Had a repair job recently from a local bass pro friend on a rod I built for him 4 years ago. He stepped on the rod and snapped a guide off. While looking at it, I noticed that another guide, 2 guides away from the broken one was off line. I'm terribly anal about alignment and knew that I didn't put it out this way. I grabbed it and found that the guide, along with its wrap, spun freely on the rod. Customer hadn't noticed it (spiral wrap, so it wouldn't have been obvious). Single foot guide with nail knotted trim bands on both ends. The trim bands were solid and not moving.

I did a "destructive test" on all other guides to see if they had the same problem and all were good. I tried to fail them and couldn't. I've never seen this before, ever. All guides were wrapped at one sitting under same tension so I can only assume that somehow there was some sort of contamination on the blank in that one area before wrapping. The blank, like all others I do, was cleaned before wrapping.

My only theory is that I ate a chicken wing right before that guide and greased it up. Helps with a reason but doesn't provide an excuse. If it weren't for the trim bands, the wrap would have been sliding all over the place. The only plus side is that it happened with a bass pro... he had no idea. As long as he has a reel seat with nothing else missing, he's happy.

Bugs the heck out of me, though.

My thought, is that this free spinning guide is a tell-tale sign of some additional form of abuse. Maybe.

Check the rod carefully in that area and see if you notice any nicks, scrapes, etc. Sometimes little things like this can be a tip off to the type of care than the rod may have received by the owner.

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Ranger - Skeeter? Ask him if he has to bend the rods when removing from the rod box. There is a brace on the top inside of the box that will hang any sprial wrapped rod and they will end up jerking and shaking the rods to get it to release and come out of the rod box.

And...if he stepped on one guide and busted it off, he could have surely stepped on that one to get it loose!

DR

Mick, Chicken wing grease......no. Pork chop grease, now that's another story.

Thanks guys. He definitely puts rods through their paces. His rods all take quite a beating so it's hard to say what happened. (I'm also repairing a loomis from his same trip that had the rod locker closed on it). I'm amazed that this one lasted more than 6 months. He was surprised when I showed it to him. No damage to the blank at all, not even markings. I've seen a lot of broken and bent guides in tight wraps, but never an undamaged guide in a loose wrap. It's a real puzzler. Just wish I knew why it happened so it doesn't happen again.

Lance, I'll have to lick around that area some. If there is one thing that I have more of than chicken grease it is pork fat!

I did a repair on a production rod where every wrap came off. Turned out that the blank was too glossy for the epoxy to adhere. I scuffed the blank and re-wrapped. Here's a pic of the wraps still attached to the guides.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

I never heard or seen a blank that was too glossy for epoxy to adhere to.
I am more inclined to think it was a problem with contamination on the blank or they used to much acetone, as large scale operations tend to do some times and caused the epoxy to loose it's adhering capabilities.

Ok, and the thread? All fine and well if the epoxy doesn't adhere, but if the wrap spins freely on the rod then the tie offs (pull through under the threads) has also maybe been broken. Also, not enough thread tension? It's the thread that holds the guide to the blank, not the finish.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/2008 03:26AM by Ted Morgan.