Touche Michael. I would still say that it is within the limits of the measuring device. You certainly don't have to go to the Vivona extreme to get close enough to 90 degrees. I also agree that it would be technically possible to have a blank with a flexible enough tip and enough power in the butt to get there within the 1/3 of the blank deflection. I'm sure if you took some of those very f
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I'm not sure Brett has concerns about the LZR guides, as much as he has interest in what others think. After not seeing much about them, I tried set (double foot 6 followed by single foots in 5 and 4s to the tip) on an MHX FP885 trimmed down to 7' from the butt, but it won't be fished for a while yet. The guides themselves seem on par with guides I've used from a variety of manufacturers on the
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I start off by making sure that I have the rod blank oriented with the guides down. Then I'll tie a little loop in some fishing line and slide on a 1/16-1/8 bullet weight and attach it to the tip top. Attach the loop to the tip top by sliding the loop part way through the tip top so the loop sticks out on one side of the ring and the weight is on the other side of the ring. Drop the weight thr
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Michael, I got your point, but I just had to give you a bit of a ribbing. You can get there with just about any blank before it fails. I remember some pics in the gallery from a few years back of Billy Vivona testing some blanks, possibly the Rod Geeks X-Comp blanks, using a 5 gallon bucket and a porch rail. Those blanks took loads and deflected to extremes I wouldn't have naively thought poss
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Michael, you can have the infinitely flexible tip, so long as the blank is massless and possesses infinite power, you fish with 'light' (massless) line targeting spherical fish, and use a Carnot engine to arrive at your fishing spot. Now, I'll apologize for the bad freshman physics world joke.
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This is a good mathematical quibble and the laws of physics say that getting to 90 degrees by deflecting a beam in the way described is impossible. You can get arbitrarily close, but never to 90 degrees. There are a few different ways to formulate this style of problem. With regard to a horizontal system, you can think of the classic strongman and the string problem. Regardless of how much
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Rod Geeks has a 5'6" UL 4pc in the Carbon 2 series that looks like it could be worth a look if you are willing to go a little shorter. You could get creative and use a detachable rear grip to push it out to 6'-6'2" if you really need the extra length.
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Ernie, The modern guide trains are based on a simple idea, get the line to the blank in a straight line quickly and then use small low framed guides to take the line to the tip top. The small low frame guides significantly reduce the mass added to the most flexible part of the blank and allow the blank to transfer energy to the load more efficiently for casting. By shaving off some weight, y
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Luc, you need to do what you need to do and work with components that you can get your hands on for a fair price. We get spoiled over here in the US with so many vendors offering free or low cost shipping with low to no minimum orders. If it means working with smaller Ti framed guides and being forced to tie tight clean knots, then so be it. With the lock wrap, I don't think you have much to
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Tony, what were you planning on using that blank for? It should make a nice blank for treble hook lures up to a half ounce. I'm thinking typical shallow to medium diving crank baits, smaller top waters (Zara puppy, torpedo, PopR, etc.). It should also handle swimming plastics on open hook jigs well up to a 1/4oz head plus the plastic. Basically, a great rod for catching numbers of fish on m
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Sounds like a plan. My 8 year old likes Mario and Sonic as well. The red blank will definitely limit the options significantly. About the best place to look for painted graphite blanks is Rod Geeks. It looks like you need to go to 4pc to get a 6' multi-piece L power blank, but they have a great color selection including red, and even two-tone for a Mario Sonic theme.
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Tim, those blanks are pretty decent. I have a couple of the IS561L model that I built as little casting rods meant to be used with little Zebco 33 reels by my wife and kids. They'll handle all sorts of little jigs, spinners and UL cranks. For a 6' Light power 2pc, Rainshadow has an option: Along that line, I use the Rainshadow SB720-4, a little 4pc 6' travel rod. It is a fantastic ro
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Luc, I like your flexibility and willingness to take open and honest advice. Fishing and building fishing rods are endeavors where people can become stuck in their ways. I personally tend to prefer Y frame spinning guides than the higher frame models. The reasons have as much to do with aesthetics as they do my line choice, but this also falls into the same logic as choosing 5mm guides for a b
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Practical in this sense means that chasing a spec and using a material that is touted as the lightest and best would be an indulgence. Stopping and thinking about what materials are available and choosing the ones that are will do the job without breaking the bank is a practical choice. I would never deny a friend or family member an indulgence on a build, but I do explain what I would choose and
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Luc, looks like you are settling in on a nice plan. The move to steel frames is a very practical choice and saves a good chunk of money. The 5mm guides make passing knots much easier, especially when using knots that double over the leader. With 4s and smaller, you need an FG knot that is tied and trimmed well. I use EVA if I want to add some color in the handle of the rod. It's an eas
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Mark, I'm pretty sure the majority of the bass and panfish rods I own would blow up if I tried to hang a weight from the tip equal to the max line rating, and most of them before I even got to the lower end of line rating. It has more to do with the intended use. In freshwater, we use stronger line than we need for abrasion resistance. A lot of bass crank bait rods have line ratings of 20 lb o
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Looks like a pretty good plan to me. One thing I would do is to order one or two more T-KTSG 4mm guides. I find that when I drop down to 4mm runners and below that I typically need the length in feet + guides. In this case that would be 9. People who are fussy about not letting the line touch the blank at all may use 10 - 12 guides. If the goal is to save weight, don't order EVA. It is
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Robert, I think your measurements are a little off, as it seems to recommend a Y frame 16 at 22" with a choke point at 40" (or something like a 16, 8 or 16, 10, 6 reduction train for Y frames). That seems a bit off, as that is even more aggressive than the KR guide train. For a typical 3000 sized reel, I would expect with NGC a 25, 16, 10, reduction train with Y frames and a choker a
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Paul, try this. The weight differences that you are talking about are similar to the weight differences between a micro guide train on a typical bass casting rod vs a traditionally sized guide train. To illustrate the difference, you can reason that the center of mass of the guide train, or thread wraps will be somewhere around 2/3 of the way up the blank from the butt. Take a raw blank, or ev
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Since it is an exposed blank seat, you choose the inside diameter that is closest to the outside diameter of the blank where the reel seat will be. It's best to err on the side of the seat being slightly smaller in ID and reaming for a final fit than it is to get one with an ID that is too big that results in a sloppy fit. I haven't worked with the Alps MVT, but since it actually contains carbo
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If a little is good, a lot must better, that seems to be the rule of thumb for glue, duct tape, and explosives. That said, I don't think you are missing much. The advice about mating surfaces here: applies just as well to tip tops. Thin adhesive joints are best.
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Robert, The GPS software is not a guide placement software in the same sense as the KR calculator for setting ups the whole guide train. What the GPS does is sets up a line that points along the shaft of the reel and finds the location from the end of the spool shaft where the top of each guide intersects that line. It is up to you to determine which guides will work in your reduction trai
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Brett, braid was fairly prevalent when the NGC was developed, but the NGC was a technique designed for all types of lines. Through experimentation and folks attempting to push the limits of what is possible, people realized that when working with light braid that the limits could be pushed significantly further. Fuji developed the KR system which is intended to work on rods using light mono and
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I have one of the adjustable ones, assuming that the dimensions of the flare are similar on the nonadjustable ones, to get down to 10 inches, you will have to cut from both ends. I have about 1.5" at the butt ben before the taper starts, and about 1" at the reel seat end before the taper starts. This much of a trim might get to the point where it affects the ergonomics of the handle.
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Personally I find the Y frame guides more aesthetically pleasing than the tall frame match or KR style guides. So, I tend to use the Ys on my spinning builds (Alps steel frames with aluminum oxide inserts). It's a personal preference, as there is nothing wrong with those guides and they can offer a little weight savings. Roger gives a couple good setups. However, I tend to opt for a 20Y, 10
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Derick, the late Bill Stevens was a big promoter of Seeker blanks for bass fishing. If you dig though his old posts clicking all dates, including him as an author and a few key words you will likely get some sound advice. If I recall, when you ream that 18mm seat, it is going to remove the majority of the material in the barrel of the threads and epoxy will seep through when, so you will need
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I had one of those rods years ago. It was probably about the 2nd or 3rd rod I ever bought with my own money. I loved the double trigger rhino reel seats. Thinking back on the blank, the action and power is not all that different from some of the heavier glass cranking blanks, and dang near bullet proof. But, man was that rod overbuilt. The guide set was better suited to an offshore rod. Som
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Roger, that is some good stuff, and a means of controlling voltage that never even crossed my mind. I'm pretty sure my electronic instrumentation professor back in the day would beat me over the head.
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Hi guys, thanks for the advice. The extra support of a bearing or bushing would certainly help things long term. I'm primarily a hobby builder, so my use case will fall in the range of 10s to low 100s of rods over the lifetime of the motor. So, it will likely stay as is. I got 8-10 years out of my cheap synchronous motors at my level of usage, so if I get that out of this one, I'll be happy.
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The rod that I use for small treble hook lures like you are using is a Rainshadow IP840, or as it is currently called the UL Revelation Popping blank. I use it mostly for casting little cranks like the smallest size Big-O and 1/32-1/16oz jigs with plastics for bass and panfish. Unfortunately it's not available in a 2-piece configuration. It's a fantastic blank, but I suspect that your choice o
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