How long should the rear grip be on a 5' UL rod. Im going to use a St.Croix SC111 blank. I was thinking of doing a spit grip, but need to figure out where to mount the reel seat.
Also, how does this sound for guides 20, 12, 8, 6, 6. Will that work? Im a fly rod builder, so Im not to sure about spinning rod stuff. Thanks

On a 5' UL I personally wouldn't have a rear grip longer than five or six inches, and wouldn't consider a split grip......that's just my preference.

Grip placement should be whatever you like and is comfortable for you. I'm working on 2 5' U/L right now. One is a split with each piece 1 1/2"" a (birch bark/burl) with about a 3" space between them. The other is a 4 1/2" grip

I will probably end up with a 20 butt guide a 10 or 12 SF and the rest #6 ceramic fly guides, depending on static test and the New Concept method outlined in the library above.

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!!

I used a split grip, but the rod blank itself was longer 7'-6", but even at that I didn't want to lose a great deal of business end with a rear grip , so I extended just the very end of the rod 3" and the original blank just goes inside the rear cork section of the split grip. Most full size rods only really require three size guides, and this rod is even smaller. A natural progression of guides does not often paralle the reels upsweep (which is often steeper) when concept guiding to create a focused guide funnel for a specific reel.

looks like this:
[www.rodbuilding.org]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2007 01:37PM by Chris Karp.

I would use the following guides: 20,16,12,10,8,6. Natural progression.


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Like Mike says, do whatever is comfortable for you. The more I use the handle design on Tom Kirkman's light line smallmouth spinning rod, the more I like it. I think it's perfect for any rod when you are mostly fighting the fish off your wrist or only need a little bit of leverage from the rear grip. It allows you to use more of the blank to cast and fight fish. If you don't have the RodMaker issue with the handle I'm talking about, it's a Fuji NPS18 seat in downlocking configuration with some threads trimmed to make it as short as possible. 3-4" rear grip. I leave off the foregrip. My 3S60LF built this way has BYAG20, BYAG10, then 4 x BLAG6s and a BFAT6 tip top. You could probably do the same thing but drop 1 of the 6s for your 5' rod.

Thanks for the replies so far, Steve, do you have any pics the style grip you are talking about?

Yes, but your e-mail is hidden. E-mail me (click on my name) and I will send you a picture of my 3S60LF.

Josh, I went ahead and put the picture on the photo page. It's no work of art but it is very comfortable. If you want to see a beautiful example, see the one Stan Grace posted a few days ago - mine looks like a dog turd compared to Stan's, LOL. Anyway, this gives you an idea of what I was describing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2007 01:09PM by Steve Kartalia.

Steve is to kind in his comparison. The grip I posted is a 2 1/2" rear grip of wood combined with an NPS seat similar to Steve's. I find that is actually plenty of length for me from an UL to a light spinning rod grip. I used a 1 3/4 " wooden fore grip just for looks and balance. On an UL rod it could be omitted or shortened to just a button with no performance loss. Actually in the picture I posted the blank is a 5', 1/16 to 1/4 oz lure weight blank and the guides are secured with the PermaGloss wrapless system that Bill Steven's provided information on. After a bit of prior testing I intend to land at least one 20 lb King Salmon with it in June.

Stan Grace
Helena, MT
"Our best is none too good"

RodMaker, Volume 10 #1, has a complete and in-depth article on Ultra-Light rods. Handle length is well covered.

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

And an excellent article it is. I specialize in ultra-light spinning & fly rods and make a goodly number of fly-spin combination rods and just on the first read-through I learned something new to me. The new issue arrived today so that and the "Letters" are all I've read so far. Too, I've been unlearning 'myths' for at least 10 years now thanks to Tom K., this site and RodMaker. Ralph

If at first you don't succeed, go fishing, then try, try again.

Josh, thanks for starting this thread. I'm in the process of building a couple UL/L rods. I received the latest RMM but haven't spent time with it yet. Appreciate everyone's input.

Stan