I have a 5'9" blank that i am building. It has a 12" slick but, reel seat and a 14" Hypalong foregrip. the blank is a Gator SP-KC30 5 9" Heavy Mod 30 IGFA / Bottom Rod 14 tip and a .78 base. I only have 37" of rod blank sticking out of the foregrip to put guides on. this is a very stout rod. Any suggestions or did i not leave enough room for guides?

Kevin Gross
Many men will spend their whole life wondering if they made a difference. Marines dont have that problem - Ronald Regan

Hi Kevin,
I think you will be ok. I've built a couple of 5'6" overhead rods with 12 and 14' foregrips and they turned out good. Your first guide will be close to the end of the foregrip and that won't leave much for anything else except maybe a hookeeper if required. Tape some guides on and do some static testing and that will tell you. Your first guide will probably need to be a higher frame than standard but the static testing will tell you if the line will clear the foregrip under load, I'm assuming it's an overhead rod. A spinning rod won't have that issue. If required you should be able to remove some of the foregrip. "carefully" and that area can be covered with some trim and/or guide wrap if you damage the finish on the rod. Good luck.

ESFNEM Col
Port Kembla, NSW
Australia

Kevin,
Several years ago, I built a large lot of rods that were used for trolling. The build of the rods was very similar to the one that you are building. i.e. a 12 inch back grip and a longer fore grip.

Col has it right. The first guide will be about 4-5 inches in front of the fore grip and you will go out from there. You will likely only need about 3 or 4 guides plus the tip for this rod.

Also, since you have the long fore grip and really don't want the line cutting your hand during a big fish fight, you want to make the first guide tall enough to keep the guide off of your hand when it is gripping the fore grip. After that, they can of course size down as needed. I assume that you are either going to be putting heavy boat guides on the rod or possibly roller guides on the rod?

Roger