I built myself a 6' 6" medium heavy spin rod, for use with a small baitrunner reel to use for back bay flounder and croakers.
The blank is a St Croix SCII 2S66MHF2 , I built it with an 18mm reel seat, and 12 inch rear grip section. The grips are shrink wrap over wrapped cork for durability in an aluminum boat. I used the Concept method of choosing and adjusting the guides and used Fuji SIC guides double wrapped and coated with a single coat or Flex Coat. There are 7 guides plus the tip which vary in spacing from 4" to 6.5" or so, with a bit more spacing nearest the stripper guide. The rod works great, casts well and is light, the problem is that it feels tip heavy, I even tried a larger reel to see if helped the feel but the reel weight don't make much difference. The rod feels light overall, lighter than most others I've got that size, but its uncomfortable to hold since the tip feels heavy. I hung a few weights on the butt end to see how much it would take to counterbalance it and it would need 4 oz to balance this rod out. With no weight, the balance point of the rod is mid fore grip with no weight, and even with 3.5 oz of weight on the butt end, it still only balances at the front of the reel seat without the reel.
I've used this blank before, but with a shorter butt grip and fewer guides with good results but can't figure why this one feels so wrong in hand.
It's not a functional issue, it fishes great, the line lays perfect across the guides and it casts perfect but the tip weight wears on you after only a short time.

I weight the butt end, the rod balances out well but then I'm adding weight overall, which is probably the only answer here. My thinking was that adding butt length made for a rod that rested nicely against my forearm when fishing, any shorter and it becomes too short for my liking.
I did go light on the reel seat and grips but not so much that it should make this feel so unbalanced.

I removed the butt cap, slid in 3.5 oz of weight and fishes fine but feels odd when you pick it up because of the extra heavy butt end like this.

The only thing I could do different would be to build it with lighter single foot guides and no under wrap and do only a minimal coat of epoxy but even that won't take off 3.5oz to balance the rod. Maybe an ounce at best, if that.
Building with less guides would have defeated the Concept method altogether, and normal guide placement would have eliminated maybe 3 guides. The guide placement is close to what I'd use on a shorter butt end version but the stripper guide is a bit further forward, and the first three guides are a bit closer together.

It's going to have to stay with the added butt weight and get used but I'd probably not go with this combo for a customer. But I'm not 100% sure what else would have helped other than using a heavier blank with an already heavier butt end. With the weight added, when handling the rod without a reel it feels super heavy, but its really not noticeable with the reel on it. I was trying to make a rod specifically for fishing minnows to fluke with an Okuma CD30, something light in hand and easy to fish all day. I'm not sure if I accomplished that or not now.
I built an super cheap older Ugly stick type blank with a 5 Hardloy spin guides on it for a 3500 Shimano Baitrunner that feels lighter in hand and is better balanced. But that blank certainly didn't require much support or guide placement thought as does a graphite blank with a lighter tip section.

Okay, you didn't need an underwrap to begin and with believe it or not, but on such a rod that slight additional weight is noticeable. Moving to single foot guides and the resulting fewer wraps involved saves even more weight. I'd stick with the same number of guides.

The trick is to get weight off the tip end of the rod, which is where it will have the most effect. And you won't have to remove 3.5 ounces to make a tremendous difference.

If you're really serious about this, I'd redo the rod with single foot guides, at least on the upper half of the rod, and stick to a single thread wrap. Use the smallest guides that will still pass any and all required connections. I think you'll be amazed at the difference these changes will make.

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

I weighed the rod as it is, it weighs in at 7.2 oz without the weight, 10.2 with the weight, added not epoxied in place.
I have four more of this blank, I mocked up another rod, using tape to hold the guides in place, using single foot Alconite guides as I have those here right now, with no epoxy, an 18mm reel seat and just the shrink wrap sleeve in place to try and estimate weight.
I'm not sure the single foot guide are the right answer for the application though, past experience is usually that they get banged up pretty fast in a small boat fishing in close quarters.
The second rod feels better but still not balanced. It still feels like it needs 3 oz or more in the butt end to make it feel right. The butt end can't be shorter, I need at least the length I have here so the rod sits safely in a rod holder without banging up the reel. I agree, the guide position and number guides have to remain the same for this rod. The rod with the weight added feels a lot in hand like one of those Fulcrum rods that were common about 12 or so years ago.
I have another rod built on the same blank, with a full cork grip and Fuji Hardloy double foot spin guides that feels fine, and that rod has only a 10" rear grip. I'm partially thinking that the real seat being farther forward on the blank is having less counterbalance effect on the tip section.
The under wraps are adding to the issue but I do like the look of them and it don't seem to make much difference even without any wraps, just a few bands of masking tape and single foot guides feels the same.
When I move the reel seat back further, spread out the guides and add two more, moving the stripper guide further towards the handle to ajust for the new position of the reel seat, it feels better for some reason. I think that getting the heaviest guide back closer to the butt end or simply getting some of the guide weight back beyond the mid way point is what's making the difference.

I did the double foot guides and under wraps in an effort to make it more durable for saltwater use and the fact that I fish from a small aluminum boat quite often. Wanting to save some overall weight I lightened up the handle a bit, but even at that, how much lighter is cork wrap with shrink wrap over it than say an EVA or turned cork grip. I like the thin handle too, the thinner grip gives my big hands extra knuckle clearance from the spinning bail and rotor as well. If it weren't for the rod holders in the boat, I'd have left off the shrink wrap too. Just shrink wrap was an option but that was too little of a handle for my liking.

I've spent more time than is probably healthy thinking about rod balance. And you know what? I've come to the conclusion that balance is just one trait, among many, that a conscientious builder has to contemplate.

Why do I think this? Because building a rod is all about compromise. Take your example: you could pretty easily balance your rod without adding any weight by shortening the butt grip, and moving the reel, which is really the most heavy piece of your completed outfit, closer to the butt.

But achieving one thing (rod balance) comes at the expense of another (having a butt grip length that is most comfortable for the fishing you'll be doing). This is why building a custom rod is about compromise, and tradeoffs: you can pick a grip length you like, or you can have a balanced rod -- but you can't have both. It's the same deal with single-foot guides: you can achieve less weight, especially at the tip, but in the process you'll lose some durability.

So decide which traits are the most important to you, and build the rod accordingly. It's wonderful when you're able to get all the traits you want in a rod -- balance, durability, overall light weight, and all the components placed exactly where you want them -- but in my experiences, it's a rare situation, an uncommon alignment of the planets, when everything lines up perfectly. Most of the time, you have to make compromises, and to make good compromises, you have to categorize what's really important to you. If balance is on top of the list, shorten your butt grip until the weight of the reel gives you the balance you want. If where the reel and butt are placed is more important to you, then you'll have to deal with a rod that's a bit tip heavy.

And one more thing: you might find that a heavier reel will improve your balance. Rather than adding 4 ounces to the butt, a heavier reel will move the balance point closer to the butt, which might give you the neutral balance you want. It's worth throwing in a heavier reel while you're monkeying around with spacing and component placing to see if a different reel will give you what you want.

Joe;
I’m going to be frank in my answer but please understand that I am not being critical.

First Both Tom and Chris gave you good advice.
If you want performance; then do (or re-do) as Tom suggest!
If you want pretty; then do as Chris advised and learn to live with the weight, but you can still have pretty with out that much weight

However I find it almost unconceivable that any builder could have built on that blank and ended up with a rod that weighs 7.2 oz. That blank weighs aproxamently 2.1oz which means that you added right at 3-1/2 times the weight of the blank to that rod.

Realistically your finished product should have come in at under 4oz and still that would be a tad on the heavy side. Your unbalance is from how you built this setup.
My advice would be to as Tom suggested. Even if you stayed with double ft guides and used extra aluminum winding checks, you should be under the 5 oz mark.
The rod already weighs an astounding amount, The last thing I would do is to add more weight


What size guides are you using?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/24/2010 08:25PM by Steve Gardner.

"The butt end can't be shorter, I need at least the length I have here so the rod sits safely in a rod holder without banging up the reel. "


Correct me if I`m wrong but wont a longer handle take weight off the tip?

Freddwhy (Rapt-Ryte)

|Joe,
I aIssume that you have NOT epoxied the weight into the blank.
If so, take off the butt cap and take out the weight.
Then, without the butt cap, no weight and no reel - tell us what the finished rod weighs.

I have to agree with the other posts in that anything much over about 5 ozs is on the heavy side.

The fact that you have a 12 inch butt grip, just makes the rod better balanced.

What size guides, and which particular guides and tip did you use on the rod.
Rememvber, any weight in front of the reel gets multiplied by the amount of length that the weight is located from the desired balance point.

In reality, if you build the rod reasonably light, a 12 inch back grip should give you a nicely balanced rod with no added weight.

--
Having said all of that, put on a reel of your choice that you like to fish with on the rod.
Again, without any butt cap on the rod and with no added weight - tell us where the balance point of the rod is located.
Then, start taping quarters on the back of the butt of the rod until you get the rod balanced to your likeing.
Now, take off the quarters and tape and weigh the tape and quarters.

If you located the weight on the extreme butt section of the rod, so that you have the full lever action of the rod butt - I would be very suprised if you had to have much more than an oz of weight to balance the rod.

--
If on the other hand, you balanced the rod by inserting 3 1/2 ozs of weight up the inside of the blank, I would guess that you had to put in 6 -8 inches of lead to get the 3 1/2 ozs of weight. If you did put the weight on the inside of the blank, you really give up a huge amount of your weight lever arm balance capability at the expense of simply adding weight to the rod.

--
Since you said that you have three blanks, just do a mock up of the rod handle, reel seat, and guides - just taped on and check balance points.

Out of curiosity - first tape on the rod butt, reel seat, and attach the reel to the reel seat - and now check the balance point of the blank - before you add any guides or tip to the blank. I think you will be quite amazed at where the balance point of the rod is located with no guides, tip, wraps and finish on the rod.

So, once you have found this point, compare the finished rod to its balance point. This will give you a very graphic example of how much the balance point changes as a result of adding underwrap, guides, finish and tip.

Realize that the style handle is not going to make a huge change in the balance point. However, the length of the butt section can change the balance point quite a bit. Of course, if you are using very heavy handle material, each increase in handle length will continue to move the balance point back on the rod.

I suspect that your root cause problem with the rod is simply too much weight has been added in front of the reel in the form of underwarps, guides, wraps, finish and tip.

Take care
Roger

Joe,
You have done a bunch of things to make this rod durable. Unfortunately the things that you have done, large reel seat, shrink wrap over the cork, double footed guides, double wrapped guides and I will bet that you also used size D thread as well which holds more epoxy, will all add weight and reduce the rods performance and also make it feel tip heavy except maybe the shrink wrap. The weight that you have added to the butt to balance the weight will dramatically reduce all of the rods performance characteristics except durability, sensitivity, response time, damping time, casting distance will all be significantly reduced with the weight that you have added.
If I were you I would take the advice that you were given and redo the rod changing everything to lighter weight components. I would use single footed guides, using a single layer wrap of size A thread and as little expoxy as possible. And I would certainly get rid of the weight that you have added to the butt.
I would not go to a larger and heavier reel. That may well help with the balance but weight is weight whether it is in the rod or in the reel and added reel weight will reduce the rods performance just like added weight in the rod will. Actually if you want the rod to balance at some point ahead of the reel adding weight by using a heavier reel will help with the balance but if you want the rod to balance at the reel then going to a heavier reel will have almost no affect on the balance.

Emory, you have pointed out another example of my point: you can get durability in a rod, or you can get less weight. But it can be hard to get both. This goes back to tradeoffs, and knowing what traits are most important to who will be fishing this rod. Guy A might want the lightest possible rig; Guy B might want a rod that's as close to bulletproof as possible. There's really no right or wrong answer -- it's a matter of personal preference.

If I were building this rod, I think I'd have gone lighter, especially on the double wraps: I don't think that anything lighter than big offshore stuff needs them (they probably don't "need" them either, but that's another subject. And I don't know anything about big game rods anyway). I know that I've built pretty heavy surf and saltwater trolling rods with single wraps, and they've held up fine. But who's to say that my approach is the "right" answer? Not me, that's for sure -- what matters is how the guy who's going to be fishing the rod feels. That's why it's important to look at all of the traits in a finished rod, and at how they relate to each other. If you can get a huge gain in durability with just a little weight, it's a good tradeoff; if you have to accept an enormous amount of extra weight to accomplish the same thing, it's probably not quite as good an idea. You need to focus on the entire finished rod -- focusing on just one aspect, like durability, can cause negative consequences in another area, like weight.

If the tip of the rod is a bit heavy Joe could restore balance by simply adding more weight to the butt. That way he can have the best of both worlds; a tough, durable rod and one that balances perfectly.

Phil,
Yes, he can add weight to balance the rod but in my judgment the price that the extra weight extracks is too high. The extra weight compromises all of the other important performance characteristics of a rod.

Chris,
I agree with most of your points but would add this. You can go to Walmart and buy very inexpensive rods that are made from cheap, low modulus blanks with durable, heavy guides. I do not think that this is the direction that most custom rod builders should go especially for rods that are for customers. In my judgment custom rod builders should be concentrating on the higher performance end of the market that will support the higher prices that custom rod builder need to charge. As you point out there are trade offs but those trade offs that move the rod toward the more durable, less expensive part of the market is not an area where, in my judgment, the custom rod builder can compete. In other words, you and I cannot compete with Walmart and their inexpensive import rods.

The rod in question is built with the following:
2S66MHF2 Rod blank, weighs in at 2.2 oz right out of the tube.
7 Fuji SVSG guides plus #8 tip, sizes are 3 #8, and one of each of the following, 10, 12, 20, & 30. The set of guides and tip weighs .8oz.
The each guide is under wrapped with silver AA metalic thread,extending 4mm beyond each guide foot, then over wrapped in size C black extending 3mm beyond each guide foot. This is coated with color preserver and one coat of Flex coat High Build .

There is no butt wrap other than a short wrap to mount a hook keeper, and transition to the cork wrap. The reel seat is a Fuji FPS-D18S cushioned stainless hooded graphite seat, mounted over two graphite arbors. The seat and arbors weight 1.2 oz. The butt end is capped with a rubber but cap, weighing in at .5 oz. The shrink wrap covering or the cork tape would add about 1.1 oz. The but cap, reel seat and foregrip are all graduated to a point of level with epoxy, making a smooth transition to the reel seat, butt cap and blank. That leaves 1.3 oz in thread, epoxy, and the hook keeper. As far as epoxy weight, a 1 oz cup worth of Flex coat hardened only weighs in at .62 oz. so that leaves .68 oz in thread and the hook keeper.
The bare rod with butt cap weighs in at 7.0 flat, keep in mind I'm using a postal scale, but I did comparison weight a few known weight items below and ounce and it's dead on. I compared it to an OEM built rod, with the same guide count and length with a full cork handle and same reel seat and got 6.0 oz, and that rod uses single foot guides, a 10" rear handle, and a cork butt cap and I believe Alconite guides.
There's a good bit of epoxy holding the reel seat, but its not filled, and the entire rod was coated with roughly 6 CCs of Flex coat high build.

I tried a heavier reel, but the rod was originally built with a Shimano Stradic 2500 in mind, but the guide placement also works for several of the Shimano reels. The first guide sets about 20" from the reel seat.

The rod works in all aspects but balance, and for the most part, if it weren't so noticeable, I'd not have bothered to even give it a second thought.

I understand where Tom and the others here are coming from but like Chris said above, a building a custom rod is a trade off between certain items. The items I cannot trade off here are double foot guides, and the length of the rear handle. I could lessen it a bit by losing the underwraps but that change would be pretty much immeasurable. The epoxy coating would be about the same, and only the thread weight would be saved. This blank just shouldn't be that sensitive to weight. I've built similar rods to this on other blanks, this is the first on this blank. The others usually get a dime or penny glued into the but cap for added balance and all is well. I think this blank is just much lighter in the butt section than the others I use.

I maybe getting worried about nothing, I had a guy here today who I handed the rod to, with the weight added with an Okuma Graphite reel attached, and I'm now building a second rod to match. He loved the counterbalance feel and extra weight. Go figure, the one I built for myself with no intentions to sell and had issues is sold for top dollar. I gave the guy a higher price so as to discourage selling it, and the guy loves it.

I was originally trying to build a spinning rod to toss live bait but save some weight in using a lighter blank, but the result was having to add weight to make it feel right. What it boils down to is that I think I'd have done better building this on a lesser blank, using fewer lower cost guides and I'd have ended up with a lighter rod in the end, or at least a better balance rod. I like actually like the feel of the counterbalanced rod, but it's the total weight that I don't like, but I like to fish light. The idea was to downsize the reel and take better advantage of braided line and its smaller size, but still having a rod that can handle the catch without snapping a tip. I think I may have been asking too much from this blank.

I agree with Emory and a couple others. Food for thought next time, would a TENN. handle work? You can move the reel any where you like. Also unless you are in love with your reel how long do you plan on using it before replacing it? Also next time try and find the balance point before gluing reel seat and grips, just have them in place an temporarily attaching guides in place. Emory all the spelling was correct! Just the punctuation @#$%& LOL see you in April

Good Wraps Bob

I think the seat is as far forward as I dare put it now on a 6' 6" blank, and for arguments sake, the balance point with no weight would give me a 26" butt section on a 6' 6" long rod. Which would take away a good portion of the rods action in the lower half too. The balance point with no guides isn't much different, it's still going to give me a 25" butt section with no guides attached.
I mocked up the second rod, with the wrapped handle, rubber butt cap, and the seat left loose, the rod balance don't feel right till there's at least 26" behind the reel seat. The guides and wraps do little to affect the problem of balance with this blank. I don't get this issue with other similar blanks but those have a heavier butt section. Even without it's guides, it needs 2.8oz added to the butt end to balance out the rod with a 14" butt grip.

I built this the way I did because I can't buy such a rod, a factory rod is usually big and heavy or super light and light in purpose, I wanted a lighter class rod to use in saltwater with bait. If I were after a rod to toss lures, I'd have a lot less to deal with because that's the norm.

A Tenn. handle wouldn't be suitable for a Concept guide layout, in that the guide spacing is determined by reel placement.

Yes, I could have built a lighter rod that would be somewhat suitable but it's not what I was after. I will redo another for the buyer, but for my original purpose I'll go with a heavier blank, or at least something with a heavier butt section.

The rod will outlast the reel but from what I've seen, most reels in this size range are pretty close in geometry, at least close enough to work. The guy that bought these will be using a cheap Okuma baitfeeder reel, which in all reality felt pretty good in hand on this rod other than in my opinion was heavy overall, to him its perfect. I'm sure that the rod and reel will sit in a rod holder while he drinks a beer, and only get picked up once the bait is long gone, so weight will mean nothing to him. His only ever so important requirement is that one rod had his name on it and the other his dogs name, which was also on his pickup truck door. (He was here looking to get his name added to a rod that still had it's $14.99 Walmart price tag on it. He bought it because its matches his truck).

I used the SIC guides because they hold up well in saltwater, the under wraps do protect the rod blank, and in a fishing situation where your likely to hook fish often much larger than targeted, that added protection if the rod is overloaded from time to time is important.
Add a the confines of a small aluminum boat, night fishing and braided line and stainless rod holders to the picture and the overall package it takes is changed from the norm.

Something that I didn't take into account was pointed out to me by the customer. What difference does balance make when you've got two minnows and 2 oz of lead hanging off the end. Which for that matter, any amount of weight hanging from the line will completely eliminate any balance when casting. But I guess if the guys putting the rod up in the holder till it folds in half, balance or feel means nothing.

When I'm fishing, the rod stays in my hand, so 8 hours or so on the water makes a rod that's way out of balance feel like holding a brick after a while.

Did you say the entire rod was coated with Flex Coat? That's also not necessary and you paid another weight penalty, a pretty large one, for that. Remember, the total weight isn't the most important thing. It's where you add that weight that matters in terms of balance.

If you build your next rod with the NGC system, using double foot guides for the butt and transition guides and low frame single foot guides for the running guides (no, they're not fragile), skip the underwraps and do not coat the blank with epoxy, you're going to have a rod that is just as durable as what you have now but balances much, much better. You've simply done too many things that are throwing the balance off and not buying you anything for the weight penalty incurred.

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

Here's another thought: when you build the next one, mount the butt section (rear grip, butt cap, reel seat, foregrip, etc.) without epoxying anything. Put no guide or no top on, and see how the rod balances in this "naked" state. If the rod is tip heavy when you do this, it's only going to get worse when you put guides, thread, epoxy, and a top on. You'll either have to accept a tip-heavy rod, add a lot of weight to the butt, or redo your handle to achieve better balance.

If, though, when you do this mockup, you get decent balance, then you should be able to build a pretty balanced rod. Just add as little weight as possible when applying guides, thread, etc. But if the rod is tip heavy before you even start with the guides (as just about every rod nine-feet and longer is), then driving yourself crazy over weight won't do anything -- it's already out of balance before you add any weight at all to the tip section of the rod.

I build mostly surf rods, which, because of blank length, are naturally tip-heavy. Short of tying an anvil to the butt, there's not much you can do to offset that. But on shorter rods, where I really want to achieve balance at a certain point, I've done this before, and it can be a useful learning tool. If you try this on your next build, you may be surprised at how differently your rod will balance this way, as compared to when it's finished.

Chris:

Builders who add weights to balance a rod claim this addition reduces effort in casting and reduces fatigue from retreiving. Your scheme to tie an anvil to the butt of your surf rod should work just fine, in fact great, since the effort/fatigue from casting and retreiving with a two pound surf rod is many times greater than the demands of a six ounce one-hander. You can detach the anvil while you aren't casting or retreiving, or while you are transporting or shipping the rod.

Chris Garrity Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here's another thought: when you build the next
> one, mount the butt section (rear grip, butt cap,
> reel seat, foregrip, etc.) without epoxying
> anything. Put no guide or no top on, and see how
> the rod balances in this "naked" state. If the rod
> is tip heavy when you do this, it's only going to
> get worse when you put guides, thread, epoxy, and
> a top on. You'll either have to accept a tip-heavy
> rod, add a lot of weight to the butt, or redo your
> handle to achieve better balance.
>
> If, though, when you do this mockup, you get
> decent balance, then you should be able to build a
> pretty balanced rod. Just add as little weight as
> possible when applying guides, thread, etc. But if
> the rod is tip heavy before you even start with
> the guides (as just about every rod nine-feet and
> longer is), then driving yourself crazy over
> weight won't do anything -- it's already out of
> balance before you add any weight at all to the
> tip section of the rod.
>
> I build mostly surf rods, which, because of blank
> length, are naturally tip-heavy. Short of tying an
> anvil to the butt, there's not much you can do to
> offset that. But on shorter rods, where I really
> want to achieve balance at a certain point, I've
> done this before, and it can be a useful learning
> tool. If you try this on your next build, you may
> be surprised at how differently your rod will
> balance this way, as compared to when it's
> finished.

This was one of my points in my last post, I did mock up the second rod with only the reel and the rod, to get a natural balance the reel is more than 2 feet from the butt end. I then set up the hand, and no guides and the thing is still tip heavy to the point where it's uncomfortable. Even with no guides and no wrap or epoxy on it the tip still feels super heavy, even with 14" behind the real. I mocked up a similar blank, this one from Benchmark and the rod feels much better in hand, it's still a tad bit heavy at the tip but it only takes a few grams to correct even with the guides taped in place.

I don't wrap the whole blank, just the wraps, and only enough epoxy to produce a smooth glossy finish.

For what ever reason this blank is tip heavy, I'll build the rod I keep with another blank. The second rod will be done soon, and gone. I'll lay out another for myself using the original reel I had in mind. There's not much I can do to naturally increase the handle weight, whether using cork rings, EVA, or a wrapped handle, the result is pretty much the same. Wrapped cork is more comfortable to me, so I'll stick with what I like. The rest will stay the same. I may try single foot guides but strongly prefer the two color combination.

Phil, I think you got this, but just to clarify: my anvil line was a gag. I don't add weight to my surf rods, or any other rods. Some guys swear by it -- I've even had guys tell me that put 8 oz. pyramid sinkers inside the butt of their surf rods, but this is something I refuse to accept as a viable option.

Joe, this is a weird situation. It happens every once in a while, I guess. I would go to another blank too. Good luck.

Chris:

I heard of a guy who took the "balancing by adding weight" scheme to its logical conclusion. He bought the heaviest reel he could find and filled the butt section of his surf rod with lead until it balanced perfectly. Unfortunately, he was not able to fully test the capabilities of his new surf outfit, but as soon as he recovers from his hernia surgery he plans to soldier on.
Can anyone tell me which are the heaviest reels on the market, so I can more easily balance my tip-heavy rods and save money on buying additional butt weights?