I was working on a batch of ice rods the other night and was in the process of prepping a very large quantity of very small guides.
I have used many different methods to hold the guide while prepping, but I was having difficulty holding the small guides without damaging the guide.

I came across such a simple method, that I wondered why I had never used it before.

I simply used a 3 inch long 10X32 machine screw with a flat head.
I ground the head down so that the head was only about 1/16th inch thick.

Then, I cut a piece of scrap blank about 2 1/2 inches long and also a 10X32 wing nut.

In use, I simply dropped the guide onto the bolt, drop on the blank, thread on the wing nut which only has to turn about 3 turns to be tight.
Now, one has a nice handle to hold the small guide that is trapped between the head of the machine screw, and the scrap blank.

No damage to the guide and very easy to get down the full length of the guide foot as needed to give an excellent job of prepping the guides.

Take care

Roger

What size of guides are you prepping? I have found that on the 3 and 4's you dont need to prep the feet.

Hemostats is what I use to hold all the smaller guides, works for me, I hold them by the foot itself.

Like Brad said some micro's dont need grinding, others DO! I have used a few brands and there is a major difference.

DR

I've been using nylon machine screws. The 3 mm are too small for the screws I can find. I finally found some 2-56 screws at a hobby shop that will go thru the # 4 rings.
I'll bet the M & M crowd has already crossed this bridge.

Brad and Duane,
I was prepping some gold plated small fly guides - ranging in size from 1-5.
The construction of these guides were such that they really needed prepping.
One of the biggest reasons was the gold plating on the guides.
The gold plating made the guides much too slippery to hold a thread.
Also, the guide foot was quite blunt and rather thick - so - it made wrapping very difficult.

Since many of the ice rod tips - on which I was wrapping the guides are no more than about 1/16th in diameter, many of the smaller guides had to have the guide foot narrowed as well as thinned.
Thus, the need to be able to hold the guide by the foot.

A nylon machine screw would not have worked, since - I was having to remove so much of the foot, that the end of the guide foot would get near red hot and it would melt a nylon screw holding the guide.
A hemostat would not work since I had to machine virtually all of the guide foot. Therefore I could not hold the guide by its foot.
Since these guides have no inserts, I don't want to hold the guide by any sort of plier because it could possibly nick the guide itself and lead to problems.

Thus the solution of the very thin headed machine screw backed up by a piece of appropriately sized rod blank and wing nut.

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Also, since many of these guides end up with a foot that is only about 1/4 of an inch long the double locking wrap - when wrapping - is really essential to insure 0 slippage of the guide after wrapping.

It will be nice when ice season is over so that one can get back to wrapping a rod that has a reasonable sized blank.

Take care
Roger

"Very small guides" on an ice rod? Real small guides on an ice rod here in Iowa create an 'ice up' issue. I use small, curved hemostats and pad the the guide with a thin layer of 'closed cell foam' prior to grabbing it. Tapering off the end a little does make the wrapping much easier for me.

Here in Minnesota, we fish inside. LOL

Steve Bro
(BroCo Custom Rods)