I am rebuilding a 6wt St. Croix 4pc Imperial. I will be using a large arbor Tioga reel with a 6wt Teeny mini-tip (mostly). I will use this rod to fish for large rainbow and brown trout usually throwing heavily weighted streamers. The rod was perfectly sound, but since I started rod building, I thought it could use some new features, Fighting butt, Ceramic Guides, enlarged stripping guide and eye, (gathering?) guide 3 - 4" after the stripping guide.

I would like to try single foot guides throughout but I would like some opinions first. Has anyone had problems with single guides as far as ease of placement, softening the action more than you thought, etc... Has anyone gone to single guides and loved / hated them?

Thanks for the input.

You can't "soften" the action because action is built in - action is where the rod initially flexes and that isn't going to change no matter what type guides you use.

Properly selection, the ceramics won't be any heavier than the snakes you have now so you won't change the response or recovery time either. Try to stay as light as you can, obviously, because additional weight will change the charateristics of the rod.

There is no reason to use a stripping guide larger than about a 12. You can try a 16 just to satisfy your curiousity, but I doubt you'll gain much by using it. I would use a high frame #12, such as an SVSG type.

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If you can afford it at all, go with the SiC guides. They seem to shoot line a lot better than the Alconites (and Alconites seem a lot better than snakes). In a perfect world, go with Titanium/SiCs, as they weigh only marginally more than a set of snakes.

I use the high frame stripping guides, as Tom suggested. However, I use high-frame spinning guides (i.e. one foot YSG type) as strippers, then immediately go down to my running guides. My guide set would look something like this: TYSG12, TYSG10 (100mm in front of 12), TLSG7, then TLSG6s to the tip. I might even dump the 7 in favor of the 6, depending on stress distribution and test casting. Further, if I could get away with it, and not hinder my casting distance, I might go TYSG10, TYSG10 for my two strippers.

It depends entirely on what you mean by "heavily weighted streamers," but I found that a 6 was a little bit too small a line to turn over some of the big dishrag lead-eyed streamers I throw. It can be done, but casting got considerably easier when I went to a full sink 7 wt. line. Granted, I shot more line, rather than actually "casting" it, but I got better distance, AND my fly turned over better at the end of the cast. Just my 2 cents.

Hey Justin. I had a Sage Z-Axis 590-4 made w/ Fuji Gold Cermet guides. I've got mixed feelings. I love the way the line shoots - it's so smooth it feels like the line is floatign on air. On the other hand (and I know I'll get flak for saying this here) the added weight of the single foot ceramic guides have slowed down the action considerably - the rod bends much farther down that blank and takes longer to recover. They've taken a fast crisp action blank and turned it into a smooth medium action rod. I tested my rod against a factory rod, and I could see the difference imediately when my frined/shop manager/casting instructor tried my rod. The diffenence is very noticeable. My friend didn't care for the way my rod cast in favor of a factory rod. But given that, my rod still casts BEAUTIFULLY!

Not to say that faster is better. I know many people who prefer slower actions rods, and the added weight may not be objectionable then. But if you look at a factory Sage ZA, they use fine wire 1/0 snake guides for the last 5 guides, and a fine wire small tip top - there's no way that even titanium frame ceramic guides a going to be close in weight to those.

I also built a Baston RX8 9' 9wt - I had planned on using Baston SS single foot guides and top. I wrapped all the guides on and taped on the top, and I didn't like the way the rod felt - the added weight slowed the blank too much fo rmy taste. And, I wanted large rings, I think 10's so I had to go to a REALLY large top, and that just made iot worse. So I cut everything off and re-wrapped w/ Batson TiCh snake guides, and now I really like it. I thought that a heavier stiffer blank like the RX8 could handle the extra weight, but I didn't like the results. Ti/SiC guides are much lighter than the SS I played with and would have had less of an impact.

I really, really want to like ceramic insert guides, but for me the added weight and affect on action is almost not worth it. For a while I really thought they were the way to go, and the snake guides were OLD technology from a time and place were that was the best available. Not I think differently - I can appreciate what snake guides offer. At the moment, I'm not sure what my prefered guide is - I'm thinking single foot for everything 8wt and below, and snakes for heavy stuff. And - some sort of Ti Carbide/Nitride caoting - I find it much slicker than chrome. Maybe not as slick as ceramics, but much better than chrome.

I think it's really persoanl preference - if you can get a set of guides, tape them on yoru rod and see what you think. Good luck. mpp

Thank you for the input and help

Just finished Z Axis 9.5' 5 wt used SIC TLSG07 - 08 and strippers TLNSG10 & 12 & tip top TFST07; and it casts just PERFECT ... line went to the backing from the first cast ... and it's not somehow slower and even if it was i definatelly preffer little slower action than factory intend anyways .... but i noticed that heavier guides like .... zirconia ring single foot titanium carbide plated (actually heavy stainless steel) 06 - 07 - 08 especially on tip slow the rod action considerably down which was kind of Okey for XP 590 and 890, but not for less sturdy rods, to play on safe side Single foot rec guides could be a choice, but haven't used them ... For the next project I'd go with same Concept guides or Amtac Titaniums .... Maybe Z-Axis 590 (5wt) above is more sensitive than 596 and difference could be felt, but I do not think it might afect overall performance, by all means Fuji Gold Cermet must be very light
.... my 2 cents ...