Excuse my redundancy, but Norman is a lucky man. Fortune eludes the rest of us. She is definitely a keeper, Norman, and undoubtedly the best guide alignment tool ever conceived.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

.001 out of alignment? I don't think you're gonna shoot birds with it. Eyeball is good enough. I normally use an equal distant spacing on my rods (4,4,5,5,5,6,6,etc) and I measure each one of them. I can't count the number of times when my eye spotted a mistake in my measurements. So, trust your eye, that's all you or your customer is ever gonna use on the water. A second set of eyes never hurts either. But I don't think .001 is or even .01 is really necessary especially when production rods are sometimes off by .1.

Greg, your a dangerous man..you gotta complicate things a little more..lol.

I made a tool to get the guides TDC. Cut the reel foot off an old Zebco reel, it was plastic. Epoxyed a small string level on top of it. the level sat at right angle to the rod. Mount it in the reel seat and get it level. Shut one eye, look straight down on top of the first guide getting it centered on top, then wrap it. Do this on every guide you wrap, leveling the rod before each wrap. When finished wrapping I sight down the rod with a ceiling light shining from underneath the rod and do any minor tweaking that needs to be done. Usually one or two guides and I'm done, perfect.

J.B.Hunt
Bowling Green, KY

Norm you may have stumbled on something. Have the guys ship their rods to you and for a nominal fee you can have Jackie line them up and return........lol

Tony Boschi, as with others I bought the laser and found it not as accurate and the eyeball method.

Tom

Thanks Tom, but no thanks,
Norm

When you get right down to it, Greg is probably correct. The difference in casting distance with guides off 0.010 would be virtually nil yet detectable to the eye. If it looks good, it probably is = run it.
I precision machined the uprights and rollers of my wrapper which are mounted to a 12ft long 1X3 T-slot extruded aluminum bed. There are two additional machined fixtures which mount anywhere along the bed; one centers the rod and secures it at TDC while the other has a pivoting devise which holds and centers any size guide while it is hot-glued to the blank. The guides can be mounted perfectly straight or centered on the blank allowing them to follow any curvature of the blank. Guide alignment is very quick, precise and repeatable.
The wrapper took quite a bit of time and money to fabricate but I had to; I’m not fortunate enough to have a quality alignment tool such as Norman.
~ >*))))))><{

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

Mark, would love to see pictures of those fixtures. Any available ?

Thank you,

Stu

Stuart Osterweil Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mark, would love to see pictures of those
> fixtures. Any available ?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Stu


Yeah, i would like to see that also , sounds awesome . Mark has an amazing setup and has some of the best things i have seen in the photos section, very impressive.

I do simular to what daves does, except I use orange fly line. tape it to the mold line on the reel seat (which is always top dead center), and keep a fly tying vise mounted at the other end of rod table. while rod is still locked in wrapping vise I pull line tight and lock it down in fly vise so is held straight from tension.
Then alighn the guides to the fly line.

Also use the line for static testing, the diametor and bright color of line just makes things easy to see.

Is trick Tom Kirkman turned me onto years ago, have yet to find anything that works better

Neither have I. The line gives you a visual reference. Easy to see if the line is straight or not. If it is, so are the guides. If it's not, then neither are the guides.

............

Guides they can be off a little an you will never know it when fishing it , But it is a big deal for me as I want to be perfect or to the best I can [ I do go crazy doing it ]

William Sidney
AK

Bill, it,s an early stage of growth, all rod builders have to go through it..lol.

The stiffness of fishing line varies with its construction (braid or mono) its diameter, and the ambient temperature. Changes in the stiffness of a line will cause changes in the size, shape and direction of the loops entering the guides during a cast. Consequently, the direction and angle of the line as it enters each guide changes with conditions. Guides look nice when they are precisely alined but perfect alinement may not be the most effective arrangement at one particular time or even in general. Perfectly alined guides do minimize the torque on the blank when the line is under tension.

Herb,
Thank you, I am graciously flattered.
Stuart,
You can find photos under “Equipment and Tools”, “Mark’s Wrapper”. If you allow me a bit of time, I will post pics of the actual guide alignment fixture in the near future.
Thanks for the interest.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

Mark,

Did you use 80/20 T channel for your wrapper base ?

Tony,
To be honest, I cannot remember what type of T-slot extrusion it is, but then I cannot remember what I just had for dinner. It really should not matter as long as there is a centered slot down the middle. Mine measures 1 X 3 inches with three slots on the top and bottom, one slot on each side. If the uprights are mounted to the rear edge, as mine, the spool tray and any other conceivable fixtures are free to slide the entire 12 foot length without any obstruction. I have found that to be a huge plus.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.