I'm doing a rewrap on a Berkeley Tactics Downrigger Edition 8'6" 2pc factory-built spiral rod, medium-fast action. The butt guide is 22" above the reel face, there are two bumpers, and the 180 is located 24 1/4" from the butt guide. The second bumper is "conveniently" located on the female ferrule on the butt section. There are a total of 12 guides. The static test as it is now looks very ugly. With the first 180 located so far up on the tip section, doesn't that effectively take most of the butt section out of play? I use about 12" between butt guide and first 180 on similar rods.
Tom White

Tom, just my opinion but if you don't like the guide placement then change it to what you want or what it should be. remember that when you remove the guides it will have visible signs that the guides where there, so you may have to do something to hide the spots where the guides sat.

Tim,
I plan on moving the guides to a setup that will work for me, but was just wondering what the concept behind the original setup could have been.
Thanks,
Tom White

Not all spiral wraps are simple spiral..... take a llok at the Acid rod web site. It will explain the different types. Some rod builder make the transition slowly, rather than the simple spiral method.

John,
I agree, there's a million ways to do a spiral wrap, but on a moderate to medium fast downrigger rod, I like to get my butt guide, 2 bumpers, and the 180 into about 12 or 13 inches to get as much lifting power out of the butt section as I can. The rod in question just seems like a really odd setup with the first 180 guide 46 inches away from the reel. Maybe that was all the rage back then. Who knows.
Tom White

I can see on a moderate or slow actioned rod where you might want to do that (get the line to the underside quickly).

That said, I do have two personal custom 9' moderate action rods (they're actually fly rod blanks I made into some trolling rods) set up with the 0, 60, 120, 180 spiral that I've used for years now. They seem to work just fine. The line loads each guide at the chosen spacing and seems to cause no problems.

Putter
Williston, ND

Is that a factory Berkeley or a factory Berkeley that someone rewrapped a la spiral? I have rewrapped a lot of factory rods spiral and they look just like 'factory'.

I think that I saw a Shimano factory rod spiral wrapped some time ago. It was a true spiral with 5 guides; one at 0, the next at 45. 90.135, then 180 then the tip. Looked weird. I'll look it up.

Charlie,
I'm told it was bought that way, and I can't find any evidence that it was rewrapped. The same guy had me replace a guide on a Berkley Technique Downrigger rod last year, same story on that one.
Tom White

I asked because I was curious. How old is that rod or do you know?

During my research, I couldn't find but one factory built spiral and it was as I described in my previous post. Thanks for the info. I learn something new every day.