A question:

Everyone seems to focus on ceramic guide ring hardness, but I never see ceramic guide ring weight discussed. Is there much difference between, say, zirconia, aluminum oxide, silicon carbide, etc? I ask because I'm building a light spinning rod for a christmas gift, and the guides I bought (I won't name the brand--there's nothing wrong with them, they're just heavy for the application) are just too heavy.

Another question is, how much is the guide-ring mass reduced on an Alconite guide versus a Hardloy guide of the same size? I can see a slight reduction in ring mass, but don't know how to quantify the difference.

I'm considering using 5 mm fly guides and fly tip for the final 5 guides on the rod, but I'll have to switch brands for the high-frame guides closer to the reel.

Adam Stewart

I can't say for sure, but if the size, diameter, thickness, etc., of the rings themselves are about the same, the weight difference between the different materials should be very small. Although, I'm sure there is some difference. Enough to really matter? Maybe and maybe not. It would depend on how much difference, how many guides you've used and how large the guides are to begin with. For instance, on a something like a tiny 5mm guide, with say, 5 guides on the last couple feet or so of a rod, any difference between between hardloy and alconite would be pretty slight. You might notice it out on the water, but it'd be very slight indeed.

But I would never say that it makes no difference at all. Anything you can do to shave some weight on a rod using that size guide is likely to make some difference. If you can move to lighter rings, lighter frames, less thread and epoxy, then the entire weight difference of the total package might add up enough to show you some practical gains in performance. Rings alone... it would be very, very slight.

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

My strategy on my personal rods is usually to use the smallest guides I can in the inexpensive ring material (like Hardloy or H-ring, or Hialoy) but then use 2-3 coats of Permagloss or Gudebrod 822 rod varnish, leaving some thread texture remaining. Those inexpensive ring materials are plenty slick and durable for me and with the light finish I feel like any difference in weight compared to expensive guides is pretty much balanced out and I save some money. A lot of people like the thicker glass-like finish on wraps, though, and so that's why this is mostly just for my personal rods because I don't care about that.

It's not just about the ring material, take a look at the frame alloy and the size of the guide foot. Example, a while back I measured to the nearest grain and found that the Amtak Titan #6 fly guide, Fuji Alconite #6 guide, and a single foot standard TiChrome #3? wire guide all weighed almost identical. Though titanium is lighter than stainless steel, the guide foot on the Titan is several mm's longer than the Alconite which negated the alloy advantage. BTW, the fuji titanium silcone carbide were much lighter and the rec single foot wire guide has a mass that almost doesn't exist. :)

I'm not sure if it's the ring material or the frame,but I do know that the zirconia ring/TiCh plated guides I've used seem considerably heavier than some of the other ceramic guides I've used including the titanium/SIC Fugi Concept guides,various Hialoy ring guides with black or stainless frames(from various maufacturers),and some unknown guides with silver(not TiCH) ceramic rings and black coated frames(these are quite light for ceramics but I don't know who makes them?).

I tend to think that it may be more in the heavy plating on the frame of these guides,or possibly a combination of both as opposed to just the rings,but I would be interested in knowing for sure if anyone knows?

The difference in weight of the single foot fly guides is enough that I've stopped using them for running guides on fly rods and only use the zirconia ring guides for strippers now where the weight difference is hardly noticable.I can sure feel the difference in recovery and tip weight between a set of these on a fly rod and a set of Fugi titanium frame/SIC Concepts.

In response to my own question, I found an interesting website:

[www.accuratus.com]

It lists, among other things (hardness) the densities of silicon carbide, aluminum oxide, and zirconium oxide (I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that zirconia rings are zirconium oxide). Silicon carbide has a density of approximately 3.1 grams per cubic centimeter; high grade aluminum oxide, 3.9; and zirconium oxide, between 5.5 and 6! That means that for rings of exactly the same proportion, a ring of zirconium oxide would weigh between 25 and 50% more than a similar guide of Aluminum oxide, and be nearly twice as heavy as a silicon carbide guide!

That would explain the later observation that zirconia guides felt heavier than aluminum oxides.

What do you fellows think?

Adam Stewart