been quiet in here (pics)

[thedude]

IFS904 ( 7'6") flipping stick - traditional wrap



IMB843 Frog rod (spiral wrapped)



CB70M Med/lite crankbait/spinner bait rod (spiral wrapped)


St. Croix 3c68MXF - Drop shot/ shakey head special



alconites and acsm reelseats. used an AmTak aero baitcasting reel seat on the DS rod, upside down and backwards... works great!

[Cheetam]

Nice!

[Cy]

What are you doing?  It's not rod building season...it's fishing season!

Rods look awesome!

[thedude]

i know! had to get them done... took me forever.. waiting on this that and the next thing... 8 more blanks waiting for fall... or whenever else i need to escape my wife

[Cy]

Wait until you have kids, if you do, there is no escape!  You find yourself praying they go to bed early! 

[dashaver63]

Dude, since you build rods, I have a question. What are the advantages to have the spiral rod guides? I had a boater in a Stren event that was using a rod with spiral guides. Just wondering.

[thedude]

there's a subtle bit of contention over what it really does on a bass rod... i think the overall consensus, however, is that if you're building a custom rod, why not pull out all the stops? it doesn't cost anything extra to wrap a rod that way so why not.

Anyway - on big game and surf rods, its pretty clear to see when fighting a big fish on a traditional wrap, the rod twists to the point that the tip is close to being 180* upside down.. just from the weight of the fish. That adds additional torque at the grip to keep the reel upright as the natural behavior of the rod is to flip over... creating fatigue and so on. Wrapping the guides to the bottom relieves this... like on a spinning rod.

That is the primary performance advantage.. it also helps keeping your line from wrapping around the tip of the rod. In my personal experience i feel they are more sensitive - i think it stems from the line hanging on the guides rather than resting on the blank - just my experience though.

Another advantage is that you can use smaller and fewer guides to reduce the overall weight of the rod. I typically wrap mine using 4 double foot guides and the rest size 6 single foots... which saves a few 1/4 ozs  when dealing with longer rods that use 9 or 10 guides.

my next rod is going to be a pool-cue flipping stick for myself and i'm going to do a spiral using 2 double foot guides and the rest size 3 micro guides... should weigh less than titanium guides or recoils.

[dashaver63]

Thanks for the info. Very interesting.