Okay these have bin eating at me and I've scratched my brain about these so bad it next to nothing in size, but

1) How the heck does on make sense on guide placing? I mean, the charts are there and calculators and so on and so forth, but is there something I'm missing? I just can't wrap my head around what anyone is talking about.

2) when laying finish on a rod are we supposed to lay it just on the wraps? Or are we supposed to lay it on the whole blank, except for what's under the reel seat or handle of course, so if it is the whole rod how would I go about placing a support on a non wet spot? Can I lay finish in sections or would the whole rod need to be wet and drying at once?


Any help with these eye gouging questions would be very very much abridged, and does anybody know of a class of somewhere I would be able to go to get some lessons perhaps?

1. Check the online library here for specifics on guide placement and sizing. Adequate stress distribution and good casting qualities are paramount.

2. There is no need to apply finish to the rod blank. You need only finish the thread wraps.

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Spencer, a lot of new rod builders are looking for Step 1, Step 2, Step 3 instructions on guide placement. With this attitude they then read all about a METHOD of guide placement and come away disappointed that they never found Step 1. Use placement charts until you are ready to accept the fact that most guide placement METHODS or CONCEPTS will never tell you exactly where to put a guide. Keep reading until the light comes on. It will.

Spencer,

In regard to 1., it's important to note that there is no single perfect placement technique for guides. There is a lot of info out there regarding guide placement, and Tom's articles in the Library. Start with the static placement article. It will show you what is important for casting rods, and I use it to place the running guides on spinning rods. Casting rods are pretty forgiving. Once you choose the correct size butt guide, the rest just need to distribute the load. The butt guide on a casting rod needs to make sure that the line will stay off your hand or fore grip, if needed, and not cause any sharp angles if your reel is wide. If you are building bass rods with modern low profile reels the latter is a moot point, though a little extra guide height may be needed for the but guide, or you can go straight to your smallest guide by placing the butt guide a little further up the rod.

Next move on to the New Guide Concept Primer and the New Guide Concept which explains the reasoning for the 27x method. These will lay down the concepts important to spinning rods. Once you read those and begin to grasp the terms and ideas what I say from here on will make more sense. The New Guide Concept, MicroWave, and KR Concepts, yes there are differences between them and you will find proponents for each, but the underlying concept is similar. Use a conical path to get the line to the blank in a straight line and then run the line to the tip top in a straight line. It is all about getting the line controlled and to the blank as quickly as possible. The taller guides used to bring the line to the blank are chosen for the combination of height and guide diameter. With limber lines, you can get away with tall guides that feature smaller ring sizes. With stiffer lines, it can be beneficial to move to a lower frame style with larger rings to get the same height.

After doing some thinking, measuring, and calculating, you'll find that the 27x, KR calculator, and MicroWave recipes end up with some similarities, particularly with smaller sized freshwater reels. As you move to larger reels, the 27x method pushes the choke location out further. The important thing to keep in mind, as Jim mentioned, is that any of these methods offer a suggestion on where to start. You can feel free to use them as is, or to tweak them to fit your needs. I have a few things that I do slightly different than the recipes for spinning rods.

The key is to do some test casting with your rod and the guides attached temporarily with tape, cable ties, etc., and spend some time playing around with placement over a few rods. The experimentation is important to learning how a rod's casting performance will be changed by moving guides around. On a casting rod, the most important guide to shift around is the butt guide. For spinning rods, moving the butt guide and choker guide will have the largest effect on casting distance. The others you can tinker with, but you'll find that they offer little in terms of change.

I think Tom got you squared away on number 2. Applying finish to a whole blank will add significant weight to the blank and have an impact on its performance, which is huge for freshwater and inshore rods, and much less on very powerful offshore trolling rods, i.e., the lighter and less powerful a rod is, the greater the penalties for adding weight to the rod.

Joe

when you apply finish to the whole rod you dip it or spray it , even doing that it takes some skill to put it on so you will be happy with the finish [ RUNS & WAVES ]
I tried an flunk out, took it off , what I ran across ed BILL

William Sidney
AK

Spencer,
One way to look at guide spacing is to just be sure to have a guide at any location on the rod that requires a guide to insure that the line follows the contour of the loaded blank.

Or, to look at it another way, for the typical rod, just flex the blank and with line running from the reel seat to the tip of the rod, be sure that the line never gets further away from the rod than about 1/2-3/4 inch - depending on the particular rod.

If you happen to be building a surf casting rod or some other rod that would normally require larger guides, then this distance can grow a bit to reflect the large sized guides normally used on such rods.

But, suffice to say, put a guide on the rod so that the line follows the contour of the loaded blank, or flexed blank.

Be safe