About to try my first spiral wrap... frankly I've never even seen one. Will be an interesting experiment.

Would appreciate any advice on guide placement; I'm building an offshore rod to target tarpon, kingfish, amberjack, etc. Will be based on a 7' Calstar blank, GF700M. Planning to use the "forhan" spiral, but do I use the same guide spacing as a conventional casting rod? In particular the butt guide and the spiral guides.I was hoping to be able to eliminate one guide; i.e. seven guides on a seven foot rod.

Finally, is it best to place the butt guide on 0 degrees, or offset slightly to one side (and if so how much)?

Pretty cluless, need your help!

Many thanks,
George Sutherland

On the Forhan spiral the first and fourth guides are offset so that they tip a bit in the opposite direction of the spiral. The amount depends on the guide sizes your using. Just set the first and fourth guides so that the ID of the guide ring edge is at 0 and 180 degrees tipped as mentioned above. This ensures a straighter run to the reel center, rod tip and under some conditions can help keep the line from packing on the reel toward the side of the guide spiral.
The handle length, blank power and action, reel height and forgrip with effect guide placement/type and guide amount a bit, but the Forhan system uses a guide or so extra toward the reel for the spiral.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/07/2009 08:07PM by Spencer Phipps.

George,
See my reply to Derrek's post a couple threads down from yours.

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

George,
Simply put - place your guides in the potential locations at the potential angular offset.

I get the guides in the approximate location, and have the tip installed.
Then, I spool out about 20 feet of line and retrieve the line under gentle tension.
I make a point of looking at the line as it moves from side to side on the reel during retrieve.
I adjust the angular position of the guides, as well as the fore and aft spacing on the blank to minimize line contact the any part of any guide.

I generally find that I place the butt guide at 20-25 inches from the reel, and adjust the angular position of about 5 degrees in the same direction of the spiral. I find that by adjusting the angular position of the guides in this direction, that the line - just touches each side of the guide, as the line works its way from side to side on the reel during retreive.

Good luck.
Roger

What I do is set up my guide spacing as normal with only the butt guide on top (the rest of the guides are on the 180 axis). I then put a single, low-frame 'transition guide' halfway between the butt guide and the first 180 guide at about the 90-degree point. That's it. Works great for me. Casts great!

I have also experimented with using all singlefoot guides, including the butt guide...down to size 4mm...and again it seems to work great. The effects of the weight reduction is amazing, actually. You are after some heavier fish than I am, and may have some larger knots to pass through the guides so I'm not saying use the small guides. Use the smallest that will work for your technique. Tape them up and try some test casts! You'll see.

I have not tried it yet, but I know you can also skip the transition guide altogether if you want and go straight from the butt guide (0-axis) to the running guides (180-axis). Yes, this may wear the finish off the blank where it touches, but I see some advantages to this set-up, too. Of course, if you are battling line searing fish that can turn a line into a 200 yard bandsaw, then a transition guide might be for you.

I'm of the try it and see how it works school. Try it several ways to see what you like best.

You'll like the spiral wrap!

Les

Les,
If you are using the "Simple Spiral" method that small guide you call a transition guide is not. It does not transition the line from top to bottom. The line will go there by itself. It's refered to as the "bumper" guide as all it does is act as a bumper to keep the line off of the blank.

Sometimes you can negate the need for a bumper guide by cocking the butt guide and the first 180 guide and the line will not touch the blank.

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

As long as the 0 and first 180 degree guide are no more than about 10 inches apart, a guide space halfway between them at 90 degrees will not function as a transition guide and will only keep the line from rubbing the blank. Hence the Bumper guide designation.

If your 0 and and first 180 guide are much further than about 10 inches apart, any guide placed between them is more than likely going to experience side loads and will indeed function as a transition guide.

These two setups will function and act quite differently.

..........

George:

I just build a Calstar GF700H for grouper fishing using the following spiral wrap measurements: 13 3/4" rear grip including gimbal. 5 1/4 " ATC Alumium reel seat then a 10" forgrip. I used the new ATC Virtus Heavy guides with the butt guide a #16 @ 19 1/2 inches from middle of reel seat. This guide was offset to the left about 5 degrees. I used #12 for the remaining guides. The first 180 degree guide was 15" from butt guide. It was offset about 5 degrees to the right of center. I used 2 transition guides with the first at 4 3/4 " from the butt guide & the next 5" from that guide which left it 5 1/2 " from the 180 degree guide. I placed these transition guides with the help of a tip section of a 2 piece rod & made sure the blank went to the bottom middle of each of the 2 transition guides. I hope this is not too confusing. I tried to post a photo but having trouble. This is the set up is used by John Stumpe who wraps hundreds of these spiral wrap rods for charter & private boats for grouper/snapper/AJ fishing off the coast of central Florida.

Hope this helps. I will try to post a photo again.

Mike Clements