Well, you have been given a lot of good advice, options and opinions from experienced rod builders. The great thing is that now you can take that advice and meld it into your own custom preference, which is the beauty of rod making.

Tom published this one a long time ago, and it remains totally relevant. [www.rodbuilding.org]

Also, for some perspective, a 5 weight line has a diameter of about .05 inches, or .66 mm. A size 1 guide has an inside diameter of about .2 inches or 5.06 mm. Thus you could fit about 7 1/2 5wt fly lines side by side within a size 1 guide. A 5 wt fly line's cross-sectional area is about 1.27 square mm. The area within a size 1 guide is about 20.11 sq. mm. Thus you could fit up to 15 5wt fly lines within a size 1 guide.
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Bottom line, for fly line alone, a size 1/0 or 1 guide will be just fine with a 5 wt line. It is all about enabling your desired knot or connection to easily fit through the circumference of the guide. Unless you have some really fat knots, size 1/0 or 1 is not an issue. When you get to size 2, and really to size 1 or 1/0 for a 4-6 wt rod, it is really more about the size aesthetics you prefer and not about function.

I own a factory built TFO TiCrX 5 weight 9 foot rod that has enormous guides on it, almost to the point of being ridiculous.

When it comes to guides, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or should I say rod holder.

Ben Lori Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> George Christman Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----

> If you happen to know, how is the weight comparing
> between T-LKWTG and the T2-KWTG?
>
> When reading that you've bought the sexyloop blank
> and working with torzite guides I presume you're
> trying your best to get long distance cast?
>
> I have never seen the Arowana tip-top. Maybe you
> had a chance to compare with the PAC-BAY CFT or
> CFTXL?

The T2-LKWTG 16 weighs 0.95grams
The T2-LKWTG 10 weighs 0.4 grams
I do not have a KWTG but I know the Cerecoil 16 is lighter than the KW and a Cerecoil 16 weighs 1.25 grams so The LKW must be quite a bit lighter than the KW.

Arowana tips are Fuji's KGTT torzite tip to match their KTTG. It is also available in a T2 finish but hard to source. They are typically lighter than the PacBay wire tips.

Yes, I'm trying to get the best distance I can because most of my saltwater fishing benefits from it, but I think any gain from component choice is too small to be meaningful. How far one casts is far more dependent on eliminating casting flaws than on blank or component choice. I very much enjoy the HT6 and recommend it highly. I've spent well over a thousand hours practicing and fishing with it.
The HT4 is also a beautiful casting rod.
I'm no longer a fan of REC wire guides, however. And that is based on fishing a bunch of rods (both built and bought) that used them. I think they add more friction than other style guides. This is not of huge consequence when shooting line on delivery, but when extending line on a backcast, hauling on delivery, or fighting powerful fast running fish I find their limitations are very apparent. They also wear very quickly if you do a lot of practice casting over grass.......which I do.

While it like Rec guides, and their bend-back-to-shape feature is a good one, they do make a certain noise or harmonic with many lines, which I don't like.

I agree that guides and hardware will not have a huge effect on casting for most anglers but, by the rule of physics, and perhaps noticeable to a good caster and his rod's performance, there will be a benefit from good guides that offer less friction. Similar to how you will notice how much better your line casts after cleaning and dressing it, though not that dramatic.

A brilliant master fly rod maker and great tester of guides is Akos of the Stickman rod company. Here is his blog on guides: [www.stickmanrods.com]

He also has written that casting on grass can rapidly affect guide wear, and if you look on SA's web page it implores people not to cast on grass. The natural organic materials in and on grass, in addition to the fertilizers, weed killers and other chemical agents, are not good for fly lines, and are not good for guides either. In a different forum, Akos has demonstrated how that in a several hour session on grass he was wearing a groove into certain guides.

Mattias, if you're not confused after all this conflicting advice, you are a better man than I.

I will only add one more confusing, conflicting, comment-While I am a big fan of Fuji, I can see no reason for spending extra money on Torzite for fly rod guides.