I am getting ready to start a roller rod with a spiral wrap for myself and have a question on the transition guide. What is the benefit of using a roller for this guide? I prefer to keep the line as close as I can to the blank during the transition and plan on setting the first roller 20 to 30 degrees to the left so I just have to push the line on the reel instead of pushing and pulling. I was thinking a regular guide would work on the transition instead of a roller. Keep in mind I have not done a mockup yet and I am just looking for some input.

The rod is a 48.5” Pac Bay E-Glass fast action 60-130 pound class blank. Should not be much flex at all around the transition guide.

Thanks!

You can certainly make that work. The key will be to have things set up so that very little pressure is put on any transition guide/s you have there.

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I had actually thought about using a micro stripper for the transition and turning the first guide on the bottom to keep most of the pressure off the micro. Still working things out in my head but know what looks good on paper sometimes does not look so good on a mock up. :)

The best way to do this is to tape up your guides, put the rod under load and shift your guides around to get what you want.

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Are you using the @#$%& acid rollers on this build? I have found that the transition guide placement is the hardest part of the build. It is hard to keep the line on the transition roller centered properly. When you do your testing, make sure that you move the line from one side of the reel to the other while stress testing to make sure that the line stays on the roller. If you use a regular guide as the stripper, that would tend to alleviate the problem I mention, I think.

I mocked up a similar build a few years back, but didn't build a rod with that setup. I used an Aftco stripper, a ring for the "bumper", and @#$%& 180s under the rod. I think I remember slightly angling the first 180 toward the bumper a bit.

I actually liked the way the setup looked with the rod loaded & unloaded. I don't see any reason this would not work. It also allowed me to use the Aftco roller instead of the hideous @#$%& stripper.

I have built a couple rods using all @#$%& rollers, but much prefer the look of the bumper setup.

Mel, I am using @#$%& rollers on the bottom and looking at an Aftco stripper like Jay was referring to on the top. I have a few of those laying around so it would be a cheap test to see how it lines up.

Jay, I have not run across any photos of a roller setup with the bumpers, have seen several smaller rods like this but nothing that heavy. Any suggestions where can I locate some bumper guides to throw in the mock up?

Just use a low frame guide you have on hand for mock up. Remember, you can always bend the legs a bit to get the ring even closer to the blank.

I took pictures of the mock up I did, but they were terrible. In those pics I used a turbo guide for the bumper as it was the only thing I had on hand and the first thing I grabbed. I just wanted to tape up the guides and get a look to see if this idea would even work. I also had the stipper & 1st 180 guide way too far apart. I worked on the setup further, but didn't take any more pictures of it.

I have no doubt this idea would work.

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You can see in that picture that I didn't take much time in spacing the guides. On that day I was just hurridly doing the job so I could look at it and determine the feesability. On another day I added another 180 guide (that I didn't have on hand the day I took the pics...hence the distance of the first 180 from the stripper), re-spaced, and added a low frame bumper of which I do not remember the model. It looked great and I really do think it would work beautifully.

Thanks guys, will be sure to post some photos when I get it finished!