I'm building a 7'9" 2 piece 3 wt. I am having trouble figuring out the spacing and how many guides to use. I was sold 9 guides (2 striping guides and 7 single foot wire guides) at last years rod building convention and hope that I didn't get hosed. The tip top that I was sold is too big also. Could I wrap the tip of the blank all of the way out to the end to close up some the gap or should I just order a new one. Any help is great!

Thanks

Aaron how much too big is the tip top? Some builders use 00 thread or a A thread to make up the difference. as for guide spacing I place my stripping guide about 4" above where my hand hits the blank as if I were stripping line. Check the search section on guide spacing for a fly rod or contact the manufacture of the blank for their spacing. I would start out at 4 inches from the tip top then 41/2, 5, 51/2, 6, 7, 8, 10 inches you may have to modif these spacing and you may no need the extra stripping guide
Good Wraps Bob

Nine guide plus a tip is a good starting point. The retail consumers guide si one ghuide per foot of rod not including the tip, and thats a minimum. If you look on the library on theis site it will show you how to preform a static test which will indicate guide number, and their placement. . The hand reaching (to strip) thing is a good start for the stripper guide placement. On most production spinning and fly rods the stripper guide is some 26-28" inches in front of the reel seat. In concept guiding for a spining rod it usually falle 19-21" inches in front of the spool face. concept guideing uses a specific reel to located the the 1st few guides (smaller reels are closer the the end of the reel seat) but as the upsweep angle of the spinning reels can vary along wth the height of the guide ring this can place a concept guides stripper as close as 15". Place the 1st guide down from the tip about 4-1/2" -5" away from the tip and then preliminarily tape on the guides guide inbetween with an ever increasing spacing starting at a slightly greater distand than from the tip to the 1st guide down, fill in all the rest of the guides with this porgressive spacing, Adjust the number or spacing as you preform the static test. A rod being flexed during a static test should never be bent past 1/3 its over all length.

Most spinning rods only require three size guides and two style frames. Get a new tip that fits and make sure the ring size is that of the guides that lead into it. You will never need to wrap the whole tip section with thread, some rod makers, in order to fix your loose tip problem, wrap just the tip where the barrel of the tip top will eventually cover it as a spacer/arbhor



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2007 10:42AM by Chris Karp.