Ken, I'm sorry for any confusion I may have caused you. Just put another eye 4 inches past the first guide up from the butt and put your next guide the usual distance from your first guide. The purpose is to prevent line slap between your first and 2nd stripper. I didn't mean to sound dictatorial, but only stated what I use and what works for me. As a custom builder you know that there are different ways to get end results and if you are building a rod you can put the eyes anywhere you want them.

Thanks Sam. I'll definitely try it - no doubt and soon as I'm finishing up a 14' bamboo spey rod for trip to New York in the hope of wrangling some Salmon I'll be turning down the sticks to seat the reel seat, fore grip and ferrules this morning and will likely be trying guide placements this afternoon. This will be the second of these monsters that I've built although I've reconditioned several old Hardy English two handed rods. This one is a BEAST - much heavier than I anticipated but I just HAD to have one for myself.

RON:

Will not any distance what-so-ever, and more than likely decrease distance. The rod will feel like a noodle compared to a rod with 9 guides. Gary Loomis once told me, "The more things you add to the rod=more weight. More weight = less performance".

I concur...

Thank you all for your input. Well I will have to tape on some extra guides and try it out for myself, just for the fun of it. I have been building rods with 9+- guides but never really tried more. It seems to go against the coventional thinking but only a hour or two investment in time is little to loose. This Mr. Fox seems to have gone the rounds on most of the forums and left without a trace, I just happened across his video and it looked intersting.
Cheers Ron.