How and what do you guys think about acid wraps

If you do a search, you’ll find quite a bit of discussion on the topic. Personally, I have not built one, but I find the concept interesting and the purported benefits quite plausible.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/26/2023 10:12AM by Daryl Ferguson.

Simply put, build one, fish one, and report on your results.

For myself, I have built many rods of this sort for others, but for myself, I simply prefer a conventional wrap.

If one is fishing with a heavy rod, with heavy line for off shore blue water fishing, it could make some sense.

But, even in that case, especially if one is using roller guides, the typical rod will still be built in a conventional fashion.

One place that does make a lot of sense is when one is fishing with a long bait casting rod that is relatively light in power and action - that the Acid, or Roberts wrap does do a nice job of moving the line to the underside of the rod, so that the constant pressure on the line causing line bend is always pulling from the underside of the rod which effectively reduces or eliminates twisting torque at the hands of the person holding the rod while the rod is loaded.

Best wishes

Daryl Ferguson Wrote:
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> If you do a search, you’ll find quite a bit of
> discussion on the topic. Personally, I have not
> built one, but I find the concept interesting and
> the purported benefits quite plausible.


The benefits are not only plausible, they are provable.

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Bob Jordan Wrote:
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> How and what do you guys think about acid wraps

Spend 10 minutes or so with this - [www.rodbuilding.org]

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I have built a number of them, and like Roger, prefer on top for my type of fishing. But it's all in my head. I use the "simple spiral" which is described in this forum a number of times, and it works just fine and as the name implies, it's simple. The more "sophisticated/complicated" methods, IMO, offer no functional advantages.

Spiral wraps work great! Removes all rod torque caused by having the reel on top of the rod.. This is especially true for saltwater rods used for catching big and powerful fish. For freshwater rods, rod torque is not as big a problem but it’s still there. In addition, spiral wrapped rods cast very well, with no real loss of distance. I was very skeptical when I first tried one, but was quickly convinced it was a winner.
Norm

I have used them and build them. Just was looking to see what your thoughts were. I really don’t see too much difference. I’ve been fish for a long time and my thumb works good on leveling the line. I do see it works with beginners, it keeps them from getting all the line on one side of the reel. As far as laying the rod on the gunnel, that’s not good for the rod. That’s my two cents.

Image you are by yourself, and you have a large fish ready to be boated, you reach out with your hand, gaff, or net and the fish is just out of your reach. If the rod is spiral wrapped the rod and reel will be stable in the upright position, not fighting you as you choke up on the rod to shorten the distance, it doesn't make a difference how heavy the reel is or where you have to grab the rod, you only have to worry about boating that fish.

Not sure what a spiral wrap has to do with line leveling. The idea is to eliminate the tendency of common guides-on-top rods to torque/twist when under load from a fish. Which they absolutely do.

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Bob Jordan Wrote:
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> How and what do you guys think about acid wraps


Reminds me of a guy who liked to go to Garage sales and occasionally would pick up a nice old glass rod like an old Fenwick about 8- 8 1/2' long and wanted me to fix any guides that needed it. We also would go on annual Albacore fishing trips, overnight-ers out of Westport, WA. His grown son always came too. One trip, I was taking a break in the charter cabin, getting old, and his son was there to and he asked me about the Spiral Wrap rod I brought to use. So I was explaining to him how it cut down on the torque. At that very moment looking out the window I could see his Dad playing an Albacore with one of those rods I had worked over. I said to the son, Chuck, look at your Dad's rod. The tiptop because of the torque was twisted around in excess of 135 degrees because of the torque from playing that fish. He was sold and asked me to build him one for "BLACK MOUTH" fishing. I lost track of him, but one day I happen to see him shopping in COSTCO and during our chat, he brought up that rod I built for him and said it was his favorite rod!

It helps beginners. Did you ever see a newbie use a conventional reel like a jigmaster or a 113H with out a line leveler ? The reel twist on them and the line goes all to one side. Sometimes so bad that they can’t reel the rest of the line in. Happens with kids also. They don’t know how to thumb it.

While SOME of the complicated spiral wraps have had problems reported with line loading to one side of the reel, doesn't happen with the simple spiral.

Spiral wrapped rods are a God-send, NOT a gimmick!!! They eliminate rod torque / twist which in turn eliminates wasted energy for / from the angler attempting to keep the rod in an upright position under load. In the heat-of-battle, most anglers do not even realize how much of their effort and strength is being wasted on countering the rod twist of a guides-on-top arrangement, and when fighting a large fish such as tuna, the angler needs to concentrate all his efforts on the pump-and-wind to land the fish (why waste it elsewhere?). Granted, the larger the fish = the more profound the benefits of a spiral warp are. Nonetheless, all of my conventional builds will be spiral wrapped from now on unless a customer specifically doesn’t want it. I have convinced quite a few customers to try the spiral wrap and every one of them has thanked me and will never purchase a guides-on-top rod again!
I agree with Tom in that I am not “sure what a spiral wrap has to do with line leveling”. That is totally dictated by the placement of the guides whether on the top or bottom of the rod.
While there are many different types / methods of spiral wrapping, they all achieve getting the line to the bottom of the rod. One thing which is consistent with all is that each builder is convinced that his or hers is the best! IMO, the most important things to consider are keeping the line path as straight as possible (both vertically and horizontally, loaded and unloaded), keeping the line off the blank and getting the line to the bottom as quickly as feasible to gain as much anti-twist as possible. After experimenting with different methods, I developed my own method which might be considered an abbreviated revolver (0, 60, 120, 180*) spiral. I position the butt and second guide equally offset from vertical so the line just misses (.060in) the blank with the third guide at 180*. Depending on the diameter of the blank, ring size and height of the guides, the butt and second guides are approximately 15* and 165*. The offset butt guide could cause line-stacking to one side of the spool but SO WHAT?!?! A perfectly centered butt guide will stack the line in the middle and still need to be thumbed / guided back-and-forth onto the spool! If a level-wind reel is employed, over 95% of the stacking will be eliminated anyway. In fact, with an offset butt guide and non-level-wind reel, the angler only needs to push the line across the spool and it will return automatically; it is much easier to push the line rather than pull it back so it's actually easier than a centered butt guide!
As usual, Roger’s comments are very good, except for one, “...especially if one is using roller guides, the typical rod will still be built in a conventional fashion”. There is only ONE company building roller guides for spiral wrapping = All American Roller Guides. They work beautifully and I have built 2 rods with them, and 2 others utilizing their design but with my own fabricated pivoting feet (one for me and the other for the owners of AARG, Steve and Laurie Gustlin).
Contrary to nay-sayers’ comments, a proper spiral wrap will NOT reduce casting distance. The only people who down-play spiral wraps are those who have not experienced one!

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

I did not say that line leveling had to do with the spiral wrap. What I said was that the spiral wrap helps the beginner having trouble with keeping his reel straight, Without a level wind reel. Because of the 180° turn , it helps them.
Beginners have trouble with their reels, maybe the weight, or thumb control ? They seem to turn the reel to the side and the line goes to the side of the reel on a conventional built jigging rod without the spiral wrap.

I'm trying out the acid wrap idea on my 9' Kunnan bait rod. Just added a little taller single foot guide just below the last guide on the butt section and about 30° to the right as I crank left handed with an Ambassadeur 5001C I bought in 1984. Rod at the same time. I strung the rod with the extra guide and played around with where to put it so the line wouldn't touch the blank as it went to the other side. Used some thick pliable grade SolarEz UV head cement on the wrap and looks as good as epoxy and no sitting here turning it for 2 hours by hand so may use that on the new fly rod I'm building. 30 sec zap with the UV and it was ready to fish.

The fish weren't biting so didn't get to see what it's like with some weight on it but it cast every bit as well with the 10lb mono I have on it. Thinking of spooling it with 15 or 20lb braid. 10lb braid works really well on my 9'6" spin rod but on one cast with a 5/8oz spoon on the line hit my finger on the way out and jerked the rod snapping the line. That's never happened with the 6lb mono I had on before and have used for 40 years like that.

That bait casting rig has hauled a lot of large salmon and steelhead in it's day and just a few dozen pike with one hitting 39" ten years back. I've yet to catch a walleye but the season isn't over yet and I've tied up a few jigs to try on them. The water has been really warm this summer but cooling off now with some nights just above freezing so they should be in a better mood now.

I don't understand how this could cause non-levelling reels to pile up on one side when your stripping guide stays in the same place it's always been and the 2nd guide can stay in line as well tho when a rod is built as a spiral wrap I think they have the 2nd guide off-centre to begin the spiral do they not?

I left the original two-foot guide on the rod just in case I want to use it the old-fashioned way again. :)

The Simple Spiral keeps the line traveling on a straighter path (just to one side of the blank) while some other systems take the line around the blank through a greater radius. On some strong pulling lures and with some wider baitcasting reels, this can cause line stacking to one side of the spool. I think several things have to conspire to make this happen, however, so I don't see this as any sort of drawback particular to spiral wrapped rods in general.

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Again, I agree with Tom,”things have to conspire to make this happen, [line-stacking] however, so I don't see this as any sort of drawback particular to spiral wrapped rods in general”. That is so true! Guides on top (conventional), guides on the bottom (spinning), guides transitioning from top to bottom (spiral wrapped) have no influence on “line-stacking” onto the reel spool! The positioning of the butt guide determines all of that! My method utilizes that butt guide offset / line-stacking to the angler’s benefit. But, to each his own.

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

For all of the spiral wrapped rods that I have built, I use three guides to get from the top to the underside of the rod.
I also offset the first guide at about 10 degrees in the same direction as the spiral.

As a result, I get essentially 0 line stacking on any reel that I have used with the spiral wrapped rods.

However, if I place the first guide at 0 degrees, I will inevitably get line stacking on the reel, unless I thumb over the line.

So, I am not particularly curious as to why the line stacks on the reel with the first guide at 0 degrees, I just off set the first guide and have no worries about the line stacking.

To each his / her own.

But, no doubt about it - a spiral wrapped rod does do what it is advertised to do. i.e. effectively eliminate rod twisting due to the force on the top side of a standard wrapped bait casting rod.

When placing the butt guide at 0° you’ll notice that the line will hug one side of the guide for 90% of the retrieve, causing the line to stack to one side. By offsetting the butt guide it reduces this effect 100% of the time.

I mostly fish for ditch pickles, but I also enjoy a spiral wrapped casting rod.