Ok Just to play devil's advocate.

Don't jump on me with both feet. You guys got me on the fence here and if you jump to hard you may impale me on a picket :-)

Most of you guys who wouldn't live without them are talking about heavy duty bass or salt water rods. Do you feel the same necessity on a 6'6' to 7' 2wt fly rod?

I mostly build light weight fly rods and I have never seen the horrors you guys describe on the bass and salt rods. Neither on my rods or any factory fly rods.

I am not opposed to putting them on my little rods. I don't like the way they look but I am open minded enough to be convinced if it is really something that needs to be on every rod with single foot guides and not just the heavy duty types.

Another question for the equation is the finish. Would you feel as strongly if a good urethane finish were used to soak the thread and "glue" the foot in place?

Ray

I don't build a lot of fly rods and don't know if it's necessary, but I do quite a few U/L rods and still use the Forhan out of habit and it's actually a good selling point to my customers (like Billy said, if I didn't tell/show them, they would never notice it). Personally, I like the looks and just think that, needed or not, it provides another bit of security that isn't available on a production rod.

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 build mostly fly rods and use single foot guides exclusively on all weights. I wrap using the Forhan Wrap 100% of the time.

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

RAy, I'm one of the saltwater guys you mentioned and have never had a traditionally wrapped SF guide fall out or even seen it happen. The only reason I know it happens is because it was mentioned on here. BUT I know when it happens it will be at the most inoportune time and it eases my mind.

As far as looking bad no one has ever noticed it and I kind of like the way it looks.

I build ultra - light spinning, that's 1kg. IGFA to 20lb premium line depending on the species fished for. Also flyrods up to 8wt. I would not presume to build a rod I won't fish with. And, yes, I know from experience that the Forhan locking wrap makes a rod wrapped with single foot guides more durable with very little effort and negligible weight.

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

Ray, I've had a couple of SF guides pulled out without teh wrap - the first time I was making a cast at fish breaking on teh surface, not paying attention and the line wrapped around the first guide. The cast ripped the guide out, fortuantely. Honestly, I think if I had the FOrhan locking wra on that guide the rod would have broken. But it's hard to build rods to prepare for fisherman's stupidity.

My Mom gave me her rod back in which a guide pulled out, and it was defiantely because the rods were tangled up in teh car adn my DAd most likely pulled and yanked to untangle them, at teh expense of the guide pulling out. THis is how the guides WITH the Forhan wrap get knocked out of alignment laterally, so I end up still having to re-wrap them at some point.

Another regular Y frame Fuji guide size 25 pulled out, finished with CP, and I used the guide frame as my hookeeper. I just slipped that back in and used the next guide up teas the hookeeper, lol.

Ok,

I'll give it a try.

Ray

Ray;
I have personally witnessed the guides pull out of three diferent rods my partners were using in tournaments with me this season alone

I have always used regular security wraps where you just continue the thread for another 3 or 4 turns past the guide foot leg. But... a couple years back I had a single foot guide pull out of a wrap on an 8' 4-weight rod. I don't know what happened, but I can tell you that I use the Forhan wrap on all my single foot guides now, 4-weight or 10-eight. It doesn't hurt a thing and provides the best assurance that a guide won't pull out, on any rod.

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

Ray,, Looks like you are outnumbered !! Give in and try it LOL !!

Personally, I wouldn't let one out of my shop without The Forhan on all SF guides.
I am so used to doing it , sometime I don't think to tell the customer about the Forhan wraps.
I never have a problem with tweaking the guides for lineup. You can always move them just a tad if you didn't wrap overly tight.

Ray;
Now that you have the imput form so many other eperienced builders. It just seems to me that as amazing as your work is with such incredible rods that you build. Your conscience would not allow you to use a wrap that was inferior to what you could use.

PS. just playing the devel's advocate



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/12/2007 11:29PM by Steve Gardner.

Ray, I like so many others use them exclusively on single foots. No practical or logical reason not to, with the benefit they provide. I've done a lot of pull testing and have found that the basic security wrap that Tom mentioned, really doesn't do much at all. Why not add another 5 to 10mm of thread per guide and actually get something that is much more measurably stronger?

The guides on a light fly rod can catch a car trunk, tree limb, rod locker or door jam just as easily as a heavy SW rod. One good whack is all it takes sometimes. Anyone who doubts it only needs to make and finish a few of each type and pull on them with a scale. It's amazing how much difference such a tiny amount of thread makes.

Steve,

Thanks for kind words about my rods.

I really have never been one to jump on a bandwagon unless there is darn good reason to. You guys have convinced me that there is a good reason to.

In the engraving, gun, pen and knife worlds that I work in everyday there are so many people who do things for what I would consider very lame reasons. A lot of times its because famous Joe does it and we want to be like him. Sometimes its just a gimmick to make sales and too often it is just tradition for traditions sake. So I have been conditioned to walk my own path unless there is a good logical argument to do differently.

You guys give good logical reasons to do it so I am going to give it a try.

Ray

There was a post a few months back where someone did a pull test on the Forhan and a conventional wrap. Seems I remember the Forhan requiring 40 something pounds of dead pulling force to rip it out of the wraps. Sustained quite a bit more pulling force than did the conventional wrap. I guess I need to look that on up and read it again. I remember that was enough proof to convince me to wrap all of them Forhan.

40#'s, yikes. I do know guide secured this way are actually stronger then a 12-25# blank, as that was the rating on both rods I blew up, lol.

Ray,

The technique would never have been released to the public in RodMaker Magazine if there was not a sound reason for it and valid sustaining data behind its use. RodMaker doesn't deal in hype or gimmicks.

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

Sorry Tom,

I Didn't mean to imply that.

Ray

No problem - come to think of it, you probably didn't realize it first appeared in the pages of RodMaker.


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

This is the post I was refering to , couldn't remember who made it.



Guide wrap strength/Rip Out... follow up for Chris Karp
Posted by: Mick McComesky (---.244.27.18.Dial1.StLouis1.Level3.net)
Date: December 22, 2006 01:26AM


I revisited some pull testing that I said I'd do for Chris, and anybody else who is curious about the strength of wraps.

I wrapped up a bunch of single foot guides with A thread using straight wraps, block wraps and forhan wraps, finishing in sets of three with Flex Coat CP and Permagloss, Flex Coat CP and Threadmaster, and just Threadmaster. I used sections of old blanks laying around that were pretty close to identical with not too much taper.

Average pull force required to pull the guides from the wraps were:

Straight wraps
Bare thread - 4 lbs
CP and TM - 29 lbs
TM w/o CP - 31 lbs
CP and PG - Over 50 lbs, assumed at 75 lbs minimum

HT metallics with TM and no CP - 27 lbs

Blocking wraps
Bare thread - 5 lbs
CP and TM - 30 lbs
TM w/o CP - 31 lbs
CP and PG - Over 50 lbs, assumed at 75 lbs minimum

Forhan wraps
Bare thread - 11 lbs
CP and TM - 46 lbs
TM w/o CP - 48 lbs
CP and PG - Over 50 lbs, assumed at 75 lbs minimum

HT metallic with TM and no CP - 31 lbs

Boring details are below:

I used 42 HFB size 7's for the bulk (cuz that's what I had the most of to make things consistent), 12 BLG size 8's (just cuz I had some). used A thread only because that's all I use, so it's all I have around, FC CP cuz that's generally the CP I use, and TM cuz I haven't pull tested with it before. Guides were unprepped "out of the box" for consistency. All wraps were done with identical tie in's and tie offs, with no packing, just letting what is my normal thread tension lay naturally. Pulls were done with a digital scale with a max load of 50 lbs at as close to identical angles and pull rates as possible. There were no notable differences between the HFB's and BLG's so the measurements were combined for the averages, which were all rounded to the nearest pound. I didn't use double foots because I only have small ones that I do not believe are even close to substantial enough to matter.

PG wraps couldn't be measured as the scale maxed out. It took a lot of effort to pull them free, and some are still wrapped though the ceramics were pulled out of the frames and on a couple of them, I observed noises that I can only attribute to the blanks being compromised, though the guides remain attached. Best estimate on the ones that did pull free were at least using 75 lbs.

Any finish will be far more than strong enough to hold a guide on, no matter what the abuse you give it. IF you want the strongest of all, use permagloss.

I use the Forhan on all SFs, including light wt fly rods. The reason I use it on light wt fly rods with wire SFs is because around here they are used most often on small, extremely bushy streams, many of which you have to bushwhack to to fish. Guides are always snagging on rhodies and other guide grabbers. 3 miles into a hike is not a good place to have a guide pull out, which happens pretty frequently with factory rods where they saved on a little bit of thread and time.