I am currently building a Batson Forecast 7 foot spinner. I am using a Penn Battle 5000. Problem is the repeal spool measures 2.16" which when multiplied by 27 yields 58.3". That puts the choker guide 7 inches from the tip. This does not seem right with hardly enough room for an additional guide. How would you space out the guides on this rod?
Thanks

Why do you feel you need more guides past the tip? The only thing that's important is the distance from the reel to the choker guide. Anything beyond that is simply taken up by however many guides are needed to reach the tip. The line is controlled by that point - anything beyond the choker guide is a mute point.

Put your choker at 7 inches from the tip, and another at 3 or 3.5 past the tip and be done with it. Perfect.

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Thanks Tom I will try it.

So how many guides would you have between the choke and the reel - 5 or 6 if using the length plus 1? Seems like this would be like the old "cone of flight" method found at K-Mart that the "concept" method was suppose to eliminate?

Tim, Based on your reel size i am assuming this is a rod for salt applications or big catfish? That reel will hold around 300 yds of 30# power pro. I know i get 275 of 20#pp on a 4000 battle.
Its the reel choice driving your guide positions that is making it look like cone of flight. For big reels on shorter rods that is what the 27x system looks like.
Now if you put a 1000 reel on the same length blank you will get a whole different layout. 27X gives you a great layout (after tweeking it from static and casting tests) for a particular reel and line combo.
Or you could put a Microwave guide at about 20inhes in front of the reel face when it is extended forward then work forward from there. Of course after static and test casting you could still land up with what you have now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2012 12:16PM by Lou Auret.

I certainly defer to Tom in this matter, but I had the same thought as Tim, it looks like you end up with the traditional cone of flight layout. I have used the Fuji guide placement calculator, which uses not only Tom's 27X method but also uses reel angel to place the choker. You might try it to see if you come up with a different answer.

[anglersresource.net]

Mitchell,
The simple solution is to put the butt guide at 20 inches. Put a tip on the rod, and then mark the rod in the locations where guides need to be to support the line in a fully flexed position.
Then, simply adjust the size of the guides to allow for smooth line flow.

This is simple procedure and you can place the guides in the correct location in just a few minutes.

Good luck

Roger



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2012 10:33AM by roger wilson.

From the reel to the choker guide, the NGC is a cone of flight system (sort of). Folks need to get it out of their heads that you must have a bunch of running guides after the choker guide. The length of rod beyond the choker guide does not matter. It's immaterial. Once the line reaches the choker guide, the deal is done.

Worry less about what it looks like and more about what must happen between the reel and the choker guide. For the same reel and line, the guides from the reel to the choker guide, and their locations, will be identical regardless of rod length. A shorter rod will have less running guides than a longer one.

I don't where the idea got started that you must or should move the choker guide in order to accommodate more running guides and make the outfit conform to some sort of ideal appearance. That's simply backwards. The choker goes where it goes and you add whatever number of running guides are needed to accommodate the remaining rod length. That may be one, or it may be ten. Doesn't matter. The placement of the choker guide in relation to the reel spool is the important part.

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Roger,

I think you mean "butt" guide, not "choker" guide. They're not the same thing.

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Mitchell, You did everything right on the money. I'd do what Tom said and just drop a single running guide in between the choke guide and tip top and you'll be perfect. The critical element is the distance from the reel to the choke guide. Once the line enters and leaves the choke guide its running straight and level.

I think the problem many people have is that they do not understand what the Concept achieves. They visualize the illustrations which show long rods and lot of running guides and think if they don't have a bunch of those beyond the choker that they didn't do something right. But like has been said here many times, the number of guides you have beyond the choke guide doesn't matter. There is no criteria that says you must have two, or three, or four or whatever number of running guides. They don't matter.

Tom,
Sorry, typo.
Thanks for the correction.
Roger

Mitchell,

Ken probably explained it better than I did. If your rod was 8 feet long, your choker guide would still be set at 58 inches past the reel spool. You'd just add more running guides beyond it for the additional length of the 8 foot rod. If your rod was say, 6-1/2 feet long, you'd follow the choker guide with the tiptop. If your rod was only 58 inches long, the choker guide itself would be the tiptop.

The difference in the NGC and the Cone of Flight, is that with the latter (COF) the tiptop is always the choker guide no matter how long the rod is, and regardless of the reel or line used. This is why the NGC typically works better - the choker guide is set at a prescribed distance from the reel based on the spool diameter and line used. Rod length is not a factor, nor should it be.

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Mitchell, thanks for raising this question.... given the number of times it has been asked previously (stated one way or the other) I'm reasonably sure that others have misunderstood this issue/solution too. Between Tom, Roger, and Ken's answers, there should now be a pretty universal understanding.

clyde

What everyone is wanting.... is to use as many SMALLER LIGHTER WEIGHT guides as possible (running guides), this is why the 27X makes everyone say :"do what?". On most bass rods the 27X is more a cone of flight style in my opinion.

What happens when you change reels on the same rod? Will your rod no longer perform AS well because your reel spool on the new reel is different in diameter? Rods outlast reels for sure.

What it LOOKS like can mean the difference in selling or collecting dust.

I'm not picking on the 27X AT ALL. It's one of many very good casting setups.


DR

FWIW....statements do get made like"there should be no need for more than two or three reduction guides"....or "there is no need for more than three, maybe four, different size guides".

So when someone new to the 27X method has a big reel on a short rod, and needs something like six guides between reel and choker, he can feel like he isn't doing something correctly.

Russ in Hollywood, FL.

There is no way, not with 27X nor any other system, to tailor a rod for optimum performance with different sizes reels. True custom rods are set up to perform optimally with a specific sized reel. The instant you change reel size the guide system must also be altered or you no longer have that optimum match between the reel and the guide set up.

This doesn't mean that changing to a slightly different sized reel will result in terrible performance. Line is flexible. The same guide set up which is optimum for one reel will at least still be very good for a reel of at least similar dimensions.

The 27X system is built around the things that most influence casting quality, one of those being the diameter of the reel spool. It is very different from the Cone of Flight System insofar as the choker guide placement is determined by spool diameter. On a Cone of Flight system, the choker guide is always the tiptop, regardless of the reel or line used, or the length of the rod.

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Russel,

This is one of those instances where folks need to read the article - that stuff is all covered in there. The bigger problem is that many folks do not understand what it is they're trying to accomplish. Once you understand why things are done, then it becomes a simple matter to figure out the unconventional situations that we all run into many times. Simply painting by the numbers is fine, but until a builder understands why certain things are done, he is going to be thrown for a loop every time he runs into a non textbook situation.

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I think this is one of those -- It Looks Funny - things

if you don't like where the chock guide is maybe going to a reel that has more of a Slant of the spool Or a smaller reel ??

Bill - willierods.com

I try to build rods that offer better performance than what you can buy off the shelf. This often means they’re going to look unconventional. If you just configure your rods to look like all the factory rods, it might be better just to buy those rods instead. I guess it depends on why you’re building. Just my .02 on that issue. Others may disagree.

Back to the NGC stuff, If I have two identical reels and lines, and two rods, where one rod is longer than the other, the correct set up and location for the butt, choker and intermediate guides should be exactly the same on both rods since the reel and the line is the same. The position of these guides wouldn’t change just because one rod is longer than the other. The reel doesn’t care about that. The only difference will be that the longer rod has more running guides beyond the choker and the shorter rod has fewer running guides beyond the choker. This just seems to make sense to me.

I have been building rods for 25 years. I build to enjoy my creations. It keeps me sane in the winter. The toughest part of rod building for me is guide selection and spacing. I have read most of the published info on this subject. I have the CD compilation on "guides" and have read it over and over. Till I started this thread intuitively I never understood from the articles that the distance from the choke guide to the tip does not matter.

Last winter I built an 80lb class tuna jigging rod that is 5' 10" with a Daiwa Saltist spinner. Based on the concept system the choke guide calculated to be around 2 feet past the tip of the rod. The guide placement to me is critical to the action of the blank. I think this means the other guides besides the choker need to move about when we see the blank under stress. This step of guide placement just seems to take me awhile to get the spacing and sizing correct. Most of the articles to me understate the difficulty of achieving optimal guide placement for the best blank/finished rod performance. The actual wrapping takes me less time.