Hey guys, I am building a 10ft 80-130lb gator blank from mudhole and needed to know what guide spacing I should do. The butt length is about 22inches. I will be using the following guides
25-20-16-12-12-12-12-12-12 and a 26 tip. Thanks



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/30/2011 04:47PM by irving garza.

Here's a good place to start if you want to learn how to do it on your own:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

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the best way I do it, I do my butt wrap then flex coat then put on my grips and my real seat.
Then glue the tip on. Then I take my PENN No.9 and put it on my real seat,
the reason I use my PEEN 9 is because it has the little center post in the spool.
I take all my guides and run the string through them like if they are supposed to be.
large to small. Then I prop the rod about at a 45 degree then put about 25 lbs of weight on the end of the string
to where it will bow the blank, then I start taping the guides to the blank, spacing them to where
the string is right off the blank. This usally works pretty good for me. That way when your fighting
a big fish your line isn't touching the rod just the guides. I'm no expert, but this how I do mine.
Hope this helps..

Glen

I Was Born Without Gills, Therefore I Fish!
Love The Wife! Live Long! Fish Till You Die!

Like Glenn (and like the link Tom provided), I also use static distribution to space my guides. With a 10' 80-130 blank I doubt anyone will actually be able to give you an "experienced" guide spacing anyway. That's a pretty unusual blank for most of us. I assume it's for a very specific application?

I take the approach of finding out what # test line will be used on the rod. I then take a lever drag reel and set the strike to 1/3 the breaking strength of the line. At that point I place the rod in a holder, push the lever drag to "FULL" and pull off line until the drag slips. Under this pressure I adjust my guides so that the line does not touch the blank and has a flow that I'm happy with.

Whatever the heaviest drag pressure that will be used in conjunction with the rod is...that (plus a little extra) should be used for your static distribution test. On heavy rods where big, and sometimes expensive, fish are on the other end you want to be sure you set up for the extremes.

I never heard of such a heavy ten foot rod. What is it used for?

Shark blank.

thanks guys. I will be experimenting with the guide placements. Oh yeah it is a shark blank.