I have been building with CRB LZR guides, and they have worked well so far. With the recent NFC sale, I ordered a C6O2 725 blank and I've been entertaining the idea of using a titanium guide train on it to take advantage of the reduced weight and try to avoid having the blank be tip-heavy. I don't know much about the titanium guides that are out there, other than they are pretty pricey, and I am curious as to whether the juice is worth the squeeze. I do not care about looks or bragging rights, just performance, balance, and weight savings.

Anyone have any advice or points of criticism over the current titanium offerings out there?

Planned application will be largemouth utility (junk fishing) rod. Mostly swim jigs, spinnerbaits, T-rigs, etc. I will be doing a spiral wrap, FWIW.

Titanium will save you some weight but it will be minuscule due to the fact that most use much smaller guides these days so none of the guides out there weigh very much in such small sizes. To me you'd never realize a practical difference on that rod between a quality steel guide set and the same in titanium. Now if you are looking for something that won't rust when used in harsh salt or brackish water environments, then the Ti guides make sense. In the end, only you can decide if the additional cost is worth it.

.....................

Whether the juice is worth the squeeze is going to be up to you. There will definitely be a weight savings going from the CBR LZR guides, to Fuji titanium framed guides. Exactly how much, I can't say. I don't have any of the LZR guides on hand to weigh, and I've only used one set of the LZR guides, and that was on a spinning rod. I didn't weigh them to compare them to the weight of a Fuji guide of the same size, but the LZRs had beefier guide feet, so I'd guess that they weighed more than a comparable Fuji.

Here is a link to a post of mine where I list the weights of titanium frame guides versus the same size SS frame guides. The guides are for spinning rod builds I'll be doing. While the reduction train weights are worthless for your application, the running guides weights will at least give you an idea of weight difference between the two frame materials. [www.rodbuilding.org]

The post directly below that one is another post you might want to check out as well. I compare prices of SS versus titanium guide sets in it.

Anyhow ... is it worth it. The guides are going on a C6O2 blank. You owe it to the blank, and yourself, to put the lightest guides you can on it.

Yes they make a difference, whether it is worth it or not is totally up to you.

The recovery speed of a few blanks I've tested on TNF have shown a significant difference between SS and titanium running guides, fuji KB/KT size 4 if I remember correctly. So there is a measurable difference. As others have stated, none of the smaller guides weighs much, and whether you will see an improvement in performance or not is not for us to say. When I want to build the BEST, I use titanium. Fuji titanium.

For the type of fishing and the lures you use I don't see any advantage to switch to Titanium guides,

If you are building ultra light rods or exclusively fishing salt water then the Titanium guides would be a good choice.

To satisfy your curiosity buy the Titanium guides and decide for yourself if they are better. Biased opinions only add to the confusion.

My biased opinion is that Titanium guides offer better corrosion resistance and durability more than any enhanced performance claims.

Have fun

" The guides are going on a C6O2 blank. You owe it to the blank, and yourself, to put the lightest guides you can on it." If the blanks are as good as we are being told, I agree. I expect they are pretty darned good, and I would use titanium.

You can get a RV6 guide set for $55.00 and top for $10 from Japan

[]

The smaller the guides, the less difference there is in weight, the when you are in the 4 mm and smaller you have to use 20 guides of each to measure the difference reliabily. Where it is important at the tip, it isn't, depending on what you use.

Sorry to ask so many basic questions, but I started looking at Fuji's Ti guides on the Anglers Resource page, youTube, etc, trying to study what is what, and I have gone from being thoroughly confused to just pretty confused.

Looks like they have a few different frame versions of each guide, and their nomenclature is not exactly clear. Also, since the Torzite rings are a different ID, I'm not 100% sure which size rings I should get.

I found a set, "Titanium Frame TORZITE Ring T2 Casting Bass Set T2-LRVTG108," for sale, directly from Japan, but I'm not sure it has the ring sizes I need.
It says it includes eight guides: a T2-LRVTG in 10, 8, and 7; a T2-KBTG in 6 and 5.5, and three T2-KTTG in 5.5).

I will be doing a revolver spiral wrap. Should I be looking at maybe a 8-6-4-4... ring size setup instead of that set I found, or would a leader knot get hung up in a 4?



Sorry for all the questions.

I've never had a Torzite ringed guide in hand, but it is reported by others that the ID of a Torzite ring is about a half size larger than a comparably numbered SIC or Alconite ringed guide. So the ID of a Torzite #4 would have the same ID as a 4.5 in a T2 SIC ring.

I've never done a spiral wrap, but I have read many threads discussing them. From what I've read, you don't need that many different size guides. I'd imagine those that have done spiral wraps will offer advice on guide sizes and numbers, as well as possible positioning.

Interesting that you can find T2's with Torzite rings. From searches for that kind of animal, I am of the impression that they aren't available in to the US market, If you don't mind sharing, I'm curious as to what site you're going through to get them from Japan?

Fuji guides are of high quality, which are why they are preferred by many on this site. The K in K series guides stands for tangle free since they a frame with a forward sloping guide ring which help prevent line loops from tangling around the guide. This design has been copied by several other companies.
The guide set you mention (T2-LRVTG108) is a basic cone of flight (COF) set up, which contains 3 double foot RVL guides and 5 single foot KB and KT guides which gradually reduce in ring sizes. The RVL guides are low frame reverse position guides, which means the single leg is placed rearward. They only come with titanium frames, and T2 indices it’s a black titanium guide. RVL guides are normally used in COF and New Guide Concept (NGC) casting guide trains which are both non-micro guide setups. The KB guides are single foot guides with a tangle free frame and a long and wide foot. They were designed to be used in the midsection or ‘belly’ of the rod where the large foot better resist high midsection stress forces. KT guides have a smaller foot and were designed to be used in the ‘tip’ section of the rod where the stress forces are much less. The KB and KT guides are used as running guides for COF, NGC, and KR concepts. The KR concept was designed for use with braid and micro running guides. Hope this helps a little with your nomenclature confusion.
If I were building your rod I would use a KR concept. If you want to use titanium guides (T or T2) then use either an RV6 or KW10 butt guide, followed by either a KB5.5 or KW5.5 as the transition guide. These two guides are followed by your KB and KT running guides in the size of your choice (5.5, 5, 4.5, or 4), with a matching KG tip top. I mostly use size 5 or 4.5 runners. I would use at least two KB guides with the remaining runners being KT guides. For a 7’2” spiral rod I normally use 9 guides total. The unique RV6 guide is used exclusively as a high frame small ring kR casting butt guide. It only comes in a titanium frame.
I mostly use titanium guides on my saltwater rods. I have not really noticed a performance difference between titanium or stainless guides. With the exception of saltwater use, I’m not sure if the price difference is worth it.
Norm

Thanks Norm! That post helps me out a ton.

David, I'm not avoiding your question of where, but I wasn't sure if I would be breaking any forum rules by mentioning a non-sponsoring vendor.

Jason, I completely understand. I had actually thought it may be a no no as well, so no problem.

I build rods for inshore saltwater and almost always recommend CRB LZR, the 316 SS holds up really well. Quality 316 is good enough for the hardware on my boat, so it works for my rods. They all get rinsed anyway. I like the larger inner ring diameter of the LZR.

For such I high end blank I'd look at titanium, but the x-ray blanks I've built with fuji ti vs lzr have no noticeable difference in the way they fish. That doesn't mean there isn't a difference, but I cant tell.

With the amount of small quality guides out there, the layout and number of runners matters more than the slight difference in weight. A ti stripper costs the same amount as a complete LZR train, but it is a C602...

Give us a report after you've fished it some, I'd love to hear some feedback on those blanks.