Just wanted to share my recent experience with everyone. This is not a rod building post, but does concern components.

I have had two separate St Croix factory rods lose ceramic inserts in the past several months. The first, mojo inshore, lost the tip top insert sending a $15 x-rap into the ocean. The second, one of their Premium rods, experienced a cracked tip top and lost the insert on the second guide from the tip, again launching an x-rap into the abyss. It appears both of these product lines use Kigan guides. Only St Croix's higher end rods use Fuji guides. Fortunately I purchased the gear guard warranty on both rods, so I got to exchange them for store credit.

I have several older model St Croix products with Fuji guides that have never had an issue.

Has anyone else had similar experiences with Kigan guides? Not sure if this is an indicator of a subpar product (Kigan), but two separate rods seems like more than a fluke.

I picked up a competitor's rod with Fuji guides, and will be avoiding St Croix's products on factory rods for the foreseable future.

hi Adam..build it yourself..you can use components you like..if this old geezer with one eye and two brain cells can do it, i know you can..lol.

If there is/was a high rate of ring failure with Kigan guides, St. Croix could not afford to use them.

Occasionally a guide will spit a ring. Some times rods experience rough handling in shipping which can later translate into guide ring loss. There are a lot of things that can cause this.

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

I've got some rods with Kigan guides, built 6 years ago, no problems with them and I use them a lot. I don't throw the rods in the back of the truck with the spare tire, lay them on the deck and step on them, etc. The ceramic is surrounded by a press fit frame which usually makes for a very durable guide. These have been durable like similar guides from Fuji, Pac Bay, etc.

Two rods with damaged tiptops, one also with a damaged next guide? Might not be a guide problem.

I have repaired many rods with broken Fuji guides and 99% of the time it is some type of impact damage, I am sure Kigan guides experience the same issues. I have rods I built that are over 30 years old and have not been damaged other than corrosion on the Fuji Stainless Steel frames near the blank. I always put my rods in tubes when transporting and am careful not to step on them in the boat. I won't buy St Croix because they don't sell blanks to the public anymore. Broken guides are the easiest thing to fix other than a Tip Top.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/15/2019 11:08PM by Lance Schreckenbach.

Copy that.

The OP'S complaint is the first complaint i have heard about them but Kigan has a very good reputation . I am also exceedingly careful while transporting , fishing and storing rods placing them inside a flannel sleeve then into a hard shell tube . I consider them high end instruments and treat them as such.

I also treat all my rods like a high end fly rod, I have tubes in lengths to fit a 2 piece 10 1/2 footer if need be, many stay in their tube after I dry them first. Reels go in protective drawstring sacks than are stored in old ammo boxes.

Inserts don't just break, something breaks them! Usually it is some type of blow to the guide.

All of my rods are stored/transported in rod socks and tubes. Both of these rods were well cared for, did not take any hard use/negligent damage. More importantly, both of these rods had less than 10 days of fishing on them before they failed. I did a Google search and found several other discussion forums in which people had the same issues with Kigan guides.

I received a response from St Croix, basically saying that the Kigan guides are cheaper than Fuji guides, and that is why they use them on their lower end rods. IMO, that confirms my belief that the Kigan guides are an inferior product compared to the Fuji guides, and St Croix knows it.

I have several older model St Croix spinning rods, near 10 yrs old, with Fuji guides that have had zero issues.

Take it for what you will. Just wanted to share my experience with the community, and compare it with others.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2019 11:15PM by Adam Ganshirt.

Adam,
I expect that you have experienced a batch of bad guides that came down the line and ended up on your rods. Especially when you mention that these guides basically had an infant mortality, it is almost always because of a manufacturing defect for problems of this sort to happen, so early in their life.

This is further confirmed by your statement of the very careful handling by you of the rods. Of course, you have no information about how the rods were handled from the time that they were assembled until they arrived in your hands.

Thanks for the update.

Take care

St. Croixs awesome Legend Inshore and Avid Inshore rods both use Kigan guides to this day and both models are far higher end than St. Croixs various Mojo line of rods . The Original Avid Inshore's came with Alps guides and the original Legend Inshores came with Fuji's but when they retooled the Avid Inshore's they went with Kigan and i'm not sure when they switched to Kigan guides for the Legend Inshore rods.

I consider ALPS as good as anything out there right up there with Fuji . Point is Kigans are NOT considered low end guides but not absolute top flight either , the sponsor on the left " Hydra" sells those guides.

We get 1000s of kigan guides in every month. One bag usually has 500 or so of a given size in same bag. In 8+ years, I literally have only seen one ring fall out of a guide on its own. I have NEVER seen a chipped ring from the factory.

Once on a rod, every guide I have seen from someone claiming "bad guides" has had damage. A chipped ceramic doesn't happen without some type of impact. One of the fastest ways to damage a tip ceramic is reeling your bait into the tip. But that never happens. :)

On guides, bending the frame and bending it back can changes the shape of the frame and fracture the glue holding the ring.

Do rings fail out on their own? Yes. But it is incredibly rare.

In our factory, the local guys bring in rods with Fuji, AmTack, ALPS, etc just as much. I don't see it being a guide problem.

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