I am making a spinning rod for someone that is asking for stainless one piece guides with no inserted ring. He is referring to the guides used on the Ugly Sticks. Does anyone have suggestions? Thanks in advance.

American Tackle Vortes and TI Forged both come ringless stainless.

Seaguide also has some stainless ring options. Haven't laid eyes on these but planning to order some here soon. Several options depending upon what you are looking for...

[rodbuilderswarehouse.com]

Utmost has them

I see this often coming from catfish anglers and striped bass anglers who are used to using Ugly Sticks or some of the Chinese container rods being marketed by numerous companies to the catfish community, trying to say their ceramic-less all stainless guides are better than ones with ceramics.

The issue is the comparison is to very cheap guides and its no wonder the ceramics break/fall out. Quality guides offered to the custom rod building community are a lot more robust than what I've seen in production big box rods - at least if you stay off the bottom price point guides. Also, the stainless guides used on a lot of those catfish rods are not the best quality and weld points break.

I guess what I'm saying is its worth doing some education to your customer on the quality points and options - and just because the catfish cult favorite rod of the week has these "all stainless" guides, does not mean its the best choice for them.

That said - if that's really what they want, there are quality options available to you - typically called "boat rod guides" - ie. in the Batson world it would be the Forecast HC/HCB (unbraced and braced) guides - stainless with hard chrome coating.

I 100% agree. Having a one piece guide with no insert to "fall out" is a marketing tactic by Ugly Stick. My hope is to make a quality rod with guides the customer wants while at the same time educating him on the quality of higher end guides. Maybe the next one he will be willing to try something else.

Thanks for everyone's help.

Monty

Michael, that was excellent advice. Well done !!!

If you watch the videos they always throw a big DF guide on the scale, the reason? When you throw the SF little guides on the difference matters much less, the smaller the guides the more you have to use on the scale during the test to get a reliable difference, than you have to do the math to get your real difference. When that happens in my book there is no real difference. When using micros you may need a sample set of twenty guide to get a relible, repeatable value.

For the typical non frequent fisherman, these is nothing wrong at all using stainless guides.

But, since much of the force on a guide during casting and catching fish - is on the tip top, a good compromise is to use stainless guides with a ceramic tip top of the material of your choice.

Best wishes.

For the typical non frequent fisherman, these is nothing wrong at all using stainless guides.

But, since much of the force on a guide during casting and catching fish - is on the tip top, a good compromise is to use stainless guides with a ceramic tip top of the material of your choice.

Best wishes.

I am with Roger I really don't think the guide ring material matters that much but the tip does and I believe a ceramic tip top will function better. A quality guide also matters, you don't want it to get a little stressed and have it break due to poor quality welds or construction. I would imagine that Ugly Sick got a lot of returned rods with cheap low quality ceramic guides that failed or the insert fell out and now they are using it in their add campaign.

The SSR guides by CRB and the Pac Bay Minima 4 guides have a double swagged stainless steel ring, I doubt if any fishing event could dislodge them, the only way the ring will fall out is if the frame breaks.

The tip does the most work and sees the most force, for that reason I always recommend a tip with a stainless frame and a quality ceramic ring.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2023 04:50PM by John DeMartini.

We have a limited supply of early USA made "Carboloy" ring tip tops and guides.
These have quality all stainless welded frames.
They will be listed on our "Hot Specials" page soon.

Best wishes,
Ron Schneider
Schneider's Rod Shop
Mountain Home, Arkansas
[www.schneidersrods.com]
mtnron40@yahoo.com
870-424-3381