I've learned so much reading this board, and through email from helpful members like Phil. I thought I'd share something I came up with today that may work for others.

I've tried a few different ways to hold the guide feet for wrapping. I've tried tape, the guide glue, elastic thread, and dental bands. I like the dental bands the best, but the smallest ones I could get don't hold things very well on smaller sections. especially tip sections. I ordered some 1/16" ID rubber tubing. I cut it into some little rings, like a somewhat wide o-ring. Getting the tight little buggers on was a challenge. At first I used a set of small bent end pliers by sliding the little ring on to them, then opening them so I could slip it over the rod and slide it off. I ended up reducing the size of the plier tips a bit and polishing them, it worked okay, but I figured there had to be a better way. I quickly knocked out a pointed metal mandrel on the metal lathe. It worked, it was just pointed at one end and squared off at the other. I was planning to make a nicer one with a tapered inlet at the larger end that would allow different size rod sections to go into it a ways, so no chance of losing the little rings when they were slid off that end. Then a really, really simple solution hit me. Take the cap out of the end of a plain old stick pen. I did that and gave it a try. It's easy to slide the little rings up onto the writing end of the pin, and roll them up onto the main part. I can put several on there at a time. Slide a rod end into the body and roll the little rings off. Works really well. I still plan to make a couple different sized mandrels with a recess in one end for various size rods, but for the fly rod I'm currently working on, the pen body works pretty well.

To make things a bit easier for my eyes to align guides, I bent a piece of heavy wire at a 90 and, used a metal working hammer to flatten one end a bit. I can put an extra band on the end of a section, slide the flatter end of the wire under it, and sight down the rod from the other end and use the wire sticking up like a sight. Kind of a dumb, simple way to do it, but it seems to work for me so far. The little bands hold the guides so tightly that I can sight and position them, and they stay firmly enough to not move while I'm wrapping.

Hope that can help someone else, or inspire an even better idea.

Jeff,
I applaud you for your contribution to the cause = thank you!!! I have learned immensely from numerous people on this site, you are now included, who have unselfishly and graciously shared their knowledge and experiences simply to allow others to benefit. As you, I have felt obligated in returning the favor when stumbling on something that worked for me and shared it on the site. Do not allow the nay-sayers to contaminate your generosity = the first to complain are often the last to contribute.

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

Great solution, Jeff!

Is this like a wacky rig-ring tool of sorts? Would an aluminum tube (like you can find at hardware stores) work also? That taper at the roll-off end seems like a key element.

I am still using rubber bands and it works decent, but the bands tend to roll up when I slide them for fine positioning.

Jeff: I have long used eight or ten turns of fine-diameter elastic thread [found on spools in stores with sewing supplies] to locate and hold guides for permanent thread wraps. I can stretch and wind elastic thread over a guide foot and around any diameter of rod tube, then I tie half a square knot in the thread, pull the ends tight, and slide the guide/thread around until the guide is exactly where I want it. Then I pull the elastic thread tight and turn the overhand knot into a square knot, pull it closed tight, and trim the thread ends. [I don't have to mess with pushing sticky latex tubes up and down a rod blank.] The stretchy thread will allow me to move the guide around if I have to, but it still will hold the guide firmly in the spot where I want it. When my permanent guide wrapping have climbed about one-half way up the guide foot I touch the taut latex thread on the guide with the razor edge and elastic thread leaps off the blank and out of the way, allowing me to finish the guide wraps and secure the tag end of the guide-wrap thread. I find it easy to adjust and put the guide in exactly the right position on the blank and hold it there until the guide wrap is completed - with no battles moving sticky surgical tubing around on the blank.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2022 03:02PM by Phil Ewanicki.

Leslie Cline Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Great solution, Jeff!
>
> Is this like a wacky rig-ring tool of sorts? Would
> an aluminum tube (like you can find at hardware
> stores) work also? That taper at the roll-off end
> seems like a key element.
>
> I am still using rubber bands and it works decent,
> but the bands tend to roll up when I slide them
> for fine positioning.

It's funny you mention the wacky rig tool, as that was part of my inspiration. An aluminum tube could work if you could get one end to a point small enough to roll the bands on. That is why I was turning a solid round piece to a point at one end to easily roll the band on. I was thinking of drilling a tapered recess in the other end to allow a variety of different rod sections to fit in, and maybe do a few of them to cover most of the sizes. I got to thinking this morning that I may have been over thinking it, and going with wood dowels, turned to a point at one end with a recess in the other end may be faster to make. I'll give that a try one day this week.

Overall, I really like the small bands made from the 1/16" ID rubber tubing on the smaller rod sections. They hold the guides, even very small fly rod snake guides, very firmly, yet when lining them up, they can be moved with some effort. I have cut them narrow enough so that I can get quite a few wraps onto a foot before I have to cut the band on that side. It seems like the rubber tubing I got is even more stretchy, and stronger than the dental bands. I may end up getting tubing in a couple other sizes and make some larger bands as well, instead of using the dental bands. I briefly tried heat shrink tubing as well, but still like the bands better.

Phil Ewanicki Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jeff: I have long used eight or ten turns of
> fine-diameter elastic thread [found on spools in
> stores with sewing supplies] to locate and hold
> guides for permanent thread wraps. I can stretch
> and wind elastic thread over a guide foot and
> around any diameter of rod tube, then I tie half a
> square knot in the thread, pull the ends tight,
> and slide the guide/thread around until the guide
> is exactly where I want it. Then I pull the
> elastic thread tight and turn the overhand knot
> into a square knot, pull it closed tight, and trim
> the thread ends. [I don't have to mess with
> pushing sticky latex tubes up and down a rod
> blank.] The stretchy thread will allow me to move
> the guide around if I have to, but it still will
> hold the guide firmly in the spot where I want it.
> When my permanent guide wrapping have climbed
> about one-half way up the guide foot I touch the
> taut latex thread on the guides with the razor
> edge and elastic thread leaps off the blank and
> out of the way, allowing me to finish the guide
> wraps and secure the tag end of the guide-wrap
> thread. I find it easy to adjust and put the guide
> in exactly the right position on the blank and
> hold it there until the guide wrap is completed -
> with no battles moving sticky surgical tubing
> around on the blank.


I tried the elastic thread as well. I always have quite a bit of it on hand as we use it to help hold our sand shrimp on the hook when surf fishing. I may try it again in the future, but for me, the home made little bands seem to be working well. I'm extremely new at all of this, so I'm sure I'll end up revisiting a lot of ways to do things.

Jeff, a couple questions:

Is the 1/16 tubing anything special? How wide a band do you cut?

The I.D. of a stick pen is great for thin sections of blank; and as you mentioned, too skinny for sliding down a thicker rod blank to roll off a micro tube.
That's what you are saying about making the larger diameter 'tubes' with a tapered end, correct?

Your idea of the reverse-pliers was a good one, IMO: a tool to stretch a ring, slide it down where you wanted, and then drop it right there. No need for a tube? But then getting the pliers INSIDE a small ring to stretch it? Maybe not too hard.

I use 1/8" vinyl pinstripe tape from the automotive store. Stretches and holds pretty well.

Leslie Cline Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Jeff, a couple questions:
>
> Is the 1/16 tubing anything special? How wide a
> band do you cut?
>
> The I.D. of a stick pen is great for thin sections
> of blank; and as you mentioned, too skinny for
> sliding down a thicker rod blank to roll off a
> micro tube.
> That's what you are saying about making the larger
> diameter 'tubes' with a tapered end, correct?
>
> Your idea of the reverse-pliers was a good one,
> IMO: a tool to stretch a ring, slide it down where
> you wanted, and then drop it right there. No need
> for a tube? But then getting the pliers INSIDE a
> small ring to stretch it? Maybe not too hard.

I just ordered the 1/16" ID rubber tubing in a 3' section on Amazon. I've tried cutting the bands various widths, a bit wider for larger feet. The small ones are probably a bit under 1/8" wide. Yes, the pen body works fine for a range of smaller sections. I think what I am going to do for larger sections is use wood dowel material and turn one end to a rather sharp point, and bore the other end so it can slide a ways onto a rod section. I'll bevel the edges on the rod end to help the bands slide off.

The small pliers with the bend at the end worked pretty well, especially after I ground the ends a bit smaller to make sliding the bands on easier. Though when spread open it obviously made a rather oval shape of the band, it was easy enough to get it slid onto a rod section. It was getting the rings onto the pliers that was a bit of a challenge, and it worked best one at a time. With a mandrel, even a pen body when it works, you can roll several bands onto the body of the mandrel at a time, and then slide them off one at a time.

Greg D Harbin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I use 1/8" vinyl pinstripe tape from the
> automotive store. Stretches and holds pretty
> well.


That's a great idea. I hadn't thought of pinstripe tape. I cut some colored vinyl electrical tape into thinner strips and tried that, but I bet pinstripe tape would be about ideal.

O-rings are the way to go.

Here is what I use [mudhole.com] If you look at the link you will see that it comes in 4 sizes. There is a chart near the bottom of the page that tells you the size range each size covers.

You can cut it to any width you like. It works awesome.

And Jeff ...... I certainly don't want to discourage coming up with ways of doing things, but ....... you're rolling them onto the thing you made. Why not just roll them onto the blank?

When I am ready to start placing guides, the first thing I do is cut the various pieces of tube I need for the number of guides I may need. I slide and roll all of the pieces onto the blank, then put on my tip top. Then I put the rod in my hand wrapper, hang enough weight to deflect the blank 1/3 its' total length, from the frame of the tip top. I do the 1/3 the blank's total length because I do an IP and AA check for the blank before I start placing guides. I like knowing how powerful and what the action is for the blanks I build on for reference purposes on down the road.

Anyhow........ I just do my static load placement and I'm done. The tubing makes sliding guides up and down the blank pretty easy, and if you use the proper size it will hold the guides secure enough to do some light test casting.

David Baylor Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here is what I use
> [mudhole.com]
> sid=05a904559&_ss=r If you look at the link you
> will see that it comes in 4 sizes. There is a
> chart near the bottom of the page that tells you
> the size range each size covers.
>
> You can cut it to any width you like. It works
> awesome.
>
> And Jeff ...... I certainly don't want to
> discourage coming up with ways of doing things,
> but ....... you're rolling them onto the thing you
> made. Why not just roll them onto the blank?
>
> When I am ready to start placing guides, the first
> thing I do is cut the various pieces of tube I
> need for the number of guides I may need. I slide
> and roll all of the pieces onto the blank, then
> put on my tip top. Then I put the rod in my hand
> wrapper, hang enough weight to deflect the blank
> 1/3 its' total length, from the frame of the tip
> top. I do the 1/3 the blank's total length because
> I do an IP and AA check for the blank before I
> start placing guides. I like knowing how powerful
> and what the action is for the blanks I build on
> for reference purposes on down the road.
>
> Anyhow........ I just do my static load placement
> and I'm done. The tubing makes sliding guides up
> and down the blank pretty easy, and if you use the
> proper size it will hold the guides secure enough
> to do some light test casting.

The tubing that Mudhole sells looks similar to the tubing I purchased. There is no way to roll the 1/16" ID tubing onto most rod sections, unless you assembled the rod and rolled them all on from the tip prior to putting the tip top on. On something like a 9' fly rod that would be a lot of rolling the small bands a long ways. To avoid that you either need a tool to spready the small bands open, or a mandrel type. Personally, I'd rather go that route than roll the little bands all the way down a long blank.

Jeff, I get what you're saying. I passed over the fact that you were building multiple piece rods where the individual ends would be so large. My apologies. And yes the pen idea is a good one.

Have you considered one of the tubes bass fisherman use for wacky rigging worms n such, with O rings? I have a two that are different sizes. One that has probably a 5/16" ID, the other about a 1/2" ID. I can't remember how much they cost, but they were very inexpensive.