Building a 7'3" heavy power bass frogging rod, I have a 7 double foot 20.5" off the face of my revo STX at an angle of about 10 degrees to the right followed by a 4.5 Fuji belly guide at 95 degrees to the right, and finally another belly guide at 180. I payed them out by using a straight line path from the reel to the 180 guide. I did some test casting and under pressure retrieves, all seems well, but does anyone see why this might be a problem? Just seems as though most people talk about having the first guide at zero. Seemed to be a straighter line path to turn the butt guide a little in the same direction as the bumper.

Zachary,

Something to think about:

I have found that placing the butt guide about 5 degrees to the opposite side of the spiral wrap keeps the line from stacking up on the spool. I usually place the butt guide with the inside edge of the guide / line on the zero line, then start the spiral around the blank. This places the butt guide in +/- 5 degrees to the opposite side of the spiral. That way the line doesn't stack up on the spool. It may not be a problem with a frog stick; but with heavier lures, such as a deep diving crankbait, it definitely is a problem.

Don Campbell
don@sensorfishingrods.com

That's a good point. Remember that the line doesn't necessarily run through the center of the guide ring. On a rod spiraled to the right, the line will run against the right hand side of the butt guide, so put that on your centerline or 0 axis if you're worried about line stacking heavy to the right on the reel.

..........

I had that thought, so I tied the line to the fence in the back yark and retreived aout 100yds of line under a load with no noticeable stacking issues. I was just sceptical that no else has said much about turning the butt guide the same direction to get a straigter line path and maybe my test was a fluke?

In 30 years of building spiral wrapped bass rods never had a problem with "line stacking" to one side of the reel. Always set my stripper guide so that the edge of that guide is at the center point of the reels guide eye.

Zachary ;
Send an email and I will send you the recipe I use for spirals including 7'3" frog rods

Mr. Gardner -
Does your butt guide go towards the spiral direction or away?

Tom Kirkman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That's a good point. Remember that the line
> doesn't necessarily run through the center of the
> guide ring. On a rod spiraled to the right, the
> line will run against the right hand side of the
> butt guide, so put that on your centerline or 0
> axis if you're worried about line stacking heavy
> to the right on the reel.
>
> ..........
Jeremy, As Mr. Kirkman indicated above you set the inside edge of the butt guide on the zero line of the blank. This requires the guide foot to be shifted slight to the opposite direction of the spiral wrap. That way the line with feed directly onto the reel spool and not stack. I built myself an 8' crankbait stich and started the spiral wrap to the right at the butt guide. I found on deep diving crankbaits the line would stack on the right side of the spool, which was irritating. It didn't occur quite as bad on light weight of shallow running crankbaits

Don Campbell
don@sensorfishingrods.com

High resistance lures like deep cranks can also cause line stacking by holding the rod to the side during retrieving.

Jeremy;
My butt guide ALWAYS goes in the direction of the spiral.
But let me clarify that with very few exceptions I only build bass rods


Resting you thumb on the spool while reeling in can also cause the line to stack towards one side.

Mr.Gardner, may I ask what is the real goal to place the stripper's left side (if we talknig about a spiral that goes to the right) in center with the reeel's liine guide? I suppose its just to achieve a faster transition to the complete 180 degree. And for aestetics no?

Knowing your personal way to spiral the guides...can you tell me the sizes that you use to do it that way?

Because I tried it and did not get a transition that way just on a too long portion of the rod. Meaning the first real 180 guide was way too up, too close to the top for the spiral to still have a reason. At least that was the case with maybe too small starting guides..10,10,8,8, and size 4 runners.

Thank you

Gabriel

Gabriel;
When it comes to guide layout; I do nothing for aesthetics! my only goal is to obtain the most efficient transition from top of the rod to the bottom.

The sharper the angles are from guide to guide, the greater the friction of line to guide contact. The line having to turn through those angles as it curves around the guide’s ring face increases friction. Effectively reducing casting distance, increased wearing of line, increased tension on line and person reeling when retrieving.
Now I understand that all these may be small amounts, But when building for performance, many small differences add up to increased or decreased performance.

By placing the stripper guide as such, it allows for a smooth transition of the guides from top to bottom. By keeping the line angles from guide to guide at a minimum. It reduces the side pressures caused by sharp angles of lines having to run through guides that are offset at sharper degrees.

Placing the stripper's left side guide ring centered with the reel's line guide, it allows the line to start that transition to the bottom while at the same time allowing the reel’s line guide to effectively to it’s job. More of an angle than that may cause some of the line stacking concerns others have mentioned.

By placing the stripper guide 5 or so degrees in the opposite direction from the spiral, and forcing the line to turn that angle to get back to the second guide. You are creating friction where before there was none or little.

The same takes place with the simple spiral wrap; sharp angles create more friction.
Now I am not saying other spirals are effective. Just that this setup is more efficient by reducing line to guide friction.

As far as your setup, I don’t know what you are building, on the bass rods I build (with the exception of flipping and pitching sticks). I always start with a 5 or 6mm guide (5-4-2.5’s, 6-4.5-3’s)
On flipping/pitching sticks I start with an 8 or 10, and then go right to 6-4-3’s guide.

Don’t know why you would use two 10’s then two 8’s



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/2013 08:54AM by Steve Gardner.

Steve, I believe what I did was similar to your method, glad to hear I'm not alone in my thought process, just epoxied her up yesterday, so when I get caught up with some of my other work I'll see if I can cach something on her

Just a thought...when you are casting and the line leaves the reel, you don't really know where the pawl guide will be... so...the line has some pretty sharp angles thru the pawl guide as the line gets stripped off the reel before it ever gets to the butt guide. Another thing as Bill Stevens ( & Steve G.) taught me, there is little reason fot eht butt guide to be any larger than the pawl guide.
And casting is a different set of circumstances than fighting a fish.
Another thing... friction is determined in the engineering world as product of the surface contact area times the coefficient of friction between the two materials times the force perpendicular to the contact area. Consequently you want to minimize the surface area...means smaller guides and smaller diameter line and use materials with low coefficient of friction. The virtually any of theceramic guides we use today will do the job. Then there is the line to consider. Another can of worms. There isn't much contact area between two circular cross sections thar are perpendicular to each other. And very little force during casting as compared to fighting a fish.
Enough.. I will go back to work.
Bill

William (Bill) Jones Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
.
.
.
> Another thing... friction is determined in the
> engineering world as product of the surface
> contact area times the coefficient of friction
> between the two materials times the force
> perpendicular to the contact area. Consequently
> you want to minimize the surface area...means
> smaller guides and smaller diameter line and use
> materials with low coefficient of friction.


This souonds good ... except... This would mean that if the line and guide where the same size, the friction would be the least, but in actual fact is the highest because the guide would touch the line all the way around. :(

As the size of the guides we have avaible to us is significally larger than the diameter of the lines we use, this is a moot point. The amount of increased friction
due to the larger touching surface that occurs with the smaller guide is more than compensated for by the increased rod efficiency of using the smaller guides.

Chris Richer
Iroquois ON

Mr. Gardner and Campbell - Thanks for the responses.

I always have my butt guide going in the direction of the spiral and have never had problems with the line stacking, even when throwing deep cranks. I use a total of 3 guides to make the turn with the 4th guide being on the 180 axis. I build primarily only bass rods, so maybe rods for heavier use have some issues stacking. I'll have to build one that starts in the opposite direction to see if there is any difference.