard to ignore the other guides.

As far as curing, with FC I always allow a 3 day cure before using/shipping. Why are you planning on two coats? Not that two coats are inherently bad, but I always attempt perfection with one coat. Most times, you will be successful.

dennis, you said that you can't get the feet striaght, check you guides. did any one tell you about adjusting and grinding the feet?

I like to start with the stripper guide ..Make sure that one is dead on ,with the overheads especialy I always put a reel in the seat to double check the stripper guide . Once satisfied with that start to alighn the rest by working up the rod from the reel seat to the tip . On longer rods I work about 3/4 of the way up and then turn the rod around and work the smaller guides from the tip end. I recheck from the reel seat end and then from the tip end ,I then put the rod in my dryer and check again by sighting down the rod and turning the rod slightly from side to side . useing a string is a good idea but I just eyeball it. If you have wrapped the guides a bit tight and your having trouble moveing them or getting the feet to sit propperly just overcorrect the guide , give the guide a bit of a side to side wiggle and position it in the right spot .TRY and be gentle though . And remember your only human and some blanks have a slight curve in them so just do the best you can... It wont take much to get them straighter than most factory rods......

I align the guides beginning with the stripper guide like Lock does, then work my way to the tip. I do this before the rod comes off the lathe - the lathe keeping the rod straight. Then lastly I bond the tip top on with 5-min epoxy closely aligning it to the stripper guide. I do the alignment with the guides down orientation of the rod, then after I feel they're close I pickup the rod and while holding it in my hands sight down the back of the blank, and tweak the alignment more if needed. I use the reel foot plate from a smaller penn international reel mounted in the reel seat to provide a "flat" area to reference the alignment. This has worked well for me over the years.

A few days ago a user here emailed and called me old fashioned and stuck in the past because I refuse to use some of the newer tools on the market. An incorrect assumption. I tried a laser alignment tool that I purchased for a clemens lathe some years ago, but it did not provide alignments any more accurate than visually sighting the guides while the rod is mounted in the lathe guides-down. As it turns out the lathe would hold the blank straight, then after its off the lathe the blank might have a little bend this way or that way. So I still found myself eyeballing the guides visually and tweaking further. The point I am trying to make it the human eye, esp one of a rod builder's, is pretty discriminating when it comes to deviations from straight or true. Using a straight line (laser, string, etc) as a guide is good, but nothing is going to beat the human eye for the final tweaks.

Lou

For most people the human eye is actually a poor tool to use for guide alignment. This is why rod builders with two good eyes still look for other and better methods of aligning guides.

The string trick Tom mentions above is good because it gives the naked eye a reference point which makes it easier to see when a guide is not perfectly in line. Although it takes a moment to rig up the alignment string or line, the actual guide alignment is then only a matter of seconds and you will know when it is perfect.

I have also used a small OD sized piece of steel rod or tubing. If you know this is straight, you can slip it through the guides from butt to tip. If the rod won't easily slip through one of the guides, then you know it is not in alignment and can adjust it until the rod will slip through. Then you know it is perfect.

This is the most informative thread I've read here in months. Thanks, guys. I finished a fly rod the other night, and going back and forth from one guide to the other like the Keystone Kops drove me nuts. I eventually managed to get the guides more or less straight, but the string method is one I like very much, and (like most things) is so elegantly simple that it is sure to work. The next time I'm at a flea market, I'm going to look for an old fly line to use for this very purpose.

When aligning the guides I think that you have to decide first whether you are going to Allin the guides straight relative to each other or Allin them straight relative to the blank. Almost no blanks are perfectly straight so there will be a difference. If you attempt to Allin the guides so that they look straight relative to each other with a string or a laser that is fine but they will then most likely not be straight relative to the blank. If you turn the rod over and look to see that there is an equal amount of guide showing on each side of the blank as Mike suggest that will Allin the guides relative to the blank which is also fine but then they will not be straight relative to each other if the blank is not perfectly straight. Attempting to Allin the guides so that they are straight relative to each other and the blank will drive to bananas.

Exactly. The article we did on this in RodMaker utilized a bright orange fly line. Easy to see and orient.

Richard has a good idea as well. Only problem might be finding such a small diameter rod that is really straight. But you can always do it in sections. A piece of 2 foot drill rod could be used on the first few guides, then when those are done, slide it back, keeping one end in one or two of the just aligned guides, and align the next few.

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Another good use for Andy's mandrels!!!!!!

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!!

wow! thanks for all the good info.

guide feet- i am using Forecast pre-ground guides. I touched them up to blend them a little better. i don't think its the guide feet that are my problem. to put what i was saying another way, the guides have a 3D axis, and trying to get them in the proper orientation is the hard part. you can gt the circle of the insert to be in line with its neighbors, but the foot itself can be cockeyed on the blank. looking down on it, the top of the insert is not at 90 degrees tot he blank. straightening the foot to the blank axis then throws off the circle alignment.

Tom- I like the string idea. The drill rod in sections seems like a good idea too and i have some of that. When using the string though, what are you gaugeing it against? Do you look down on the guide feet against the string, or the the insert circle? As i am not near my rod now, i have to imagine a bit. Also, I don't want to steal any of your secrets.

Emory- guide axis vs blank axis: Exactly! there are two frames of reference. trying to get the two exactly right on is hard, so i am willing to accept some deviation. I think that the blank is pretty much straight- at least no curvature stands out.

I did not consider trying to look at the backside and looking at how much guide was sticking out.

As far as finishing goes, at this point I planned on 2 coats based on all the discussion of the air bubbles. I do not want to heat the finish to release the air bubbles. I was going to mix a small batch and do the hook keeper and over the blank decals first to see how it goes. my thinking is that neither should have any trapped air really and then go on to the guides. going to do the bottom half of the rod in stages first then try to do the tip section in one shot based on my experience with the bottom.

Thanks again for all your help and guidance.

Dennis

Dennis; as Lock stated above, over correct the guide a little which will move your guide foot more in line with what you want. Then you can bring the guide ring back to where you need it. It sounds like you could also back off a little on your thread tension on your next project, not much, but you should be able to move it a little easer than what youre going through now. Good luck and let us know how things worked out, post pictures too.

Fred Crum
Dixon, Ca.

Dennis;
The radius/concavity on the bottom of the guide foot should line it up straight on the rod if you have them temporarly snuggged up tight enough. I use little sections of surgical tubing to hold them in place. I have used bread wrapper ties, small pieces of telephone wire twisted on works good.

Jay


J.B.Hunt
Bowling Green, KY