Good advice about guide foot prep from Michael Danek; I follow the same concept except I use 600 grit wet/dry paper to polish all filed edges and especially the tip and underside of the tip and edges. The idea of dragging the guide foot over the back of your thumbnail is spot on to pre-test for burrs and knife edges. (Ha! I have had a few tip-edges too sharp before and it cut or frayed my thread when wrapping.)

From the look of your photo, it appears the trouble is at the very tip of the dressed guide foot. There is probably a little downward-facing burr in that spot, IMO.

Like Norm, I have wondered the same thing about removing the protective coating by shaping the guide foot. Does it matter if the bare metal is under epoxy? Does epoxy seal it from corrosion? Sadly, I do little saltwater fishing where corrosion resistance is a major factor so I have minimal experience to share. Never had a guide foot rust under a wrap in freshwater....BUT, I have seen CHEAP HOOK KEEPERS rust merely from storage in a rod locker. Insert a shameless plug for Norm's homemade, titanium hook keepers here!)

I agree with John. If there is/are indeed a burr/burrs on the underside of the guide, sliding it in either direction will likely create scratches. But I have made the mistake of tapering the edges of guide feet so that they become razors. Sliding guides tightly pressed against the blank by any means with those razor-like edges may be OK (assuming no burrs on the underside) if you're sliding the guide with the edge opposite the travel of the guide. But if you do the same with the guide whose tapered edge is travelling edge first.....

Here is a random pic I found from in the photo section- I'd love to know if there was any discussion about it - I've seen a few people ask about painting blanks and the hydro dip for a whole blank sounds crazy. Would it affect sensitivity... wait... do we mean sensitivity like a cavity or a loose tooth?

Anyway, it's my understanding that Dropbox is a cloud storage platform and that's why using doesn't work. It only works when the url leads to an actual image that is available on the internet and not in a cloud server. The photo section here and other places like photo bucket actually store the images on the web vs in a cloud - which is why I could add the brackets to either end of the url for that pic and it moved it into the thread.

Other than that, using the apps can directly upload a photo which would essentially be hosted in the thread, so somebody could take that images url and add brackets to share it elsewhere without issue. But this way you only upload the photo and be done, rather than upload, copy, paste, add brackets...

As for burs on the bottom of guides, I've started doing a few rapid circles on some sandpaper. I'll be honest, I'm disappointed that a finished product isn't a finished product- why have builders accepted this? We should be able to purchase and use guides without our own QC to make sure they made a good product. Problem is many people fix up a guide and say these guides are great... well you deserve some credit for that if you had to sand and shape and debur etc. If the building community at large says that guides should have a shallower foot incline why doesn't a compay make those? If most people reshape the foot why aren't they manufactured with the right shape?

Anyway, these are just questions for the ether, until further notice just keep doing the QC and manufacturers finishing work and you'll be golden.

Building rods in MA, Building the community around the world



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2023 02:59PM by El Bolinger.

Try lifting the guide away from the blank a bit when repositioning. No reason to ever file a size 5 KT.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/24/2023 09:06PM by Lynn Behler.

I’ve been using similar bands from CRB for my last couple builds without issues. Lift the guide off the blank high enough not to scratch it. If the band falls off the foot, roll it back on. I’ll also use thin tape. To get ride of scratches you could try buffing with 2000 grit wet sandpaper… works on car clear coats.

I have to agree that the filing looks a little rough in that photo. As for whether or not the guide foot needs filed or not, as you can see, some feel it isn't necessary, while others evidently do. Count me in with the others that evidently do. I have dressed the foot on almost every guide I have have wrapped. The only ones I haven't are on the very first two rods I ever worked on, They were factory rods that I replaced the guides on. And had I known at the time that there is nothing wrong with dressing them, I would have dressed the feet on those guides as well. I even dress the feet on little KB and KT 4.5's It's not hard to do, it helps with getting the thread to climb the foot, and I think it looks better. Especially on larger size guides with thicker foot material.

I do as others have mentioned and make my final passes with sandpaper. I use 320 grit. As far as a marker to touch of a scratch on a blank, I don't see it working too well. It will be seen and it will wear off. The suggestion of moving the guide to cover up the one in the picture is a good one, but I personally would probably also move guides near it. Especially if they're running guides. But that's just me. I'm a stickler for what I want my line path to be.

Are the ligatures you're using too tight? Most likely so, but "cat tongue" finish on the rod blank (Point Blank's words, not mine) is what is really making it show. As far as what to use to hold them on, I like them on tight as well because I don't want an accidental light bump to change their position easily, so I use the tubing that Mud Hole sells. It comes in 4 sizes, and I just choose the size I think will work the best for the area of the blank the guide will be on. What I really like about the tubing is that I can not only choose different sizes, but I can cut it in different widths. Wider for longer feet, and narrower for shorter ones. I'll some times use two if I need to make sure the toe of the foot stays tight to the blank. I wrap under high thread tension and I will have thread slip under the toe at times. I really hate that, and it is a lot of the reason that I dress every guide foot, regardless of size.

Anyhow ..... lots of good advice given in prior posts, Choose what works for you.

Oh and I use black magic marker to touch up my guide feet, I predominantly use black size A thread, so I don't have a problem with bleed through. But I did have a problem with it bleeding through on some guides I wrapped with silver thread. But if you pack your wraps well, there is probably no real need to color it. As was mentioned earlier, the foot is under epoxy. I would think it would take a lot for the foot to corrode, even if a saltwater rod.

I replaced a couple guides on a rod for a friend last year that is a salt water rod. A Shakespeare Sturdy Stick, or something like that. lol The guide frames had corroded and broke right where they entered the wrap finish, but the guide feet were in perfect condition.

When you move a metal guide around on a rod blank while it's held too tightly to the blank, Dressed or not, it's gonna leave a mark.