After reading the MM thread #3, I saw several people mentioned using 16 and 12 size guides as the first guide up from the reel on spinning rods. I have a spinning rod project in the works and I am thinking that this might be the way to go. The rod is for casting light plugs with braid. Have many people used guides this small for spinning rod stripper guides?

Tim

It can even be done with smaller guides than that. You are just going to have to tape and test to find what works for you.

I have built over 250 rods using small stipper guides (been doing it several years), and a size 16 works great for bass/walleye rods, 12's for ultra-lites. Braid flows better than mono, making this set-up even better. A higer frame than the standard V style is needed to cut down line slap, with American Tackle A-frames or Pac Bay M style my first choices. From there, only one transition guide is needed, then all small running guides to the tip.

Once you get used to building this way, and see how good it works, you just shake your head when you walk thru a sport shop and see all rods with the 30 rings on them.

The key to spinning stripper guides is the height of the frame, not so much the ring size.

With many of the smallest rings, you may not be able to get the height required for the best performance and could easily wind up with a great deal of line slap. Just be careful and try various set ups.

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MAke sure you test, and watch how the line flows through the guide on teh cast. Braid slips through everything, so it's more forgiving, but it you watch teh line you should be able to figure out where to put hte guide, adn how small it can be.

My own opinion is the hieght doesn't matter, provided teh guide is placed far enough away and in the right spot. With a full spool of line, even if teh reel spool faced away from teh blank, the design of teh spool isn't going to allow the line to get hung up on it because it came off at an angle. Since for the most part most reels point parallel or into teh blank anyway, a few mm's in ring hieght isn't going to make much of a difference - again provided you use braid and you put teh guide in teh right spot.

If the small change in angle the line makes as it comes off the reel & first guide made so much of a difference in casting, teh spiral wraps wouldn't cast as well as they do.

If you will make the contact and have the following done it would be greatly appreciated.

Contact Fuji and ask them to send you some of the 12 ring sitting on the top of a frame with a C/L height of a twenty five.

[www.anglersresource.net]

Line comes off a spinning reel differently than it does on a casting reel. That's obvious, of course. With the spinning reel, the line leaves in semi-coils between the reel and the first guide. Those coils balloon a bit and will slap the rod if the ring is too close to the blank. The heavier and/or stiffer the line, the worse this situation is.

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Also, the smaller the guide, the more teh line balloons as it passes through. The closer to teh reel to the 1st guide, the more effect teh coils coming off will have. If you use the proper sized guide matched to teh line you are using, and you test cast it to find the right spot - the ballons won't hit the blank. I'm not saying to use a low frame guide, but a normal spinning guide Fuji TA or Y has the neccesary hieght.

If somoene is going to try and put 50# braid through a size 10 placed 22" from teh reel - yeah, tehre will be a lot of problems.

Billy: your post above - "the smaller the guide, the more teh line balloons as it passes through"

Did you mean before the guide or after the guide?

What is your explanation for what is pictured in this link?

[www.rodbuilding.org]

I guess no one remembers the "high-frame" guides with smaller rings that were popular for certain styles of surf rods, and still are in some places.

Uncle Russ
Calico Creek Rods

Russ:
Yea, the M guides. I never liked them cause I always thought they would tend to bend and break cause a fisher person gets excited pulls the fish in then throws the rod down and them being higher then the rest would get hurt?

I still have many of the guides Russ mentions, they make great butt guides for rods utlizing the New Guide Concept. I never use then on the upper half of the rod or course, due to their greater weight. But they're fantastic for getting height with a smaller ring on the butt guide, which really helps implement the NGC.


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Does this strategy offer any improvements over the other style, besides the look and of course being easier to fit into a smaller tube? If so, should this be attempted by a newby, or does this require more experience to determine the correct positioning of these smaller stripper guides? I like the idea, and have always hated the big guides at the bottom, especially since I love spinning rods, even for salt water.
James

Read the article on the New Guide Concept in the Library. It does cast a bit farther, balances better, increases reaction time and shortens recovery time. It is a system that makes sense and provides practical and worthwhile on the water benefits.

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I read the article, but still question the "half the diameter" suggestion. I guess my question is what has the larger effect on getting the line to the tip without slapping the blank. Is it the ring size, height, or a combination of both?
I would offer that it is the latter, but am very curious as to which component of the equation is the driver. Can one offset the ring size with a taller frame? That is the gist of this thread to me.
Would a taller framed, smaller ring guide be lighter than a larger ring guide. Without a scale, my WAG would be yes. But more importantly, would there be a performance gain by using a taller frame/smaller ring guide.
From all of the catalogs, I cannot find a 12mm or 16mm guide that is equivalent in height to the Fuji 20mm or 25mm (for example). Any suggestions?
I would like to build a rod specifically to to test a few hypotheses related to this discussion. I guess the best experiment would to build multiple rods with the same components and test.
For example 3 Concept and 3 alternative and perform a variety of tests. But I do not have the resources to do that kind of experimentation.
Prhaps I can get a feel by just building two rods that differ by guide type and placement and see if there is a performance gain.
There would be other variables than just the butt guide, but one can ask the simple question of whether one rod performs better than other......

Obed;
Just tape the guides on the rod being tested.
That way you can use the same blank providing less chance of variables form blank to blank
Save some money
Save some time
And still answer your questions!