I just wrapped a rod yesterday with a Fuji reduction train and a combination of KB and KT running guides. As per the recommendations of many, if not most contributors on this site, I decided to try using locking wraps on the runners. I do not know if I am doing anything wrong or missing something in my application of the wraps, but once completed do not look nearly as tight, neat and almost undetectable as articles suggest they do.

The main problem it seems is that those guides, and I would assume any other guides that sit on the blank as they do, sit snugly to the blank the entire length of the guide foot. The ring sits nearly at a right angle to the foot at the end of the guide, and also sits essentially dead on the blank. It seems those locking wraps look cosmetically best when one can sneak the thread UNDER the ring when executing the wrap. If unable to slip under the ring, the thread has to begin at the end of the guide foot, travel around the back of the guide, and then back to the previous wrapped thread. Failure to slip the thread under the ring results (in my hands anyway) in angular deviation of the thread which creates a small but readily noticeable triangular area of exposed blank at the back of the guide on either side of the ring.

Unfortunately, I don't think I can explain it better than I just tried to do. I'm sure there is someone out there who knows what I am talking about! :-) This phenomenon bugs me to no end, and I am just wondering if there is a fix for this or just something one needs to settle for if a locking wrap is employed on those tiny guides.

I use 3 loops of thread around the ring of the guides but do not often use the blocking wraps which are the ones causing your problem, and I've never had one pull out, so I think the loops do a pretty good job without the blocking wraps. You might try it this way and do some tugging on one before you apply finish, comparing it to one without the locking loops and see what you think.

I use the blocking wraps on the reduction guides which allow, as you state, the gap to be closed better.

@ERNIE - couple of quick questions:

Have you wrapped locking wraps before?

Have you ever had a guide pulled off of a rod while fishing without a locking wrap?

Building rods in MA, Building the community around the world

A locking wrap is probably not needed for the Fuji KB and KT guides, but I do them anyway on all single foot guides for nothing more than a little extra insurance. I wrap right up to the guide stem, then do one or two blocking wraps behind the guide, then two or three locking wraps around the the stem and then a final blocking wrap. The first blocking wraps are snugged up close to the guide to get rid of the gap. The blocking wraps give a straight base for the locking wraps. For me this eliminates the small gap you see at the edges of the guide foot. Bottom line is you can use a locking wrap on KB/KT guides without having a gap.
Norm

Thank you all for your responses. I have wrapped one other rod to date with KB/KT guides and locking wraps. Of course, I had similar results. I did fish with the aforementioned rod, but never in the least caught anything that might have challenged the guides in any way. So no....never had one pull out! :-)

NORM...you state that you wrap right up to the guide stem and place one or two blocking wraps first. I am assuming that these wraps DO NOT slip under the ring. I have found it impossible to make this happen with those particular guides. And breaking the thread trying resulted in some pretty interesting language. Essentially, if the thread WAS able to get under there, the problem we're speaking about would not exist I assume. With that, it seems to me that by your description of how you perform your locking wraps, you are getting right up to (maybe even on) the guide stem before attempting to go around the guide. I believe that I have been falling a little short of that, and so between the last wrap in front of the guide and the first either locking or blocking wrap, a gap is formed. Attempting to close that gap is futile.

I will try to get a little closer to and maybe even climb the guide stem for a turn which likely will close some of the gap right off the bat. Do your locking wraps sit nicely one on top of the other...ie...is there enough room up the stem, or do those locking wraps bunch up a bit?

Ernie, with the sequence that Norman describes, doing a couple blocking wraps before the loops around the ring, it may be that the thread from the loops over the ring are filling the gap. But try it without the blocking wraps and see what you find.

These guides are so low that the normal cause of pullout, jerking a rod out of a rod locker or something similar, is less likely than with higher guides. The barb on the KB's may help keep them in place too.

Enie,

The Fuji KB guides:
[mudhole.com]

With the design of the KB guides with its saw tooth foot, I see little reason to use a locking guide with these guides.
I do agree that a conventional locking wrap, really makes little sense with these guides.

If as others have done put a few blocking wraps past the guide foot in front of the ring makes sense.

But, with the design of the kb guides it is not reasonable nor sensible to put loops around the ringed part of the guide itself due to its compact design.

p.s.
One thing that I do with these guides is to prep them for a very thin front edge. I then also run the bottom of the guide foot along an arkansas stone to insure that the bottom of the guide is perfectly flat and to also thin out the edges a bit to make the toothed part of the guide to be even more functional.

Take care
Roger



Best wishes.

Never had a problem with the locking wraps with these guides. All the wraps are side by side without gaps. I think the secret is to wrap right up to the stem of the guide before doing the blocking and/or locking wraps behind the guide. If you don’t like the way it looks then don’t do the locking wrap and just finish it in the normal manner. As many have suggested, the locking wrap is certainly not needed. I do them because I like them, and they have become routine for me.
Norm

Forhan or locking wraps take a bit of practice. I just finished a 9 ft 6wt NFC fly rod and put on single foot Pac Bay guides. It takes practice and patience to learn where on the guide to being the locking wraps and how to slip the wraps behind the guide foot. It helps a lot if you have a rod building station with a tension for mechanism.. I do not have a tension rod, so I wind up removing the blank from the V-notches of wrapping station so I can manipulate the thread better. I also tighten down the tension on the spool before doing this to ensure I am making sufficiently tight wraps.

After about 3 or 4 guides I kind of got it down. But I am going to add a tension rod to my home made building station.

Alas, I never achieve absolute perfection. I use 4.5 KT runners and size C thread and do as Norm describes. I takes a bit of work to get the hang of it, and I don't always quite get it. We're talking about 6 wraps here. How bad can it look? I guess if it's that bad practice and experimentation are in order. You're still doing your best work by fighting against guide pullout. Now, would you rather have a guide pull out or have the tip break instead cause you wrapped it too well? It's a toss up at times.

The KB and KT guides have a double leg guide frame versus the single leg that Fuji's L guides have. For me, that is what presented the problem when doing a locking wrap, and not the rings height above the blank. Personally I have only used locking wraps on two of the rods I've built. Both of those rods using L guides as running guides. As others have said, locking wraps are a personal preference. Certainly they could help, but what would you have to be doing to your rod that would cause them to help?

I've got a friend who was using a slow pitch rod he had built on the last long range trip we were on. He had locking wraps on the guides. He's going to build another in the near future and asked my opinion on using locking wraps. In complete honesty I told him I had only built one casting rod with locking wraps, and they looked very good IMHO. But if he was going to use KB or KT guides I failed to see the necessity. I've built a lot of rods and maybe it is sheer luck, but I've never had a guide pull out, no matter what they were fishing for. The geometry of the guide feet on the KB's and KT's, even though the KT doesn't have as robust of an "arrowhead" should keep them in place. On the one rod that I made with locking wraps, I didn't use the Forhan method. Flex Coat has a method that they recommended that I found easier to use and more aesthetically pleasing.

I've never had a guide pull out. I've built a Gang of rods, and fished them all hard....both before and after I learned about Forhan locking wraps. Not saying my experience is the same for everyone else.

I understand and value the concept and do use the Forhan locking wraps every time. I do the same as Norman suggests. No issues I cannot live with. It is so easy, why not do it?

I think the pulled guide issue is more a product of impatient and forceful rod locker extractions with production rods. Though, I can say that I've never had a pulled guide with any production rod...I do not abuse my rods, either.

So, if a guide pulls, it could be because of many factors not related to the Forhan locking wrap: Too little thread tension, an impatient and muscled jerk from a rod locker, un-filled tunnels along the guide foot, a manufacturing misstep, or whatever. I'd still try to master the locking wrap because it makes sense to prevent a "first time" event. Easy and Cheap Insurance.

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