I have looked at some of the previous posts about these, but I still don't get it. I want a tip top guide in either a twelve or a fourteen ring, but the blank top is only a size six. The only oversized tops I can find are surf rod tops for a blank size ten or larger. I read somewhere that Merrick has them, but does anyone carrying products for the personal builder carry them?

I think that to get around a 12 ring the smallest tube is about a 9 or so. Why would you want such a large ring on such a small diameter blank?

You can make one fit though either by building up with thread or cut the tip off a scrap piece of blank that will oversleeze your current blank tip and large enough to fit the big tip tops. I knew some offshore rod builders who used to do this on small blank tips but wanted to mount larger roller tops.

Why don't you just use a single foot guide as your tip top. Just wrap it as you would any single foot guide. I know that this is the way Loomis Canada was building their float rods for awhile.

Try Janns netcraft. I build several ice rods last year, and had the same problem. They had them listed as large ring ice tops, the ring was sz 12, they don't have a selection of tube sizes, the tube was about 5.5 and plenty of metal to drill them out a bit. They worked very well for me.