Novice/hobby rod builder here...On the handful of rods I've done, I have noticed that when the reel is mounted they feel "tip heavy." This doesn't necessarily bother me but I would like to know if there is a way to counteract this without adding a lot of overall weight to the rod. For reference, I live in the Ozarks and mostly like building UL/L/ML spinning rods in the 5 1/2 to 6 1/2' range. Not sure if I need to look at weight systems, lighter weight guides, etc. Thanks all for the feedback!

If you read any of Rich Forhan's articles on task specific bass rods, he feels that a "tip heavy" rod is advantageous in many if not most bass fishing scenarios.

Otherwise you have to choices - add weight to the butt to obtain the balance you want, at the expense of having a heavier overall rod, or simply build the rod as light as possible and don't worry about balance and have the lightest rod possible.

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I started a lengthy thread about this topic recently.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

This was the result for me.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

It is a tungsten weight gel epoxied into the butt of the rod. I tested weights by using masking tape to build up around the weights and placing them in the butt with 20lb braid tied around it so I could pull them out. Once I found the right weight I glued it in and placed the butt grip on.

A.P.

My friend and I built an 8'11 bushido snook rod and he paired it with a Van Staal VR50 weighing around 9oz it was way to tip heavy and a heavier reel didn't balance it out enough to make up for the increase in weight. So we ended up adding 2oz of lead epoxied into the butt of the rod and it fishes completely different and balances much better which seems to help with fatigue throwing heavy snook jigs for hours.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2022 01:00PM by Tyler Reinert.

I think the key to balance is when should it be balanced and why.

For me, I prefer a balanced setup with lure attached- or real close. This means tip light without lure attached. I think or believe I suffer less muscle fatigue if I include the lure and balance it for use which is when it counts to me. So on both spinning and baitcast setups I prefer tip light until balanced out for use only.

Josh,
Your question will attract varying opinions and will remain an ongoing debate. First of all, “balance” is a personal preference; what is balanced for one angler may not be for another. Secondly, as Tom alluded, some fishing techniques perform better with a tip-up balance, others tip-down. Thirdly, the longer the rod = the more difficult, if not impossible, it is to avoid a tip-heavy rod.
I am from the school that believes in building the rod as light as possible and let the balance fall where it may. Personally, I refuse to add weight to the butt to achieve a “balanced rod”. With a reel mounted, if I have a rod that balances (horizontal) at a point 4 fingers in front of the reel, I am happier than a pig in slop. If not, so be it, I live with it and don’t even think about it.

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

Lighter blanks, lighter guides, less powerful and shorter blanks (therefore lighter in front of the hand), all contribute to better balance. You ask about how to balance without adding "a lot of overall weight." The only solution given the blank/guides without adding weight is to mount the reel farther out the blank. But that can cause ergonomic problems with the butt getting caught in the elbow crook with some motions and some other funny things going on. So watch out for that.

I, like Mark, and many other builders build for best ergonomics, the lightest build I can do within my budget constraints, and do not add counterbalancing weights. Before I figured this out I almost had a casting rod torque out of my hands in Canada because I had added so much weight to the butt that it had excessive inertia on the two handed cast.

To gain insight into the issue try taping weights onto some of your rods and see what you conclude. Whatever works for you is what you should do.

One of the problems with mounting the reel further out, creating a longer handle, is that you end up not gaining anything by moving to a longer blank. If you're just going to extend the blank further behind the reel, you might as well have bought and built on a shorter blank to begin with.

The nice thing about taping weights into the rod butt as Michael mentions, is that it doesn't have to be permanent. Try it. If you like it, then epoxy them in place. If not, remove them.

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Rather than contribute a long post on the subject, I will just say that the thread that Aaron linked is a very thorough discussion of the topic. It has a lot of back and forth and presents a lot of different ideas.

And Aaron, looks perfect to me, and very familiar.

Reminds me of golf club fitting days. Most sporting goods stores sell lead swing weight tape. This would do very well fine tuning under butt grip. For more weight, golf component Companys sell inserts for the butt and can be weighted with tungsten power. You can get exact with that stuff.

The guy who wrote the book on jogging died while jogging. Then again it benefits others.

Thank you everyone for the feedback! I like shorter handles and the lightest rod possible so it looks like I might be building tip heavy rods. I've never minded them before for off the rack rods, just curious what kind of options I was looking at.

Some of the things you can do to lighten up the upper half of a build is to apply minimal epoxy and make sure your wraps end exceedingly close to where the guide foot ends . If you look through the photos section you will see many instances of light rods with runners that have wraps that extend twice the length of the guide foot sometimes more . Much much longer than necessary to hold a small guide in place so if you don't want tip heavy that's something to keep in mind. Some people don't even bother with guide epoxy they go with a few coats of Permagloss or just slap on a few coats of CP which both are lighter than epoxy and really tighten up thread wraps but the majority choose epoxy for long term protection and understand that it will be slightly heavier .

You can also choose runners with titanium frames , not a major difference if you're just using a few small runners on a relatively short blank but with longer length blanks they pay off in weight savings the problem is the runners especially the Fuji titanium torzite's are ridiculously expensive even in the smallest sizes .

Some people like to use titanium just for the runners out toward the tip and a lightweight titanium torzite top or equivalent since equipping an entire rod with them could be cost prohibitive for some.



Don't just automatically choose running guide sizes without really understanding what is required of your build because most choose running guide sizes that are much larger and heavier than necessary . Think about the terminal tackle you will be using and it's not a bad idea to purchase a few select running guide sizes and test cast to see if they work well before committing . That's what I did on my surf rod builds with most universally choosing running guide sizes in size 8 to 10 area sometimes 12 . After thoroughly testing I went with size 5 runners , they completely blew me away actually and were considerably lighter as well .

I am in the Mark and Michael group , I never add additional weight of any kind , I'm very in tune with reel model weights and components and make sure balance will not be an issue before I even start building it.

I think it’s best to build as light as is financially feasible for the intended use of the rod while using the grip length that is most functionally appropriate. Let the balance be whatever is the result of doing these two things. In actual fishing conditions there is no constant for the force will be pulling the tip downward. If the balance is without lure attached, then it’s only relative to “living room” conditions. Archimedes has always been correct that buoyant force equals the weight of the medium displaced by an object. In this case, it’s the weight of the water displaced by the lure. That means the lure puts less downward pull on the rod tip when immersed. If it has a diving plane, that force would increase. The density of the lure will change the buoyant force that counteracts its weight. Remember than fishing line also displaces water and it’s immersed volume increases with depth.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2022 01:20AM by Kendall Cikanek.

Kendall Cikanek Wrote:
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> That means the lure
> puts less downward pull on the rod tip when
> immersed.

Thanks Kendall! I should have clarified my comment above to say my preference is for balance when the lure is above the waterline.

When a rod setup is tip heavy, we now have the leverage effect working against us. The longer the rod, the more this effect is. So when my lure is in the water, my preferred setup is for tip light to aid in rod tip movement with less muscle energy needed resulting in less fatigue for me.

I used to put up with tip heavy factory rods, Then I started building my own. Now I don't have to.

Here's another way of looking at it. You have a favorite steak house. And you think, man no way is there a better steak anywhere on the planet. Then one day you hear some people talking about this other steak house. They're talking about how good it is. One of them may even mention them thinking that your favorite steak house had the best steaks, until they tried this other one. Now this other place is their favorite.

The only way to find out if the other place is better, is to try it. Build the rod as you normally would, then tape enough weight to make the rod and reel combination feel tip light, to the butt of the rod. And see if you like it. If you don't, you don't. But at least you tried it.

Don't be someone who says their favorite steak house makes the best steaks, without trying the place that some think is better.

Josh,
I built heavy rods, I have built light rods, I have built rods with very short grips, I have built rods with very long grips, I have built rods with no weight in the butt, and I have built rods with a bunch of weight in the butt.

Now, I simply do the following.

I take the bare rod blank and I take the intended reel that I am going to use. I then, hold my rod as I would when fishing. Finally, I move the reel seat up and down the rod blank until the rod is in perfect balance. That is the location where I place my reel seat. Then, I will build the lightest rod possible and I find that normally the rod is perfectly balanced with no extra weight any where. I simply use the rod grip as defined by the placement of the reel seat.

I have used very short rear grips with a significant amount of weight at the extreme butt end of the rod to balance the rod, and although it was in perfect balance - I have found that over time, I still prefer the lightest possible rod. If that means that the rear grip is longer due to a more forward reel seat location - so be it.

It is up to the builder to decide the best design for the rod, and the best components to build the rod with - understanding the limitations and or advantages of every component, including the reel seat, grips and reel which compose the elements for the final rod build.

Best wishes.

It seems like the general consensus among the functionalists here is to build as lightweight as you can, and especially in front of the reel seat. I don’t even put decals in front of the seat. We may differ on grip length, but most all of the latter posts are saying avoid being tip heavy for reducing fatigue during long fishing days. Kent’s lure weight balance with minimum build weight combination, Roger’s balancing paradigm, David’s tip heavy avoidance, and my go minimal with weight while keeping grip length cogent to the intended technique are all going to be really close in outcome. When you go really light overall, and especially in front, the balance points are very close together. I was actually taking note of this on a SCV build with Torzite guides a couple of days before this thread started. Lightness eliminates so much potential for variation and annoyances. Colin Chapman should have been a rod builder.

Kendall,
There is nothing better or more expensive than a F1 rod, even if from decades ago lol.

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

If you are technique specific bass fishing, here are the balance points that Rich Forhan recommends for various techniques-

Table 1. TIP DOWN

Spinner baits
Crankbaits
*Swim Jigs
Walk-the-dog  topwater
Rippin’
Hersehend Spinner


Table 2. TIP DOWN

Spoons
Flippin’
Pitchin’
Float and Fly
Drop Shot
*Punch Rod (1-1 1/4 oz. wts.)
Twitchin’ floating worms


Table 3. TIP?DOWN

*Heavy Carolina Rig
Swim baits


Table 4. TIP UP

Jigs
Worms
Shaky Head
Fly (without the float)
Wacky worm
Fly (small jig without the float)
Shakey Head
Senko (a VERY special worm)
Wacky worms (special hook set-up)

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