That is correct - light wire snakes are easily bent and pulled. It is possible to perform a Forhan Lock wrap on one side of a snake if you wish. It'll help in one direction, but not the other.

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

ben ..... I used to do the same as you sometimes when hung up. I've broken two rod tips trying to free a bait. After breaking the second one, I decided that it's only a fishing lure, and I just break it off.

About the only time I go extremes to get a bait free anymore, is if I am fishing docks. I don't like the idea of leaving a hook somewhere where someone may get injured on it.

With you using braid on all of your rods, I can certainly understand you trying to free it, rather than just breaking it off. Braid is hard to break on a straight pull.

David,, it was easy to un snag from a float tube..you can hold your position and get rightbover the snag and poke straight down..often i had to remove the reel and submerse the whole rod..no braid on the flipper just fluoro..braid on everything else and only 10#..i only flipped snags..

Sometimes I wonder if some of the rod builders here actually go fishing. (Grin.)

The point being that maybe an "unlocked" guide won't pull out the first time you bump it. However, in the world of actual, practical, real-life fishing applications, guides get worked around, knocked, pulled, and bent up and down. Soon, that epoxy or urethane finish isn't looking anything like it did when it came off the dryer.

Add a whole lot of sun, time, temperature changes, ham-handed fishing partners, kid's fishing trips, urgent rod locker removals, big fish captures with seven rods on the boat deck, and general fishing catching excitement, and it's a miracle they don't just fall out when you tip the rod upside down.

My experience is that Rich Forhan's locking wrap makes guide pull-out much less frequent, and I'd never wrap a single foot guide on any rod, without one.

Joel, i could not have said it better..lol

Spencer Phipps Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I use three, it lets me get a good lockdown of the
> thread and still minimize wrap weight, this means
> the wraps on each end of a doublefoot guide are
> not the same length, but no one has complained.

Back to the topic, not that this hasn't been an interesting and very entertaining thread. Also, very informative. I see a very differing amount of thread wraps all of us do, just before proceeding to the guide foot with the minimal wraps "saving weight". Has anyone ever weighed the differences in say, a 10 wrap before the guide foot versus a 5 wrap before the guide foot? Does the epoxy and thread really weigh that much to where it will effect the casting, action and feel of the rod? And if that were the case, I would think the epoxy would out weigh the thread, why wouldn't we just get really minimal and use varnish or permagloss instead of epoxy to get down to the nitty gritty?

How much weight any additional epoxy would add would depend not only how far you begin the wrap prior to the reaching the guide foot end, but also how many guides you have on the rod and how thickly you apply the epoxy. Lot's of variables in play here.

Additional thread and finish can indeed impact rod speed and "feel," of course. Even a fairly run of the mill bass rod will have a noticeably lower rod speed of you install under wraps instead of using only single wraps. You can feel it, even on a 6 foot rod with only 6 or 7 guides.

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

Tom, is there anything in archives on “under wrap”?

Just found a You Tube on under wrap. Thanjs

lol Joel, good one. Personally, I only started fishing a couple of years before I started building rods. So let's see .... that would put it at around 7 years. I don't fish much, and when I do it's only for an hour or two at a time. I don't fish when it's cold so I have never experienced how slippery and dangerous anchor ice can be while wading a steelhead stream. But I've read about it. I've never had to pick ice out of my rod guides. But I have heard people talking about having to do so. And fish in hot weather with the sun beating down on me? Wouldn't think of it !!!

And what's all the hub bub about these bass tournaments I keep hearing about? I see they even show them on TV? Watching people fish? BORING ..... and why do those guys need so many fishing rods laying around on the decks of their boats? You just know that they have to step on them and trip on them. And if the number of rods they have on deck isn't bad enough, they open up a lid in the deck of their boat and there are even more rods in there!!! Can you imagine if you were in a hurry to get a rod out of that mess? It's crazy I tell ya.

And have you seen some of the rough water those guys run in? If there's even the slightest chop on the water, I'm either staying home, or getting off the water. But not these guys. You see them running full speed in these big waves and you just know it has to be bouncing their rods around, yet they still do it. All in pursuit of a fish? Not me ...... ain't no way. And the money they spend!! Why I hear that some of those boats cost more than my house !!! And then they have to have some big expensive truck to pull it around. Can you imagine the gas mileage one of those big ole trucks get? Not to mention the carbon foot print they leave. No wonder we have global warming !!!

I bet if more people were like me, we wouldn't have global warming, and there would be absolutely zero need for this Forhan locking wrap of which we speak. But evidently if you've been fishing any length of time, or if you're one of those bass tournament guys, you'd better be using that Forhan locking wrap or your rods are going to be shedding guides like an Alaskan Malamute sheds hair

And let me tell ya ...... those Alaskan Malamutes shed a lot of hair !!!

Wow, read this whole thing, finally hit paydirt on pg. 5. Thanks to my boys. 10X on the dock fishing comment.

Micky, Get yourself a Center Finding Rule. Align the guide ring with the 0 on the scale, put a piece of tape at an equal distance (lets just say 1 3/8") out from 0 at both ends of the rule with the tape protruding from the edge. Now, transfer the tape to the blank by the protruding ends and this will be where you start you wraps. Your wraps will be the same length as long as you line up the center of the guide with the 0 on the scale.

Dennis J. Danku
(Sayreville,NJ)

It is possible to put a Forhan wrap on both legs of a snake guide, but not by using a wrapping machine, or even a bobbin.

And with the flexibility of some very corrosion resistant snake guides, I can see the reason why one would want to do that.

Howdy Dennis -Thanks for the tip! I have never used a center finder rule but I can understand the process your talking about. As my guides get shorter, do I keep the same number of wraps leading to the foot for all guides, whether that is 3 wraps or 10 wraps or however many? I can see where the total length of wrap would get shorter due to the length of the guide getting shorter also but the lead in wraps would be all the same length. Am I looking at this correctly?

Don't bother counting your thread wraps you'll go insane, just evenly tape off your starting point from the outside of the guide feet to the center of the ring. Not all guide feet are the same length on opposing sides of the ring. On some casting guides that aren't evenly braced you may have to move your center off the guide ring to the center of the space between the feet. I don't mean to confuse you but, if you look at different
styles of casting guides you will see how the bracing of the ring is not the same on on both sides. If you do a good job of dressing your guide feet you can start your wraps right at the edge of the foot with your lead in climbing up the guide for wraps as short as possible.

Dennis J. Danku
(Sayreville,NJ)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2022 10:14PM by Dennis Danku.

I have noticed the bracing was shorter on one side of the casting guides that I am using. So the main thing is that both sides of the guide have the same length of wrap? My thoughts have always run towards function over form but you spend the time building a rod, even if it is a rebuild and you want it to function properly but look good too.

Personally, with two footed casting guides, I think I think it depends on the length of the foot on either side of the guide ring. I predominantly use Fuji guides, and for the sizes I use, both feet are very close to being the same length, so I just make sure the amount of the wrap that isn't on the guide foot is the same. Or very close to being the same.

If you have one foot that is longer than the other, and you match the lengths of the guide wraps, that means that one of the guide wrap is going to extend further past the end of the foot. Which IMO makes the wrap look odd because you can see the bulge from the guide foot which even though the wraps are the same length, it makes them appear uneven.

At least that's what I think.

There is a line between what would be called OCD, and what would be called craftmanship

I've never once been fishing, looked down my custom rod, and given any thought to double foot guide wraps looking asymmetrical.

Regarding guide wraps, for me, the line between OCD and craftsmanship is at the end of the guide foot.

Kendall Cikanek Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Ships have sailed across oceans with their
> rigging surviving incredible storms with lashed
> attachments. If the lashing is well performed and
> held securely down, there shouldn’t need to be
> locking work done away from the main joint area.

Conclusion: A hydraulic pulling measuring machine pulling on a regular guide installed and pulling on a guide with so called locking wraps installed can remove each guide with approximately the same weighted pressure measured. Therefore, the machine results determine there is no such thing as a locking wrap. Pure junk science, but if it makes the builder think, believe, or "feel" better about it then by all means do it as it is a harmless thing to do. But to call it a locking wrap when no such locking is involved is misleading to say the least. Kendall is correct according to the physics. A guide can slide out of a locking wrap about as easily as it can slide out of standard guide wraps. Another one bites the dust!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2022 09:08AM by Kent Griffith.