I just replaced some worn guides on an older 6'6" Med-lite freshwater spinning rod. It has seen many years of very hard use. The only real failure was the ring popped on the tip. It only has 5 guides and has held up fine.

I have seen many such rods with a lot less guides than commonly used today, and do not see any problems with such lay outs. So, are we really going overboard these days? I understand more smaller guides have less weight, but fewer smaller guides have even less weight.

A little food for thought.

I'll assume you haven't read the RodMaker articles on this very subject in the past few issues.

If you use about 1 guide per foot of rod length, plus 1, plus a tiptop, you'll be about right on any rod. Not too many and not too few. There may be situations where you could get by with 1 less or perhaps use 1 more, but that general rule of thumb will generally provide you with adequate stress distribution on most any rod (the exception being very long, powerful surf rods) without going overboard.

...........

Turn your spinning rod upside down (reel on top ) and tie the line off to a solid object to do a stress distribution test- similar to what you would do with a casting rod. lean back and put a decent bend in the rod. If the line is touching ( or crossing) the blank you may have too few of guides.

I know this is not the position you fight fish with a spinning rod, but this is the way it is bent when casting. With too few of guides you are not utilizing the full curvature of the blank during the cast, you may not notice when throwing weights on the low end of the rods rating, but will as you move towards the upper end. (Distance suffers)


Agree with Tom's statement on Heavy Surf rods. The majority of rods I build are in this category, and for a conventional up to 13' in length I typically use 6 or 7 guides, never more than 8 and that is only when the length increases above 13'. The reason being the heavy rods rarely bend near the butt, and the reel is located about 2 1/2 feet up from the end of the butt, to give the caster a long handle for leverage in throwing heavy weights. the stripper guide needs to be placed a fair decent away form the front of the spool, sometimes as far as 3 feet or more. Now we really only have about 71/2 feet of rod left to contend with placing guides -2 1/2 for handle plus 3' to stripper guide leaves 7 1/2 feet to the tip on a 13' rod.
So if you think about covering the blank with guides from the stripper to the tip- the rule still applies 6 or 7 guides to cover 7 1/2 feet of rod is more or less one per foot.


My .02

Marc,
I use considerably less guides than the accepted "rule of thumb". For ME, the benefits far exceed the risks. I do think with the availability of the lighter “micro guides”, that those who do follow the "rule of thumb" will see a dramatic improvement in rod performance.

Let me comment on another angle.
We have much experience with big fish on light tackle, the IGFA World Record Line Class Striped Bass on 2# test was caught on a rod we built for Bill Fitzgerald of Clarksville, AR.
This was a 32 # fish.

Several of the guides in our area are now using lighter lines and longer rods to fish the clear waters of Bull Shoals, Lake Norfork, and White River.
What we found is that the softer blanks need more guides not only to protect the blank from breaking, but to help with wear on the line.
I find that true even on freshwater trolling and live bait rods with heavier line.
So what casts the best is not always what is best for fish fighting.
I believe you need is to have a balance of the two.
I'm not saying anybody is wrong, but especially want to caution new builders to look at both angles.

Best wishes,
Ron Schneider
Schneider's Rod Shop
Mountain Home, Arkansas
[www.schneidersrods.com]
mtnron40@yahoo.com
870-424-3381

Marc,

I have a few of those older spinning rods myself.

Most are fiberglass, but a few are composite rods. Tough rods. Strong rods. Caught a lot of fish on them. I do notice that the first guide is a lot farther away from the reel seat than is the 'norm' today. I bought all of them for bass fishing, and the focus of the time was 'fast taper', and all of mine have strong, stiff butt sections and light tips. Never broke one of these fishing with it. One, it used to be my favorite worm rod, is 6 feet long and has four guides plus the tip. First guide is big, about a 40. It's twenty seven inches from the reel seals front edge. The tip is around a 10. The other three taper evenly between the two. They seem to have been spaced to keep the outer edge of each guide in alignment. ALL the guides are in the upper half of the blank. Odd looking, now, but I caught some big bass on this stick.

The nature of the craft seems to have gone away from building a strong rod and focused on lighter weight blanks that are, frankly, much easier to break. You have to spend some effort putting the guides on properly and distributing the stress to keep them whole under 'normal' fishing conditions.

Still, I'm sure that if you chose the correct blanks, you could drop several guides off of the accepted norms and just see how it goes. Might go through a couple of blanks, but it may work for you. Never hurts to experiment with it.

Let us know how it goes.

Buddy

Mark, with my 7', 6 guides plus tip spinning rod bent with the reel up, I see that the line touches the rod between the tip & first guide & between the 1st & 2nd guides. Would this be an indication that I need to add another guide and re-position the 1st through 4th? TIA

I am thinking that the spiral rod could consist less guides vs. conventional because majority of guides located under the blank similar to spinning rods. It's right?

Ilya,
That would be the case if the rodbuilder was concerned about the line touching the blank. IMO, the main reason for the static test is to locate the guides so that they equally distribute the stress on the blank. The shallower the angle to the blank, the less stress. The greater angle and the further the line is from the blank puts more stress on the blank because of the “purse string” effect. Although many, if not most, rodbuilders consider line/blank contact a “no-no”, it doesn’t concern me. When I static test, on my “conventional” casting rods, the line drops well below the blank….no problem. Ironically, the line stays CLOSER to the blank than a comparable “spiral” setup. Admittedly, there is additional torsion forces involved on the blank, but not much since the moment arm is very small. For me, it’s a small price to pay for less weight toward the end of the rod. I think its worth noting that generally, spinning rods would normally require more guides because they are usually lighter power rated. I think they are even more apt to suffer in performance with too many guides. The availability of the lighter “micro” guides should offer some relief in that regard.
Others might strongly disagree with my opinions, but thats the beauty of "custom" rod building. We can each build to suit what we perceive to be the "optimum" rod (for our own application).

Dave Wylie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mark, with my 7', 6 guides plus tip spinning rod
> bent with the reel up, I see that the line touches
> the rod between the tip & first guide & between
> the 1st & 2nd guides. Would this be an indication
> that I need to add another guide and re-position
> the 1st through 4th? TIA

Not necessarily, you may have put more bend in the rod than what is done casting the rods "normal weight rating. Unless your at the upper end of the rods rating with the weight your throwing, you may be all right.

THe test is intended to see if the line touches the blank during the cast, not while fighting fish. However for larger rods with too few guides, a strong cast with heavy weight may require additional guides.

Hope that helps.

I can agree with you conceptually.
One big difference in many of todays rods; compared to older rods is the speed of the tip. i.e. many of todays rods have a very fast tip.
When placing guides I simply take the position that it is a good idea to place a guide at any spot on the rod that keeps the line following about the same curvature as the bending blank.

I find that if I have a very slow tipped rod - in other relatively stiff - I can use far fewer guides than if I have a rod that has a lot of bend in the first 1/4 of the rod.
Thus, I find that if I have a 7 foot spinning rod that is slow or moderate action - I may be very happy with 5 guides.
On the other hand, if I have a 7 foot spiing rod with an extra fast tip, I will likely use 7,8 or 9 guides depending on how quick the tip of the rod.

--
If you look at bait casters, and if you are locating guides in the conventional location at the top of the rod, I simply take the postion that guides are placed so that no matter how much the rod is loaded - the line won't touch the blank.
That is why, if client wants to stay with a conventional on the top of the blank placement - I may go to slightly larger guides, with a longer foot to keep the line a bit higher and thus allow fewer guides.
That is a big advantage of using a spiral wrap. By using a spiral wrap - I essentially use the same guide placement as if I were wrapping a spinning rod. The underside blank location of the guides allows guides to be placed further apart and still get acceptable blank loading.

--
Ultimately, I do agree with your assessment that many builders are putting too many guides on rods. Just put as many on the blank as is required for the line to follow the contour of the loaded blank.

Also, for most rods, I generally make a point of locating the first guide at about 20-25 inches from the reel seat. This may seem a long way from the reel seat for some builders, but I have not found any particular advantage to having the first guide any closer to the reel seat.

Take care
Roger