I have an old set (late 70's vintage) of Fuji match guides. I have an original Loomis ultralight blank I bought way back in the mid-70's and and after procrastinating for about 50 years I'm finally going to build it up. I see match guides mentioned for center pin rods. What are they customarily used for, and in what way would they be preferable to a KR set up?

Dave

Match guides go on match rods, mine was constructed in England, the guide setup is closer to Cone of Flight in concept however, it was also built "back in the day." They are very similar in height to the high frame guides you mentioned, Fuji made them for a while in double and single foot designs, called them the Fleaweight guides if I remember right, Pac Bay still makes them in single foot.

David,
Match guides do a wonderful job of keeping the line from hitting the rod - particularly on a spinning reel.

I always use a match guide for my first or stripper to allow me to use a smaller sized ring in this guide and still get wonderful line control with no line slapping as is the case with a shorter guide.

But a full set of match guides work very very well and you will have an excellent casting and fish catching rod.

Best wishes.

Back in the 70s I built a number of rods using match guides, as Spencer mentioned they were cone of flight setups, with a very high framed tip top. They worked ok but I was never impressed with them. I now use match guides as reduction train guides in a KR-like concept much like the Fuji KL-H guides. They have very similar heights to the Fuji KL-H guides and can be grouped into similar reduction trains. For example, 16M, 8M, and 6(or 5M); or 20M, 10M, and 6M; or 25M, 12M, and 6M. These reduction trains are then followed by low profile L-type running guides. In my opinion, When M guides are used in a KR concept set up, the results are far superior then when used in a traditional Match guide set up.
Norm