As requested by Bill Batson; the tiny guide pictures are up under the "miscellaneous section"


The guides in the one picture are actually frosted but are close enough to the PVD Ti-Ch coated frame and a shiny black zirconium ring. To give you a good idea as to what they will look like.

Also if you enlarge the second two pictures they are pretty well out of focus. but the first one looks good enlarged and gives you a good idea of the size of the 2.5mm guides I am out of the 2mm's so they did not make the pictures.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2007 05:16AM by Steve Gardner.

Steve,

These look like normal fly guides, aren't they? We have used them for many years, especially the Fuji T-Sic range, to build our squid rods, where each rod will have as many as 13 - 15 guides. Such rods are called "Eging" rods by the Japanese.

Anthony Lee

Steve, try going to EDIT PHOTO, then rotate picture counter clockwise

[www.rodbuilding.org]
[www.rodbuilding.org]

Bill;
Thanks never enven noticed that feature

I just wanted to thank Mike Barkley and Raymond Adams for educating me on how to down load pictures onto the site
and
Billy Vivona For pointing out the (edit feature) so every one would not have bent neck cramps looking at them

Anthony;
These might have the same look as fly guides or fly guides may have the same look as these. The only difference that I can see is the size.

I have yet to see 2.5mm guides on a fly rod, I even questioned about doing so and was suggested tat I stay with at least 6mm guides so the knots can pass through.

I know many of the guides we use in building rods are the same with different names depending on which type of rod we use them on, or a particular companies marketing.

I have also heard that these size guides have been available in Japan for a while, although I have no conformation of that, so it is possible that you’ve seen them on "Eging" rods by the Japanese” before.

But they have not been on the US market however until last year being brought in by Batson Enterprises for me to experiment with and now recently being imported for Custom Tackle to sell.

Steve, ANthony is from JApan and teh guides have been used quite extensively over there...even those small size 1 guides which I have no idea how the heck they wrap them - the guy I order fro has put them on a number of his own rods. So it's nothing new, but in teh US where we take 2-3 years to catch up to teh Japanese it is groundbreaking.

Thanks Billy;
Maybe its time we custom builders here in the US start thinking out of the box and let Japan play catch up for a while. I have a great respect for what Japan has accomplished in the last 30 years. But there is no reason we can't set the standards for a change.

Steve,

Fuji's range of LSG guides range from 10mm to 3.5mm. Over here we have been building our ultra lites with these guides. But I have not seen the any that are smaller. So you guys have gone further anyway.

Anthony Lee

Nice to see tiny guides, that might be used on UL and L rods with thinn line. The match rods(13' rods used in europe) r equiped with tiny guides, may be even smaller that these ones, unfortunately they r high framed(i don't like the looks of them on a spinning rod). I just hope they will be available in the US as soon as possible :D, so i can get some as well:P

Steve, that woul dbe nice, but it's not going to happen. The US as a whole is comprised of more hammerhead fishermen per square inch than any country in the world, lol. When it comes to high end stuff, or change, 99% of the fishermen here are more than happy to own Ugly Sticks etc as tehir BEST Fishing rod, while the Japanese are owning factory rods with TI-Cermet guides. Not to mention the blanks they are using over tehre, are using materials in which nobody here is using. THis is specificlly referencing the butterfly jigging rods Zenaq, Smith, Hooper, etc. Here we think the Trevala is the only butterfly rod, and since it stinks people recommend that all butterfly jigging rods are no good for any type of fishing anyone does.

Andrei;
I've use some of those match guides, but the smallest I've seen is 4mm about twice the size of the 2mm and a lot more body mass to them because of their height.

Don't be mistaken that these little guides can only be used for ultra lights and light action rods.

The 2mm guides will work for 20 lb. braid and 10 lb mono just fine and the 2.5mm's will work for 30lb braid, 12-15 mono and maybe even larger. I have not tried yet to see just how big a line I can use before it starts restricting line flow.

I am in the process of experimenting with some of that now, I have a heavy action flipping stick with 4.5mm's on it that I use to throw any thing from 20 lb. fluorocarbon to 60 lb. braid on with out any challenges in performance

Now I am talking fresh water bass rods here so I can’t really say about rods for larger fish or heavier saltwater applications. But for what I do the little guides are still stronger then the blanks I use. So the only considerations are line flow, and knot clearance, (if you use leaders).

As far as I’m concerned anything used above what is needed is just unnecessary added weight.