I've been using the Fuji solid titanium, silicon carbide inserted stripper guides on my fly rods. I also use the matching titanium tip tops. I use the Recoil single foot fly guides for all the runner guides. I'm wondering if anyone has any info as far as weight differences between the titanium tips and the Recoil tips. And/or, the weight differences between the titanium fly guides and the Recoil guides. I originally went with the titanium tips as opposed to the Recoil tips because I thought they were lighter and I thought the silicon insert would help with line flow out the tip. They cast fine. However, I would certainly like to make the tip section as light as possible. Any expertise out there?

Thanks,

Todd

Fuji TFST8 bore 4.5- 6.2 grain. TFST7 bore 4.5-4.9 grain. REC top 3.4 grain according to my scale

I guess that seems to be a fairly miniscule difference. But, possibly enough to check out. I'm going to put on some Recoil tips and see if the difference can be felt. Thanks.

The Recoil guides & tops are made of a nickel titanium alloy,which is very light weight.The guides and tops are the lightest out there I believe.I match a Recoil top to any rod that I am putting Recoil guides on,just because I don't like the look of a ceramic top on a fly rod with wire guides.That said,even though the Recoil top is lighter,I think that a ceramic top would probably be of some benefit.

The titanium frame/SIC Fugi TLST tops I've used aren't anywhere near as light as the Recoil,but are obviously much slicker with the SIC ring.I found these tops to be rather heavy actually,but they are the only ones that resemble a fly rod top in design so I used them.The Concept tops are probably a lot lighter than the TLST top,and would perform better because of that,but they don't really go that well on a fly rod as far as looks go.I certainly wish Fugi had a titanium/SIC top that looked like the TLST,but weighed as little as the Concept top.

I bought a small digital scale a while ago and was planning on slowly writing down as much info as I can regarding all the guides & tops I have and how thier weight compares to each other.I've done quite a few guides,but I haven't finished weighing the Recoil guides yet.I've weighed several of the titanium/SIC Fugi Concept fly guides and double foot guides,as well as a few double foot Fugi Gold Cermet guides(these were a lot heavier than I expected and the Concepts were much lighter).Just holding the single foot Concept fly guides in my hand and comparing them in weight to the Recoils it is pretty obvious that even though the Fugi's are quite light(definitely the lightest for ceramics),the Recoils are much lighter.

I've taped a set of Fugi Concept guides on a blank and then a set of Recoils on the same blank and you can certainly notice a difference in feel.The blank with the Recoils feels much crisper and lighter,with a faster recovery,almost like a bare blank.That said,when you actually have a fly line strung on the rod and start casting it,the difference in weight is much harder to notice and the benefits of the ceramic rings start to show.The ceramics are much quiter and smoother.The fly line just seems to flow off the rod effortlessly.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2006 08:32AM by Tony Dowson.