Hi there,
I am green to rod building. I want to use micros (ATC Nanolite 4mm) on a 7'6" telescopic rod.

How much prep do the feet of a micro guide need? And how do you hold the little things!

Any help is appreciated.

Sears has an extra long pair of needle nose pliers with thin tip - be sure to do all your guide prep counting, sorting and prep work over a white soft towell with good lighting - when they bounce they may be lost forever - very little prep is necessary for A thread ramping - be sure to check the bottom of the foot for burrs sticking down on the tip of the foot - scratches blank - remove with fine grit stone - if any top grinding is necessary I use a Dremel tool with a fine sanding disk - take care and only a touch or two necessary.

There has been a lot of discussion on this board about micro guide prep...
[rodbuilding.org]

I started with grinding the feet and soon found that it wasn't necessary unless the factory coating left the toe with a big hump I couldn't get the thread over; mayby one in twenty. What I do now is simply wrap up onto the foot and then pack and burnish to close up any gap at the toe. To hold the guides on the rod I'll double up a slice of 3/16" ID surgical tubing and manuver the guide between the wraps of the band so that one wrap is on top of the foot and the other is behind the heel. A recent tip from this board that I haven't tried yet is to put a small tie wrap through the eye of the guide so you have something substancial to grab and it's easier to find when you have one fly across the room (and they will). [rodbuilding.org]

Nick,
While prepping some guides the other day, I came up with the following very simple solution to holding the guides.

I take a flat head machine screw 10/32 about 3 inches long.

I take my grinder and grind off the head of the screw, so that there is only about 1/64th of an inch head left on the screw.

I take a guide and slip the screw into the guide making sure that the guide foot extends past the end of the guide.

Then, I take a piece of rod blank that will just fit over the screw and cut a length of it so that there are about 4 thread extending past the end of the rod blank. Then, I simply screw on a wing nut to hold the guide secure.

The advantage of doing this is that the guide does not slip, there are no marks at all on the guide from holding it, and you can get right up to the guide ring if you find it necessary while prepping the guide.

In times past, I have used tweezers, fingers, pencils, needle nose pliars and have found nothing better to hold these small guides securely - if it is necessary to prep the guides.

Take care
Roger

Micro’s take a very small amount of prep, realistically just enough to rough the finish, so the thread climbs up the foot with out trying to slide off the smooth painted surface.
Simply hold between thumb and forefinger and use a narrow diamond type file, takes about 2 to 3 seconds each.

The one thing you don’t want to do is shorten the foot’s length or width.

These work great, been using them for years
[www.knivesplus.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2010 09:20PM by Steve Gardner.

I agree with Steve 100% ! Most of the rods I build have Micro guides on them. The only thing I use is a fine cut 6 inch Knife File and hold the guide by the ring with my thumb and fore finger. Four or five strokes with the file right on the end of the toe and it's done. I found the Knife File is the best type to use because the file is shaped like a knife blade. The wide edge does not have any teeth on it , that is the edge that hits my finger nail when filing Micro guides. The 6" Nickolson Knife File is $19.xx at Grainger. Not cheap but one of them will last 10 + years if you dedicate it to guide feet.

J.B.Hunt
Bowling Green, KY

Dentists rubber braces rings doubled or trebled over hold them in place for me while doing the wrap. I use a few per guide and they work ok for your tests too. Make a figure 8 with one and put one O of the 8 over the ring so it stops the guide headings up the blank if that makes sense. Kind of a rubber locking wrap: one or two on the foot, one over the foot and also over the ring so its on front of the guide.

Roger -

How are you fitting a 10-32 screw in a micro?

That's about a 4.5mm diameter while a micro guide is 3 - 4 mm...

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Myself, I just hold the guides the best I can in my fingers since I am just hitting the end of the foot enough to take away any slight bump. Also for putting the guides on, I start my thread wrap a few turns, then place the guide on the blank under the thread about halfway up on the guide foot. I make a few more wraps and then carefully wiggle the guide so the foot is completely under the thread. There have been times I happen to pull the guide completely out from the thread, but that was happening if I tried just pulling on the guide to get the foot under the thread. When I wiggle it from side to side, the guide moves less and slips right under the thread. So I do not need anything to hold the guides in place when I wrap them. I do use rings from rubber tubing to hold the guides in place when testing. After getting the guides where I want them, I mark the blank locations and take the guides off. I found the tubing that is used to make rings that are used for like spinnerbait skirts work the best.

MICRO frames are different depending on manufacturer. Necessity of prework is determined by exact brand. The Amtak feet are long and well done at the factory - major thing to watch for is bottom burr on tip of foot. Try ramping nylon 00 or silk thread on a Fuji K micro with no prep -

Steve G }>

At the end of your micro seminar, while your are answering questions, please demo your macro eyes, micro fingers and micro file to prep one of the smallest Batsons you carry in your pitching accuracy, sucker trap lure target box.

Nick,

I bnelieve the question has been answered regarding prepping the micro guides so I'll leave that portion alone.

How to hold them? I recently asked Lance (from Swampland) the same question. Here's what I've done and it works for me. I asked my dentist for some forceps that are locking with a 90 turn at the end. He gave me an old pair. I had some very thin weather stripping at home so I took the weather stripping and cut out pieces shaped to the end of the forceps. This is to cushion the guide when I clamp them. I then used 10 minute epoxy to bond the weather stripping pieces to the tongs of the forcep. I now clamp the guide (cushioned between the metal ends) and use that to hold the guide as I use my Dremel tool.

I hope this helps. It was cheap, easy and works for me.
Sam

Maybe several layers of electrical shrink tubing over the filed teeth ??

Bill - willierods.com

rubber band and small dia. nylon or similar tube.

Thanks for all the tips!!!
I will look into getting some forceps to hold the guides. I managed to hold them and file slowly without taking too much off my fingers!

As for wrapping...I taped them on and looped a couple of times onto the foot then slowly pushed dows. It looked pretty good considering this is my 3rd rod build ever!

This site is great!!!