Hi Guys,

A worrying comment I received from Sage, because we just received some Z-Axis Sage rods (4 piece), and I needed to knwo about the guide placement marks. I asked them if they also placed these marks on the spine, or opposite it. They said no! They don't spine any of their factory rods any more. Why is this? And is it not better to find the spines and place the guides accordingly?

Another question....on a 4 piece fly rod...it's quite easy to spine the tip section. But get's almost impossible to find the spine on the other three sections, particularly the butt section. Is their an easy way to do this? Or, a very accurate way? What's the best method to do this?

Regards,
Mike

I'm sure this will open a can of worms and you will get a LOT of opinions, but personally I don't see any need to spine a rod and most factories don't either (although some still do). Do a SEARCH (botton at top of message list) and type in spine and select ALL DATES and you will get more info/opinions than you can imagine

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!!

This is from a similar post I made last week. No, it has never been important to find the spine of a rod. It has little to no importance under practical fishing situations. What would make you think that it does?

First of all, the spine is an effect, not a thing. So at best all you are doing is referencing a specific position of the blank. The outside of the curve when the blank has been pressured and allowed to roll to its desired location is considered the "spine." But again, you are referencing that position, not any physical thing, so where you mark the blank really doesn't matter as long as it allows you to reference that specific position.

The spine is almost never in alignment with the stiffest axis of the blank. You often hear people talking about the "soft" and "strong" sides of a blank and making statements that would infer that these two locations are 180 degrees opposite each other. They're not. In fact, they are usually anywhere from 90 to 170 degrees apart. When you simply locate the natural curve of the rod by sighting down it, what you're locating is usually the stiffest axis of the blank - it will be opposite any natural concave warp or bend in the blank. But it will not be opposite of the spine - okay, rarely it may be. But not usually.

Beyond that, you have to understand that all this hand flexing and bending is fine, but in no way does it way approximate what happens when you load a blank by the action of a fish or load placed on a line that is running through the guides attached to the rod. This is why all the worry and bother over rod spine is much ado about nothing. Fish don't jump out of the water and grab the rod tip with a fin and then flex our rods. They load the rod by pulling on a line which is running through the guides attached to the rod. The lever arm effect this creates easily overrides any spine effect both when casting and when fighting a fish. This is why spine orientation cannot create a stable rod. It should also be noted that any twist on the cast (rare) does not affect accuracy because you are rotating a cylinder around a central axis, not taking it out of the casting plane.

There is no right nor wrong way to "spine a rod." For the most part, rod spine is immaterial and insignificant in terms of practical fishing applications.

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Yea, spine or spline how ever you say it is one of those old wives tails in rod building.
Clemens and others talk about it in their books but they were written years ago.

After hearing that the spine means little to nothing I did some tests and research myself
and agree whole heartedly with the statements made above.

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

Okay, and here I thought if you don't "spine" a rod and place the guides accordingly, you could in fact create "wrist twist" whilst casting. I have spoken to many rod builders here in South Africa, and they all swear by it...they find the "spine" (okay, natural curve) and place the guides either on it, or 180 deg on the opposite side.

You guys seriously telling me they are wasting their time? That you could place it anywhere and the action of the rod will not be better/worse or compromised in ANY way?

regards
Mike



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2006 05:32PM by Tom Kirkman.

The action of the rod has absolutely nothing at all to do with rod spine. Zero, zip, zilch.

Rod twist is caused by guide location, not spine orientation. All rods with guides located on top, such as conventional casting rods, will attempt to twist, or actually will twist, when the rod is loaded. The line running through the guides creates a lever arm effect that will twist or turn the rod in the direction of the applied load. This is why all rods with the guides located on top, are inherently unstable. All rods with the guides located underneath, are inherently stable.

Your rod building friends there have bought into a myth that has been around for many years. Nothing wrong with spining your rods if you want, but it does nothing for you, really.


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The funny thing is that people read all these books or comments on why they have to do this or that with the spine but not once is any evidence or proof given as to why!!! Coming from a many year association with the Dale Clemens group and his books, Dale never once proved that anything he said on spine was true. No facts, no hard data, nothing. We believed it because we read it. You start trying these things for yourself and you find that much of them aren't worth the paper their written on!

Happy to see you making use of the board, just watch your language here. We have a lot of very young users.

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Yeah and I have been applying the "laws" of spining by L.A. Garcia...so he bought into the myth too?

I'm actually glad about this info...it means I can build the rods and orientate the manufacturer's logo into the best "photo-taking" angles, which is great!

And you guys are right...all the books I've read (L.A. Garcia, Flex-Coat's book, Art Shenk) all say to "find the spine" and place the guides either on or opposite this position.

Glad I found this site! Thanks guys.

regards
Mike

Sorry about that Tom, was just quite surprised to see the truth about spining. Won't happen again.

But thanks for all the info, very interesting indeed, and makes a lot of sense.

Regards
Mike

But they don't tell you why you must find the spine and only mention that if you don't, your rod will twist, right?

Again, spine orientation has little to nothing to do with rod twist. You can prove this for yourself. Rig up a something that will hold the rod butt and allow the rod to rotate freely. Run a line out the guides and tiptop and apply a load. I promise you, no matter where you have the spine oriented, the rod is going to spin/rotate until the guides are facing the direction of the load. The greater the load you place on the rod, the most substantial this effect is.

We often hear that we don't want the rod working against itself internally or some such nonsense. The thing is, twisting can indeed damage a rod. But unless the rod actually does twist, nothing is going to be damaged. So wanting to twist, or supposed to twist, or whatever else regarding twisting is just not doing anything to harm the rod. Such damage will only occur if the rod actually does twist. This, and the inherent stability benefit, are some reasons why more and more builders are moving to spiral wrapped casting rods. It is the only way to prevent serious twist under heavy loads.

I will throw this out, if you're intent to stay with a guides on top rod, use lower frame guides. They won't prevent rod twist but they'll not exacerbate it like higher framed guides will.

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Okay, but what about the guys who say "if you put the guides on the "spine", you create great forward casting power, while if you put it on the opposite side of the "spine", you create a rod that fights a fish better and protects lighter tippets...in that it bends more freely forward if the fish should suddenly pull or run."

Is there no merit in these statements?

regards
Mike

Even after reasonble minds conceeded that the earth was NOT the center of the universe and that it revolved around the sun instead of the other way around, many refused to accept the fact. And there will be many that will hold onto the spine myth till their dying breath. But they will not be able to offer any facts as to why they believe what they believe other than to tell you that if you bend the blank by hand it will turn to a specific spot. I say, so what? What does that have to do with a fishing rod that has guides and line and a fish on the other end?

Not much. You see, the softest and stiffest axii of any blank are rarely opposite each other to begin with. Find both for yourself and see. It's rare that they'll be 180 degrees apart. And, against the total inherent power in the blank, the difference between the two is rather small overall.

Now if you want to orient one or the other in a particular location, that's fine. It won't hurt a thing. If you want to use the most powerful axis of the blank for casting, or for fish fighting, go right ahead. The difference will be slight, but you can fine tune it to your liking. nothing wrong with that. Just remember that the stiffest axis is rarely opposite the spine so you'll have to find it and orient it accordingly which means disregarding the spine.

Now If you want a lot more casting power, better get a more powerful blank. If you want a lot more more fish fighting power, again, get yourself a more powerful blank.

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this question comes up all the time by newbys (;-) and even those with lots of experience wrapping rods. i know it's addressed in the FAQ but perhaps it might be easier found as a sticky, condensed of course with arguments and replies. it's a valid question of course since the thinking has been out there for so many years.

eric
fresno, ca.

VERY funny Eric... :-p

Well, it's all I've been told....and all I've ever read. Very experienced custom builders have said it, and books considered "the best" on the subject of rod-building mention it...."you HAVE to find the spine and place the guides accordingly."

But it makes sense now, that SAGE themselves even told me to place the guides right on their markings, which donates guide spacing marks (not spine in any way) and they don't "spine" their factory rods at all.

I suppose even Steve Hudson's article on this site on "BUILDING A HOME-BREW SPINE FINDER" is then actually a waste of time? I was going to make one like this.

Regards
Mike

I think that most people are fooling themselves when they think they find the spine on a blank. They are only finding it at one deflection. At more or less deflection it will be in a slightly different place. There are half a dozen reasons for a blank having a spine but one of the reasons is the way that the material, prepreg, is put on the mandrel. On the inside of the blank, against the mandrel, the end of the material starts off by running straight up the mandrel but as the material is wrapped on the mandrel after successive layers it becomes misaligned so that the outer edge of the material or the material on the surface of the blank actually spirals around the blank. This happens because the mandrel is tapered and due to the way the edge of the material is cut. This means that the spine also spirals up the blank. If you do not buy this try deflecting a blank just a few inches and carefully locating the spine now deflect the blank much more, a couple of feet if possible and now see where the spine is. You will see that it will have moved. On some blanks it will only move slightly but on some it will move quite a bit, as much as 15 or 20 degrees. Also take a close look at a blank that is just clear coated so you can see the graphite and look for a faint black line. That is the end of the prepreg and you will notice that the black line spirals up the blank.

I think that the spine is a manufacturing anomaly or defect that is the result of the processes used to build graphite rod blanks. In my judgment a perfect blank would have no detectable spine. The manufacturers of graphite golf club shafts are building graphite shafts with no detectable spines. Lets hope that in the near future rod blank manufacturers can start building blanks with no detectable spines then hopefully all of this baloney about spines will go away.

very interesting point there michael, about the home brew spine finder... judging from the note on its original publication, i'd place it about 2000 for publication date.

eric
fresno, ca.

Just my two pennies... I have a 6 wt Sage XP blank that I'm building. I've spined the tip section on every rod I've built, and I could not for the life of me find one on this Sage. Maybe that's why they don't. I had trouble finding one on the SLT I built recently, too.

I know in my head I don't need to spine, but I do anyway. It's for me, not the rod.

Dave

The length and taper of rod blanks would make it difficult to ever produce one without the spine effect. Unless, of course, the process of making rod blanks was to undergo a wholesale change.

Nicholas Whipp patented a process for actually building in a physical spine in a rod blank, back in the late 1980's. I spoke with him around that time and he said that if no one could control the manufacturing anomalies that caused the effect, he figured that he'd just make a physical spine and at least know where and how much each blank would have. It was so strong, it would offset much of the lever arm effect of guides, but not always depending on the rod type and amount. The blanks were expensive to make due to the extra hand labor involved and production ceased in the mid-1990s.

Much of what you read on spine in the various rod building books was not the original idea of the authors - it came from previous bad information in earlier publications.

At least one early author, Gene Bullard, wrote in one of his earliest books that spine had little practical effect on a fishing rod and to worry over it was a waste of time. So the idea that it is largely irrelevant is actually not a new concept. Gene wrote his first book on rod building in the late 1960's.

The fact that so many people locate the spine in different ways, call different positions the spine, orient the spine in different places, and locate guides on, off or opposite the spine, all with no ill effects, only serves to illustrate that the "spine" has little practical effect on anything we do with a fishing rod under actual fishing conditions. If it did, then failure to do certain things in a precise and verbatim manner would result in all sorts of problems with literally millions of fishing rods the world over.

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