Has any one ever done any casting and durability comparison tests between various types of ceramic, si carbide, and plain stainless steel ring guides with no inserts?

Yes, I read the advertisements, Yes, I generally build with various types of ceramic, alconite, or si carbide guides.

However, there are a couple of manufacturers that are currently using plain stainless steel loops for their casting and spinning guides.

Has anyone really done a GOOD comparison test for casting and durability between various guides?

i.e. identical blanks, handles, reel seats and reels. The only difference being the guides themselves. i.e. same guide spacing and similar guide sizes for a good test.

Thanks for any thoughts and any actual test results. Not opinions please, but actual test results.

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Pretty tough to beat the cost and weight of a stainless steel guide.
A typical stainless steel guide costs 50 cents. A typical si carbide guide costs $5.00
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Take care
Roger



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/29/2009 07:32PM by roger wilson.

Friction has to do with how much force is pressing the involved surfaces together. There is very little pressure forcing the line against a guide ring. Therefore, you will see little to no difference in casting distance due to the guide ring involved. A rod with hard chrome guides will effectively cast just as far as a rod sporting super slick and hard SIC rings. A rod with guides made from paper clips will do just as well as either of these.

The weight of the guides plays a much greater role in casting performance than does the ring material.

Ceramics gained widespread acceptance mainly because they eliminated the age old problem of ring grooving.



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unless i have read or understood it wrongly, i came across some posts that said that SIC guides could effectively increase casting distance.. would it then be due to the fact that that the guide insert is keeping the line off the blank, unlike snake guides ?

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Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day..
Teach a man to fish, he'll be broke!

You will not find any appreciable increase in distance by moving to SIC guides over snakes or wire type guides. I'm a big, big fan of SIC guides but an easily measurable increase in casting distance simply by switching to SICs is not going to happen.

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Roger,

I have a Browning ultralite rod that I picked up 3 years ago. It has stainless guides. It's only been fished 2 of the years that I've had it (as I spent 1 of those years living out of state). I would put a reasonable estimate of about 100 hours fishing time with this rod, as I don't spend a lot of time fishing for crappie and panfish, only the occasional couple hours here or there. The reel is and always has been spooled with 4lb. mono for casting 1/32-1/16oz crappie jigs. The tip top has a series of 4 or 5 grooves. The other stainless guides are fine.

I know it isn't a side by side comparison, but was certainly enough to raise my brow when I noticed it. I would shy away from the stainless tip top, but would consider stainless guides for the rest of the guide train, in an extreme budget situation. But, for about twice the price of stainless, or less in some cases, you can get some very nice aluminum oxide ceramics. I am yet to have any guide issues with any of my rods that have ever had ceramics.

Hope this helps a bit.

Joe

Casting: good luck if you can find any significant difference with guides of the same weight & size on the same rod.
Fishing Durability:..............its chalk & cheese...............lower friction under pressure & negligible wear for even the cheapest ceramics .

I appreciate all of the comments.
As Tom has suggested, I suspect that most folks will find that the right guide size and placement is much more important for casting distance, than guide material.

Now, as a couple of the posts have suggested, they have seen grooving in the tips of stainless steel tips.

So, again, I ask the question - if one uses the equivalent of fly wire guides - with no liners for the running guides with their minimal weight and cost - and then use a hard material like Si for the tip - would one have any durability issues and grooving for the rest of the guides? Certainly the weight of the small single foot guides would be less than about any other guide since there is no liner on the guide itself.

Thanks for further comments.

Roger

Grooving will occur on just about any metal ring guides
The tip is worst because it has higher pressure on it from the angle of attack of the line.
the pressure between line & guide is lower in the guide train ( in general ).
the amount of pressure is dependant on the line class of the outfit & the amount of drag used etc.
wear rate being proportionate to the pressure between line and guide & the friction & hardness characteristics of the ring.

The wear issues are there with steel vs ceramic ........it depends how light you fish and how often as to how long it is before wear becomes apparent in the steel rings.
As soon as a flat is worn on a metal guide ring the line wear accelerates & once a groove starts to appear you have a sharp edge to the groove sides that really starts to damage line.

I have an acquaintance who is into drag racing ( fastest VW beetle in the world for a while ) and he gets his engine components ceramic coated for low friction. Its a very thin coat & I have always meant to check whether some metal fly guides could be micro coated with the same material & whether it would not crack as a thin coating...............just never got around to it & use the Nickle/Titanium alloy single foot wire guides.
My guess is the ceramic coating will be brittle & any flex in a wire ring will generate annular micro cracks in even a thin ceramic coating................ its an expensive process too, so probably cheaper to replace any worn rings, even if the ceramic coating did not crack.............but you never know.............the ceramic coating in that process is only a few molecules thick & barely discolours the base metal.