Hi Guys

My first post in a very very long time and I was hoping to get a quick sanity check on a rod I'm building before I go ahead and set the guides.

The rod is a 12 foot surf rod (South African graphite blank called the Assassin Lite). Having decided to give the Fuji New Concept a go, everything is very straightforward to work out, but I must confess to being a little concerned by the number of guides I end up with, after having followed the formula carefully. My choker/intercept guide ends up being 53" from the tip, so even if I space the running guides 5" apart, that's 10 running guides. Then with the recommended 3 reduction guides from the choker down to the reel, that's a total of 13 guides!!

Now I realise that this fits perfectly into the New Concept rule of thumb that says a 7 foot rod will have approx 8 guides, a 9 foot rod will have aprox 10 guides, a 12 foot rod will have approx 13 guides, etc. But having never put this many guides on a reel, this just makes me a little nervous and wondering if it's overkill or if perhaps there are any exceptions to the standard formula when it comes to long (surf) rods.

If any of you out there have any wisdom to share on the matter, I would be very grateful. Otherwise, I shall simply go ahead and proceed with what have and hope for the best!!

Cheers
Bryan
Perth, Western Australia

If you'll read the article a little more closely, you'll note the special items regarding surf rods.

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

You can space the runners out on a surf blank. Like: tip, 4", 51/2" 61/2" and on and on. You may end up losing 2 guides over all and do a stadic test just to check but I have done it this way for all my NGC surf rods and they are fine.

Hi Guys

Thanks for the responses. I had read the article carefully but saw no mention at all about special allowances for surf rods. So I had just about given up on it when I noticed that there are *two* articles in the library on New Concept guide spacing - there is a second one near the bottom (New Guide Concept Primer) that I had not seen - and this one does indeed confirm what I had hoped/suspected would be recommended for longer rods.

This is more what I'm used to but I hadn't known if it would have violated the New Concept principles, which I was keen to try out. And as I always do static tests anyway, no problems - now I can easily knock a couple of runner guides out of the equation and reduce the amount of metal hanging off the skinny end of my blank.

All sounds good and thanks again for the help/confirmation.

Cheers
Bryan