Hi fellow rod builders,

This subject is not new and I know it will always bring heated argument. But I have been challenged many times when I said that placing your guides on the rod spine has no consequence to rod twisting under load. I even borrowed Tom's words and said that the rod "spine" is a myth and I have been shot left and right. Is there any proof to support this statement, whether true or false?

Appreciate all your comments.

Anthony Lee

"A correctly spined overhead rod will not twist under load, true or false?"..... False. If by overhead you mean a conventional wrap, it will twist

Spine is there, and there is no doubt some contribiution from it in such things. But it is overwhelmed by directional load.

Any rod where the guides are located on top of the rod will twist, or attempt to twist, under load. Such a rod is inherently unstable, regardless of spine position.

There is no proof, nor has there ever been, to the contrary.

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

The proof is in the pudding.
Spline the rod, put the guides on top, bend it a watch it twist.
What more proof does one need?

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

Run a line through the guides and load the line - this is what a fish does. As Raymond said, watch it twist.

The great fallacy is that bending or flexing a rod by hand somehow approximates what happens under actual fishing conditions. It does not. Fish don't flex the rod by reaching up and grasping it with a fin - they load it via a line that is running through guides attached to the blank.

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

The spine of a rod does cause torque, you can feel it when trying to find the spine, the rod blank wants to return to that natural bend and will twist until it gets there. HOWEVER, the force of line running through the guides either adversly (traditional casting rod) or positevely (spinning) affects the balance of a rod and the amount of this force, especially when fighting a fish, makes the torque caused by the spine of the rod so nominal that I believe that guide orientation can be better served based on a blanks natural curvature. For example if you have ever built a wood deck how do you determine which side of the board faces up? you sight down the board and orient it with it's belly up, otherwise you will begin to notice some boards slumping while others remain rigid. Same principle applies with fishing rods.

You asked for proof and I can't give you anything concrete but think about the amount of force it takes to roll a blank to find it's natural spine, now compare that with the amount of force you use when fighting a fish. That aount of force translates along the length of the blank and either balances the rod or works against you.

I bet the same folks that shoot you down "left and right" are the same people that refuse to lay a hand on a spiral wrapped rod and rely solely on spine torque to balance their rods. It was the way they were taught and they refuse to change and I really believe that rod builders do not have enough influence to change their mind. The only way the majority of the fishing community will change their way of thinking is when you see high profile production rods (i.e Loomis, St. Croix, etc) switch over to spiral wrapped rods.

Man you guys are on a roll tonight. Four posts in the time it took me to write that.

Ah,
Yes! I failed to say put on reel and attatch the line to something THEN
bend it! Thats what I ment though. I should have re-read before I hit
the post button. Most of us need to do that!
LOL

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

I guess Loomis actually had spiralled production rods, but the public demand was so low they reverted back. It's hard to change fishermens' minds on this subject, let alone a rod builder who's been doing it "guides on top" for many years.

Putter
Williston, ND

Those that have shot at you left and right are rod building fools and do not understand the principles involved. They have bought into the greatest rod building myth of all time and simply repeat what they have read or been told. They lost their thinking caps in the third grade.

Line guides are in effect small lever arms. A certain amount of torque is created when a line running through them is loaded. In almost all cases it will overcome any spine effect you have there. The higher the guides the greater the effect. This is why offshore trolling and stand up rods utilize gimbals to keep the rod from turning completely upside down or twisting something off prior to the reel area. The guides used on these rods are pretty darn high and really make the rod want to twist. Sorry, no, you can't prevent this by putting the spine in any particular place. Nope, no way, no how. Not on your life.

You can minimize the twist a little by using the lowest guides possible, but you cannnot get rid of it. When loaded those guides will still want to go to the bottom of the rod. Simple physics.

If you get up to the ICRBE make sure to take a look at Tom's casting rod demo device. It really does do the same thing a fish does when it's on the end of your line. Even with the spine dead on top, the rod will flip upside down in an instant once it's loaded. And the more you load it, the harder it wants to spin over. And that is the very position where all the spine proponents say you have to place the spine to keep the rod from twisting.

Spine, schmine. It doesn't amount to a hill of beans and any of us who build heavy duty offshore rods have known this for years. Bulid on the straightest axis and use a spiral wrap if you can. If you can't, then install a gimball.

Thanks guys, it's great comfort to me to know that I was not wrong to change my old habbits since I got myself to this forum. I will get permission to post a photo here of how a demo was performed to prove that correct spine orientation will overcome the twist. And if you guys can help me tear down this demo, then, I will be a major preacher in my part of the world to dispel this myth.

Really appreciate your comments.

Anthony Lee

When I build a float rod, (13-17 footers) and I put the guides 90 degrees to the spine, the rod will twist like there no tommorow. When I align the guides to the spine either on top or bottom, the rod does not twist, torque or whatever ypou want to call it. So therefore, I as a float rod builder, will align the guides to the spine.

Paul

Arrrgh - I tried to resist posting to this one but you guys knew I couldn't let this one go without chiming in.

We build "on-spine", whether casting or spinning, or even on a spiral wrap. Part of the reason why is because we feel it maximizes the "natural" tendency of the rod to bend along it's least path of resistance - I don't care if you call it spine or something else.

ALL rods twist under load. That's why all of our layup tests, stress tests, etc. are done with a reel mounted to the rod and line run through the tip, even when we've only mounted one guide. That's why we repeat the test series for each guide as we place it.

One of the hallmarks of our rods is that under load, no matter what the direction the "pull" is coming from, our guides follow the curve of the rod and do NOT "roll" out (or under, in the case of casting rods).

I actually agree with most everything said above (except that building to spine is because we don't know any better and refuse to learn, because we've taken the time to experiment and have proved, in our own unscientific way, that there is a definite and positive difference, at least for us). I'm just offering an opinion bnased on what we've learned.

Uncle Russ
Calico Creek Rods

AMEN,,, UNCLE RUSS,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I have been arguing this same fact here for years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Arguing with a potential buyer will prove to be highly cournterproductive. Skeptism can properly dealt with by submitting a proof source that is acceptable to the customer. Words and spiel will never never turn this type of customer customer around - probably only one thing WILL! Simply place the rod in one of the ball bearing demo devices like shown at ICRBE in the Rodmaker Booth and you will find that SEEING IS BELIEVING! All rods with guides on top twist!

Gon Fishn

Timely very timely

I have actually just started doing a bit of experimenting on this myself to settle the issue in my own head.
I have done one blank so far but plan to do this on all the rods I build from now on and keep track to see how it effects different rods.

My first blank in the trial is a Winston 7'3" 3wt 3pc (at least thats what Winston has it labeled). This blank is somewhat unique in that it is almost perfectly symmetrical.

The spine of the rod is almost exactly 180 degrees of the inside curve. These two points are almost the same strength. When testing for the spine on this particular blank the side I chose for the spine came up 2 out of 3 times so I chose it as the stronger of the outside curves. But it is very hard to tell feeling it by hand which is stronger.

Likewise the two hard sides are almost exactly 90 degrees to the two softer sides and they are also very close in strength as well. This is only the second blank I have had my hands on that was this symmetrical. The other one was also a Winston 7'3" 3wt 3pc BTW.

So what I did was space the guides out on the blank and tape them in place on one of the hard sides. When static weight was used with the guides facing up the weight rolled the blank over 180 degrees just like in Tom's book. Then I did a casting test.

Now I cast this with the bare blank because I did not want a handle to interfere with being able to feel anything going on with the blank. The back cast was fine but at the point where the blank is loaded and the forward cast starts I could feel a good bit of torque in the blank. It was wanting to rotate.

I then turned the guides 90 degrees and put them on the side I chose as the spine. In the static weight test the guides were still pulled to the underside. However, when I went out to cast there was a marked difference. With the guides on the spine side I could not feel the same torque when the forward cast was started. Now I am not saying there was no torque at all there just that I could not feel it.

I did not notice a whole lot of distance increase on the cast from the hard side to the spine but accuracy was a lot better on the spine side.

This leads me to believe that having the guides on top of the rod vs the bottom does have an effect on rod stability but apparently so does the blanks desire to seek out the path of least resistance between the hard and soft axis of the blank.

I still have two more sides on this blank to test and I hope to get that dine this weekend. I also plan to test all the blanks I build on for a while to see if this holds up on every blank or just some. Like I said this particular blank is almost perfectly symmetrical which may be effecting the result. Most blanks I have built on have not been this close from one side to the other.


Just a sidebar.

I came back to edit this because upon more careful reading I noticed again that there may be a huge difference between heavy offshore rod blanks and the dainty little fly rod blanks. Are we really all comparing apples and apples when we make blanket statements about rods that have such a vast difference in physical properties?


Ray



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2007 09:17AM by Ray Cover.

I have tried this over and over and no matter where you position the effective spine the rod will twist if the guides are on top of the rod as in most conventional casting rods. The more load that is applied the worse the situation gets.

I only know of one way to keep a blank or rod from twisting under load from a fish. PUT THE GUIDES ON THE BOTTOM OF THE ROD. So you build a spinning, fly, or a spiral wrapped casting rod.

Casting distance seems to be a condition of how well the blank is properly loaded. So there can be no blanket statement about the spine being in a certain spot causing the rod to cast farther. It all depends on the casting axis versus the amount of power in that axis and how much load you apply on that axis. For the amount of weight you throw, you might do better with the spine on top, the next guy may do better with the spine on bottom and another guy may do better with the spine to the side.

I don't think there is any difference in physical properties between a dainty fly rod blank and a heavy offshore trolling blank. They are all made exactly the same way, are they not?

Thank you for your comments so far. Now I am posed with another on the same subject: If there are 2 rods one with the guides placed on it's effective spine while the other was not, which one will twist more under the same load?

I also posted a photo at the photo section of a demo to prove that the above statement is true. Can I have your comments also.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Thank you gentlemen

They will twist to the same degree. Spine has nothing to do with rod twist. Guide position has everything to do with it.

...........

OH MAN......Once again we enter the Black Hole...

[1] Take customer to spline thingee...mark blank with white grease pencil on spline .

[2] Take blank and customer to static thingee....put line on butt section...run line thru tip top...add weights to line...
watch customers face as he sees where his casting guides would now be. [Spinning guides always go down]

[3] Pat customers back as he walks away mumbling to himself and assure him he is not the first person who felt this way.

I still ,to this day do both spline and static tests on each blank and wrap to the way the arc of the blank tells me too...
the demo thingee's are "proof in the puddin" as Ray Adams quoted....EVERONE has their opinions, so do I, but I have never had anyone come back to me after my demos and wanted to punch my lights out.

Tight Lines
Tight Wraps
Fishin'Stix by Fred



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/21/2007 10:35AM by fred schoenduby.