Dr: Consider the following: RE: your quote -

"I might make the switch from the 6mm single to the micro (as long as the ring size would pass the larger braids) on rods for heavier applications like Striped Bass, Musky, flipping sticks and such."

We are not asking anyone to switch but if you are interested in increasing rod performance you should give it a whirl!

After a proto build and test I really would be interested to see your comments.

50 # braid will absolutely fly throught the micro guide rings

[www.rodbuilding.org]

I brought up the idea of reversing guides a few days ago but for different reasons, after thinking about it in light of these posts.
I actually think it could be a bad idea; looking at the angle of bend between guide foot and neck. That angle acts like a pivot point. If you push down on the guides ring it pushes up on the foot's point.
Now if you reverse the guide and push in the guides ring with the kind of force required to snatch it out from the wrap. It is pushing the point of the guide’s foot into the blanks surface. That force could damage or break the blank.

I've seen rods ruined from merely from wrapping a guide to tight. It's not a far stretch to thick what could happen under the pressure of snatching it out in the opposite direction.
With double ft guides the opposing pressure from each foot helps to prevent this action

Bobby;
When you were pulling the guides loose; did you notice at what strength of poundage each guide straightened out?
Could it be possible that it would have taken equal amounts to pull the guides out, but that it took more to straighten them out before they could pull loose?

Bill,

I have a project rod that I'm going to build this winter in anticipation for the HOT spring striped bass fishing at night. We use 50lb braid and MH power rods with the drags cranked down as tight as we can get them, 4X strong hooks to prevent bending, with mostly topwater plugs and they destroy lots of those. The hits are earth shattering!!! Sometimes they hit the lure WIDE OPEN going away from you with real intent to KILL. I've had my entire rig ripped from my hand before. The battle in the cold water is a run for the deep GOOD ONE that can really test a rod. I've had rods bent into the split of the rear grip just wondering what was going to break. I fully plan for that project rod to carry the Micro's Steve gave me a couple years back. He knows the sizes?...and if they hold up, I'll let you know after about 2 seasons :-)

DR

DR,

Sounds like a good test for micros...I wouldn't mind "testing" some of my rods with you:)

jeremy

Steve

As a guide ring is forced either toward the foot or away from the foot, the effect will be a force applied to the blank as you suggest. The question is where and how much is applied. If it is bent toward the foot as you suggest, the resultant force on the blank is spread out over the length of the foot and decreasing toward the end of the foot. If it is bent toward the ring end, the downward force will be concentrated at the bend giving a greater chance of blank damage than if bent toward the foot. Is any of this worth worrying about? I don’t think so. Especially with low profile micros.

So, how much force is applied? It depends upon the length of the lever arm (height of guide ring) that the force is transmitted from. The longer lever arm the more force is transmitted to the blank (ie: Batsons), or the shorter the lever arm (ie: Fuji) the less force is transmitted to the blank.

My destructive tests revealed to me that the idea of turning the guides 180 degrees from the norm may be a bad idea from a different perspective. From a previous post I stated that the guides were straightened almost in a straight line before they pulled out. So if we turn them around and run the same experiment then I would expect that the plane of the ring would be almost parallel with the foot at the time of a failure, thus making a very sharp almost 180 degree turn. The guide may survive the first bent but the metallurgy of stainless would suggest that subsequent bends (ie: straightening) would probably cause very early failure noting the sever initial bending.

Second part of your query. The failures happened almost instantaneously so there was no way for me to quantify the forces at the subsequent guides. Sorry, I don’t get the drift of your train of thought in the last sentence.

Back to the threads original subject. I have approximately 1700 3.5 micros in use today and have repaired 7 damaged guides in 2 ½ years. This is not a problem that I feel I have to devise a solution for.

Thanks for addressing the question, folks...lots of interesting dialog on this topic.


Tom Kirkman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would hesitate to assume that there are "pull
> out" issues with the so called Micro Guides. A
> few dozen pull outs mentioned here, against the
> many thousands and thousands of them in good
> service, does not a problem make. Yet.
>
> ..................

Of the "thousands and thousands" in good service, how many are on heavy rods/large fish tackle versus lightweight match rods and such? Yes, it's rhetorical and hard to guess. I'm going to assume (perhaps incorrectly) that a significant number of those heavy tackle builds are done by some of the master craftsmen on this site or those like them elsewhere. Attention to detail, experience, and expertise holds those guides on in their current form pretty well with few failures.

What really brought the question to mind is the fact that micros seem to have followed the Split-T idea across the Custom v/s Factory rod divide, quite quickly in the case of Kistler. Doubtless others will follow eventually for market share if it sells, but can they achieve the same functional success rate with the micro guides that has been shown thus far in the custom arena? IOW, micros are successful with what is arguably the pinnacle of craftsmanship and to go out on a limb, they are no Split-T handle in terms of margin for error. Not implying Kistler would slop the job, I've never fished their products and will assume they are wonderful and well built. However, many have commented here in other threads of the lack of attention to "fit & finish" and general build quality in factory rods, even at high prices. At the extreme end of micro-componentry, isn't that level of craftsmenship what is required to make these guides functionally feasible?

If one were to extrapolate a bit here on potential outcomes...well, it would surprise me if no one were pondering a bit of R&D on new or altered designs for guides in these sizes. If only to have an answer/alternative to any negative results on the larger (non-Custom) market and get ahead of the potential problems. A problem that is indeed NOT a guide problem, but more of a people and workmanship problem. Hard to separate the two at times, but the latter case can create a negative (albeit inaccurate) impression of a product and kill the innovation off quickly in that area.

Won't claim to know for certain from a business perspective, perhaps that's a good thing for custom builders as it places effective use of a product out of the reach of mass production due to the skill level required. Just doesn't look like a good thing on the surface...that and I want one with a mini-foot in front to protect against my lack of craftsmenship! Such a design may also serve the larger market better, where extra structural integrity in the wrap can compensate a bit for lack of control in large production runs.

As said, we shall see. In the current form, you guys just may have a lock on effectively using micros. Unlike ol' (Split) Tennessee, this one may come back home to ya for good.

I strongly agree about the little things, run wild, that can create a negative impression for an entire genre of guides. This is one problem with the term "micro."

Fortunately, the use of proper sized guides generally negates any such problems.



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

The problem is not with the name -

I may not agree that your selection of which size is proper - nor you with me -

The problem is with the builder who matches the selection guide size with the use, installation and marketing to the end user.

There is presently a lot going on concerning the use of micro guides for production operations. There are two production facilities approximately 30 miles apart in the Houston area who managed to receive publicity at ICAST concerning the use of micro rods. Castaway was the only production company, at ICAST, to present a micro rod in their vendor booth and to officially enter the micro rod in the Best of Class Category.

Castaway's management and engineering staff has been aware of micro rods since the date of my initial visit to Bobby Feazel's shop last year. Castaway is highly aware of the complexity of the rods and the production challenges they present. Castaway has identified micro rods as "works in progress" and has chosen to actively market these rods by placing potential customers in direct contact with selected experienced custom builders.

Bobby Feazel and I were involved with a person who was later identified as a contract employee of Kistler. The completed rods that were used as prototype for testing purposes by the Kisler organization were on display at the ICRBE in February 2009. The proto type micro rods were shipped to the purchaser in April.. The following email copy provides shipping dates. Kistler's ability to market fishing rods at warp speed is completely astounding!

Two rods shipped Tuesday UPS Insured
Tracking Number 1Z7016230343932670

The problem is with the name for the very reason that Joseph and others have pointed out. Putting such a label on a genre makes it easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

In this very thread you have a report, with very limited details, about a fisherman who claims that an 8lb pike ripped the Micro guides off his rod. In an instant, even in the face of thousands of successful uses of these very small guides, we suddenly have guys who believe that "Micro" guides are inherently problematic. This situation is even worse among the general fishing public where folks aren't nearly as well educated on how to properly size guides to the use of the rod. They won't say, "I heard some guides failed due to being improperly selected for the particular rod." They're far more apt to say something like, "Micro guides won't work - a big fish will rip them off the rod." So an entire genre of guides becomes unfairly denigrated because a simple term made it easy to do so.

I'm already hearing the horror stories of how "Micro guides are a disaster" at the local tackle shops. In every case I seriously doubt that it had anything to do with the guides themselves. It has to do with a builder or company putting the wrong guides on the rod for what it was required to do. But the fault will be placed on the fact that they were "Micros."

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

Your right Tom: Like they say - say a good thing about some thing, no one remembers, say a bad thing, no one forgets ??!!

Bill - willierods.com

I will be quite happy if the micro rods end up with a "reputation" that production builders and or tackle shop owners find either improper or unprofitable. Local tackle shops are vested in profits motivated by the sale of production rods or adding 45 points to the cost of a custom - it is what it is and the name is not the issue that will drive the sales of customs which are constructed in a manner that produce a superior rod. My sales are not dependent on rack sales or external marketing by others. None of my customers using micro rods care about what someone else has to say - they can see and feel the advantages of the micro rods they purchase - I am not trying to sell them to other builders - my customers are fishermen who deal with me directly and head on. All of the above discussed issues just may be just the ticket that make these rods a custom builder exclusive for the long haul.

There is a fairly large number of builders today selling rods with micros and not one that I know of uses the word micro in their rod name. They are all like me, they sell rods by a unique name. Put very simply, I sell SHOCKWAVE rods as do others like VIBRONICS, SMS, ALX, SWAMPLAND and a host of others that I probably don't even know about. The Kistler rods will be known as KISTLER ??? rods which give a unique tag name associated with the company name. Any other production builder that chooses to jump in will certainly do the same.

The name Micro was coined on this forum many months ago, right after Steve Gardner made his original post, and it has stuck to the point of almost being cast in stone. The vast majority of my customers have never heard the name micro before and if they ever refer to the guides it is ‘those little guides’.

Tom do you propose trying to change it at this point just because of negative comments? We all have to call them something unique so what is your suggestion? Or should we just wait till the sky falls and try to react to it?

Why do you have to call them something unique? What's unique about them? I call them... guides. This is what they do in every other part of the world where they've been in use for well over a decade. So they're not viewed any differently - no raised eyebrows. They're just guides.

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

Because; early on, their USE was unique to most American custom builders. Therefore; there was a need to have a unique designator in order to converse about their unique use on an American rod board. Nothing unique about that.

I guess I just would have referred to them as small guides or stated their actual size designation.

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

I hate to end a good thread hijack, but getting back to Joseph’s original question about whether it would be a good idea to add a “barb” to the back side of single foot guide is a good idea. I believe it is an excellent idea, the Forhan locking wrap was a step forward improving things using the existing guide hardware, this may be a further step forward by modifying the hardware to take advantage of how we are already wrapping guides. Here is a snapshot of how a guide like this might look [www.rodbuilding.org] you would wrap just like normal, but when you got to the neck instead of making the locking wraps you would just start wrapping on the other side of the ring and finish out the wraps, the barb could be sized to allow the same 5-7 wraps that we are already doing with a Forhan locking wrap. I guarantee this design would be a lot stronger for any single foot guide, it would probably be even more of an advantage for larger guides than it is for the micros, imagine a 30mm single foot spinning guide with the foot half the size it is now. Will we see guides like this any time soon? Probably not for a simple reason $$$. With the current technology of stamping and coining it would be a challenge, and new processes like MIM which would make excellent guide frames would require expensive new tooling.

I would have a patent attorney all over that in a hurry Mike! I like it!

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



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2009 05:34PM by Raymond Adams.

It looks interesting Mike. But as you pointed out, not really feasible.
If you'll have some made and sent to me I'll gladly try them out.

That is EXACTLY what I had in mind for larger rods that take a lot of abuse. Good job Mike!!

DR

New ideas have to start somewhere-Mike's design is a winner in my book. Could be designed with a little extra metal in the leg making them more resistant to bending. Benefits would "outweigh" neglible weight gain. Not something we are likely to see soon, but.... Mike- conventionally constructed fly guides have a foot....guess that would have to be called a toe.