Hi,
could anyone give me any advice on how to put on roller guides as far as thread tension, filing guides down, etx. I notices certain heavy duty rods tend to make a cracking noise, what is the cause of it and is there anyway to prevent this from happening? Thanks!
David

dk, order DocSki's video on custom rod building and you can see how a top rod builder does it.

Hi David-

This sounds familiar! The first time this happened to me I just about flipped my lid- I didn't want my new rod to creak! I found that by prepping and tapering the guide feet very, very well and using what I would consider "relatively heavy" thread tension solved most of the problem. I sand away as much of the smooth paint as possible on the guide foot (top and bottom) to expose the metal for the best bond after finishing. I only do this to the part of the foot that will be wrapped over. I taper the tip of the foot as well as the sides, to eliminate as much of the "tent effect" of the wrapped threads on the sides of the guide feet- eliminating air space that needs to be filled with finish later.

To determine the root cause of the squeaking/cracking, I e-mailed Greg at Aftco. He said that the cause of the noise is the finish slightly separating from the tip of the guide feet under load. He also suggested 1) applying finish after each layer of wrapping thread, and 2) feathering the edges and sides of the guide feet.

Hope this helps a little!

Tom