Posted by:
ken khoo
(---.025.dsl.pth.iprimus.net.au)
US Fuji's recipe for an 8' rod doesn't seem to follow Fuji's own rules for their new guide concept. Or maybe it does and if so then I am missing something (which could be true regardless). anyway, my reason for saying this is how the placement has gone for my own 8 foot rod. I place the reel seat 16" from butt end. Reel seat is 5". Mounting reel on seat and lining it up in accord with Fuji's new guide concept the rod intersects at about 61" from the butt or 40" from spool end of reel.
For an 8 foot rod the butt guide is recommended to be 18" - 22" from reel spool. I use the direct line from center of reel to choker guide and find that I can fit a size 30 guide at a distance of 18" from spool or a size 25 21" from spool. My reel spool is 60mm in diameter thus indicating that the first butt guide should be around a size 30 rather than 25. Fitting the size 30 means that the rod join is another 9" away. No space for another guide.
The intersect point (choker guide) is 18" away from the rod join which means I can place a reduction guide between the join and the choker guide. With the measurements the reduction guide will be a size 16. I am going to use a size 10 tip so it looks like from the choker guide onwards all my (running) guides are size 10. The tip is 33" from the intersect point and in accord with Fuji's concept of placing guides after the intersect at min of 4" max of 5" I need 7 guides. Total number of guides is 9 plus tip which accords with the concept but sounds a little weird with butt guide being a size 30 going down to 16 then 10 thereafter.
It's when I measure up for a low mount reel seat that the figures start looking interesting. The reel seat is mounted 6" from butt. The size 30 butt guide will be 18" away and the next guide after the butt guide will be a reduction guide of size 16 before the join. The choker guide is about 43" away from the reel spool and 7" from rod join. So there's no more room for a reduction guide after the join. The tip is 44" from the choker guide and with a min of 4" max of 5" this equates to 10 guides meaning that as a low mount there's 12 guides plus tip!! It's still going from size 30 to 16 to 10 thereafter. I can't fit any in between sizes in accord with the concept.
Generally, the advice is that the number of guides required for Fuji's new concept will be the number of feet the blank is plus one. So for my 8 foot blank I should be using 9 guides plus tip. However, US Fuji's catalog shows a recipe for a 8' sea bass and spinning medium rods with only 7 guides plus tip. While their recipes may be using the new concept guides may be they are not adopting the new concept method of placing guides? Not consistent of them if they are doing this.
Why go low mount, it's more comfortable for me when fighting fish and I am used to casting spinning reels in a low mount position as I started my surf casting with an Alvey sidecast and used the same rod for my threadline reels. Not sure that I will build low mount after all that but I just want to make sure I've understood the rodmaker article correctly.
