I've seen several posts about braided lines and cut guides. Other than old plain chromed steel guides, I've not seen any cut guides here.

I've been using some form of braid or Fireline since it came out in the late 80's, I've never experienced any wear myself, but the earliest type of guide I've used with Fireline was most likely the old white ceramic guides with a black shock ring or those Fuji aluminum oxide guides that had the green glow in the dark shock rings.

By the time that Spectra came out, all of my rods wereFuji BHNOG or better guides. I build a lot of rods now with both Hardloy and SIC guides but even the older stuff has never came back grooved. The only guides I can really recall being grooved were the really old all metal guides that were the norm many years ago.

Which guides were known for being cut by braided line?

Which braids were the most common offenders?

Has anyone ever compiled a list of guides definitely not to use with braided line?

The older braided lines used fibres that were much mroe abrasive, such as Kevlar. Spectra is polyethylene (milk jugs), so the braid itself is not abrasive. It's fine particulate matter in the water that gets caught up in the line that transforms it into a micro abraive strand. Today's ceramics are all hard enough to withstand modern braided lines (which are all PE/Spectra/Dyneema).

Yeah, what Ted said...... The Kevlar lines WERE abrasive but the newer Spectra lines are not. However, the reputation is still there and many people continue to believe that all braided lines are highly abrasive.

[www.rodbuilding.org] Recoil guides have been the offender lately, which makes sense, the material of the guides is softer than even stainless steel. No guide with any ceramic ring should be a problem.

I have seen ceramics that were grooved by braid, but these were guides found on inexpensive discount store rods. I don't think any of the quality ceramic guides offered to custom rod builders by the reputable suppliers these days will be damaged by any braided line.

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

Every now and again when we do a presentation at a local fishing club, we get the inevitable question about braided line or ceramic guides. Yet when we ask the quetioner which rod or guides he had with this problem, it always turns out that he heard it from another guy, who heard it from another guy - well, you get the idea.

We build our rods with anything the customer wants, from Hardloy (the most popular, mostly because of price) on up. We have NEVER had a rod come back with guides worn from braided line. However, we do warn the folks who want wire guides that there's a chance of grooving with braided line, although no one has come back yet, but I don't know if they are actually using braided line or not.

We have had cracked ceramic guides, but that's usually because someone did something like dropping the rod off a car or stepping on a guide, not as a result of using any particular kind of line.

Uncle Russ

I have used braid a lot since its first days and my experience is like Tom's-only tiptops on inexpensive rods have grooved. I have experienced no grooving since I've started building rods again, last 5 years or so-use Alconite and above, often use SIC on just the tiptop. Just in case.

NO SPECTRA does not harm any modern ceramic guides.

DR

I have to be like our new president and vote present on this one. I believe as others have stated that braids will not get through modern ceramics from reputable companies. However, I have had two salmon diver rods with hardloy rings come back grooved by braid. I forwarded photos to a couple board members a while back. Did they slip some stainless wire on those rods? I'll never know, but they swore they didn't. For a few extra bucks, I won't build a rod for salmon or other heavy fighters without zirconia or better rings. I think with normal use, the braids won't groove any ceramic, but daily fishing with charter boats, I think they may be on the edge of their ability. For normal usage on fish that fight less powerfull or don't make fast runs, I don't hesitate to use ceramics for braids.

I realize that modern super lines aren't abrasive but am more interested in the older combos that started the fear of braided lines.
I have customers who won't touch anything less than Alconite or SiC guides because some tackle shop told them braid cuts aluminum oxide and ceramic guides. Years ago I was getting tons of work replacing white ceramic guides with the then new Fuji aluminum oxide, (gray/brown ring and green shock ring) and later Hardloy guides. I've never had any come back worn or grooved but I've seen plenty just plain broken from impact.
The older white ceramic guides were down right fragile even without the threat of braided line cutting them but myself, I've used Fireline on those with no problems.
The earliest braid that was common around here was original Spiderline, Stren Kevlar, and Fireline.
I'm not sure if Kevlar is an offender in the line category, kevlar is only a spun fiber just as spectra and Dyneema are. They are all similar to or related to nylon.
Which brand name lines were the offenders?
I have heard that Recoil guides don't like braid but haven't seen any grooved guides yet.
I do see some guide damage caused by steel leaders, mostly on saltwater and surf rods. The fix for that on a boat rod is a carbaloy tip top or Silicon Nitride, or just keep replacing the cheaper tips. But again, I've seen guides broken but not grooved.

Fuji still sells their aluminum oxide line and they are common place yet on many production rods, one that comes to mind is the Ugly Stick. Are those guides at risk? Are Hardloy at risk if someone is using older braided line?
Most of the lower end rods now use some level of aluminum oxide, some better than others. Some appear to be nothing more than brown ceramic. (Maybe 'ceramic' isn't the right term, but when I hear 'ceramic' guides, I think of the old white guide rings with the black shock rings that looked more like a ceramic insulator than a guide. The next generation was those green shock ring guides and then we saw early Hardloy or gray ring guides with a shock ring.

I would say that about 60% of all my customers now use braided line and nothing but, and another 10% or so use it on one or two rods for light fishing. I see far less of it in saltwater than in freshwater. My own outfits are spooled with about 80% Power Pro or other braided line, about 15% in Fireline, and the rest use mono filament.

I do build a lot of rods with zirconia or TiChrome rings but I think customers more want them for appearance than hardness.

I do more repairs than new builds, the number one failure I see in OEM guides is breakage, many are broken from day one. With so many rods coming from China these days, there's no telling what they're using on some of those rods.
But other than ring loss and cracked guides, I've not yet even seen those with a worn groove.

I think the early braided Kevlar line that I dealt with was Spiderwire. It was either Spiderwire or Spiderline but I'm not sure which anymore.

Wanted to add that I have never had a single walleye trolling rod come back grooved, and all of them are hardloy, aluminum oxide, or other modern ceramic. At least 50% of walleye guys are pulling braids. Like you said, I will use zirconia for walleye rods, but it is a cosmetic thing, not reliability I am worried about.

I still have a few boxes of original Spiderwire here, it says 100% Spectra on it.
I've been told that the newer lines are 'fused' with Teflon to make them rounder and smoother but can't recall the source.
I do remember some guys using Kevlar tire cord for fishing line way back when but I don't think that was too common.
They would use it both as leader and full spools of it when fishing in rocky areas.
The trend didn't last very long since braided lines came about soon after.
Stren had a Kevlar line but it didn't last very long, the stuff would get brittle and faded pretty fast for some reason.
I've not seen it around for years.
Even Kevlar shouldn't cut ceramic guides though, maybe the big difference in the newer lines is the way they fuse the fibers together. It may be just keeping out more dirt which can wear away at the line guides.