Need Advice On Rod Blanks: Are They The Same Until Guides Are Added?

[Walleye Guy]

Is a rod blank universal until the guides are installed or are rod blanks built unique for casting & spinning (ie a particular side must face up).

Quick back story: I'm working on fixing up a few old Garcia Conolon rods as some of you may remember from past posts.  I'm at the point now where I am going to get the guides replaced on rod #2148 (see attached pdf).  In it's stock form it's an 8' spinning rod but since the handle is round...like a broomstick (ie no casting trigger)...and almost the guides are smashed I'd like to convert the rod to a casting rod by simply swapping the spinning guides with casting guides. 

My question to the experts is this: does the rod blank care if I do this?  Someone said to me that the rod blank might have a spine so one side needs to face up. 

I also own rod #2159 (10' casting) also shown in the attached pdf, which looks just like rod 2148 except it's 2' longer and is a casting rod.

I have located original guides that match the guides on #2159 rod so my goal when I was done was that the #2148 rod would be a "little brother" of the #2159 rod because it has the same color scheme, same chrome handle, same cork, etc.

The #2159 rod is gorgeous with the chrome handle, chrome plated guides, brown color scheme and a tungsten "Carboloy" tip-top.

Here are the specs of the #2148 rod that I'd like to convert from spinning to casting:

Conolon 2148 (Spinning, 8', Two-Piece, Medium Action, 15-25 Lb Test Line, 1-4 Oz Lure Weight, Four Hard Chromed SS Guides/Braced Stripper, Ceramic Conoglide Tip-Top)

Thanks in advance!

[JasonGotaProblem]

I've turned many a spinning rod into casting rods. Most rods do have a spine. And many folks have a definite preference for which side of the spine faces the water (i find discussion of up vs down gets confusing fast when spinners and casters are both being discussed so I just refer to it as whether "hard" or "soft" side faces the water). Some folks like the hard side to face the water to add more strength fighting the fish. But that's at the expense of casting power. So some folks have the soft side to the water to aide casting at the expense of fighting power. Lots of blanks also have an innate curve or slight bend to them. Many folks will ignore the spine in favor of building with the curve facing down or up so it's not noticeable.

Also I came to realize that I throw most my casts underhand/sideways so putting the hard side towards the water doesn't help or hurt me for casting either way.

And casting rods don't "need" a trigger. Lots of folks hate the trigger. Some even grind them off. If it were me. Is determine whether I need to replace the reel seat based on
1. How good of condition is it, will it likely need replacement in the future, even the distant future? if so do it before you attach guides.
2. Does your intended reel fit securely in the seat? Some reel feet are too big or too small for certain seats, if the reel you wanna use doesn't fit or isnt comfortable in hand with that configuration, well you have your answer.

[Gfish]

Interested to see responses. All I know is there is supposed to be a spine. One way only? Or two ways?

Typing while Jason posted. He has the experience.

[jurelometer]

Jason has some good advice.   I will just add some detail.

It looks to me like there are sort of two questions here:

First on "universal" blanks.   Manufacturers typically use the same blank for spinning and conventional, but the performance will be different.  Switching an existing rod is common, and folk seem to usually be satisfied with the result, but not always. The source of the unhappiness  is usually not from the blank being the "wrong" type, just that the performance is now different.

Why the performance is different: With a spinning rod, the line contact with the guides is farther from the blank, there are usually fewer guides, and the bottom  guide is usually farther from  reel seat.  Plus the load comes from  pulling  on the inside of the bend instead of pushing from the outside.  This means that the same blank will be loaded differently when built for spinning vs. conventional. Spinning rods usually tend to be less able to load the butt half of the blank.

More guides at different locations are needed for a conventional build because the line is on the outside of the bend and you need to keep the line from rubbing on the blank when winding under load. Also,the spool is closer to the blank, which affects lower guide placement.   In your case, this could make for a cosmetic issue, as you might not be able to re-wrap over the original wrap locations.

Second question: Regarding the spine, it is not hugely important.  Some rod builders ignore the spine, believing it is more important to align the guides with straightest plane (any hook or dogleg should be aligned with the guides, not splaying out to the side).  However, the general consensus is that the spine should be on the same plane as the guides. This is considered most important.  Secondly, the consensus is that the guides should go on the inside of the bend that you find when spining the blank, but there is some debate.

Finally, the spine happens where the glass cloth edge overlap makes the blank wall a tiny bit thicker, but this overlap point will move around going down the blank. It is not a straight  line down the blank like a zipper. So the spine you are finding is sort of cumulative effect anyways. At any given guide wrap, the localized spine is probably not centered.

Realistically, most of us won't notice a misaligned spine, and you are leaving zero to little performance on the table if you put the guides on the less desirable side (whatever that is) of the spine. If you want to decide for yourself, you can temporarily wrap the rod with the spine both ways. Just duct tape a reel to the seat and take a few practice casts.

You can check the spine right now, and you may find that spine is not perfectly centered with the factory wraps.  This is common on production rods.

A good overview on blank spines from Gary Loomis:

https://youtu.be/nswGj68Ygfk?si=1dVhD4gEzu0n_kBN


-J

[JasonGotaProblem]

And then there's the effect of the guides on the perception of the spine. This is an anecdote from back when I cared a lot more about such things. Take it for what it's worth. I had a rod that I was considering rebuilding (I did) and I checked the spine with the guides installed. I was impressed to find it perfectly in line. Cool. I'd leave the reel seat as is. Then I pulled all the guides. Just on a whim I checked the spine again. It came up 90° away from the seat and former guide orientation. Wow. So clearly the guides had an effect. I ended up cutting the seat off and was glad I did because I found a cardboard arbor that was poorly affixed and I'm glad I replaced it. But that's another tangent.

[Swami805]

Rod blanks are universal can be spinning or casting. If you roll one on something flat you'll see they're not straight   I like to build them to follow the curve of the blank and most times that will be on the spline. When it's not on the spline I follow the curve anyway since it would look goofy if it didn't   I don't think the spline is all that important but some will disagree. Pretty much everyone will eyeball a rod by looking down from the handle to see it the guides are straight, if they veer off to one side they won't be happy spline or no spline

[oc1]

If you are replacing the guides but not the reel seat there is not much choice.  The guides will have to be aligned with the reel seat.  If you have striped the rod completely, cutting off the reel seat and cork, then see advice above.

I think you will find that the Conolon (NARMCO) does not have the snappiness (is that a word) of a modern rod.  They were not as snappy coming from the factory owing to the materials and were more prone to getting softer with use.  To my taste, some of the other classic tobacco rod manufacturers were much better; especially California Tackle, St. Croix and Silaflex.

[steelfish]

Rod blanks are universal can be spinning or casting. If you roll one on something flat you'll see they're not straight  I like to build them to follow the curve of the blank and most times that will be on the spline. When it's not on the spline I follow the curve anyway since it would look goofy if it didn't  I don't think the spline is all that important but some will disagree. Pretty much everyone will eyeball a rod by looking down from the handle to see it the guides are straight, if they veer off to one side they won't be happy spline or no spline

Words from a man (and master rodsmith) that had built hundreds of fishing rods.


I have nothing more to add.

[happyhooker]

Blanks are not "universal" in the sense that they are all exactly alike.  I think we all know this.  You can round up, say, a graphite casting rod that advertises itself as medium action (whatever that means), handling 6 to 15 lb. test line and chucking 1/4 to 1/2 oz, lures, and a graphite spinning rod with exactly the same claims, and, yet, you can look at each rod and see that the blanks are not the same at all (i.e. thicker at the butt, thinner at the tip, etc.) My own feeling is that you can pick, say, a casting rod, take off all the guides, then replace them with spinning-type guides (in the appropriate position relative to the handle) and you will end up with a spinning rod that will be quite close (but maybe not exact) in use characteristics to the casting rod you started out with.  I myself have "rebuilt" any number of casting rods to spinning rods and found the end product to be quite similar to the casting rod I started out with.

As for blank spine, you can read all the opinions on it and will find in the end that they are all over the map.  I have always looked for the spine and duly placed my guides accordingly, and can say I have never come up with a stinker in the end.  That being said, I maybe could've skipped this step and still had no issues.  With conversions from spinner to casting and vice versa, as has been said, if you aren't going to change the handle, you are pretty limited as to where you can place your guides.  If you try out the rod as it originally was built and it suggests no issues that might be related to the spine, I have not found issues to arise later, even though a swap from one style of rod to another will require guide placement on the opposite side (180 degrees) of where they were originally.

Frank 

[oldmanjoe]

All good advice so far .  My way of think /doing is tape the guides on with strips of masking tape and do all the load and casting tests .        Don't be afraid of moving guides up and down or adding more guides .    You will be around 10 guides to start with plus the tip top.
    While you are playing , try and switch reels from bait to spin  .    I have a dual purpose stick that works for me with eather reel , especially if you like braided line , for line flow with a smaller stripper guide

[Cor]

I have changed rods in any manner you can think off, perhaps not turned it around completely back to front
The reason is that firstly I like working on things and specially improving them to suit me.  Because it is often experimental I work like oldmanjoe does, make a change with minimum disruption and cosmetic work, go test it, make adjustments and eventually rebuild.
Spines on blanks are sometimes hardly noticeable, and I build the rod guides on either side, depending on the rod strength.

Bear in mind that I have many years of fishing in a particular manner under my belt and sometimes the benefits (or disadvantage) of a change is only noticeable to me.

This (below) was probably one of my most unique builds.   I urgently needed a new rod for a specific purpose but could not find the blank I wanted, so bought a Spinning reel rod that had the specs I could work with.
I only use conventional reels, seated at the reer, so the first thing I did was to fit a second reel seat at the back and went fishing like that for a few times.

( continued 10 May 25)
I had to go and read up my building notes and could not get to it, important fishing and chores had to be done first!

The rod was 10ft6 when I purchased it.   After changing the reel seat I went to fish it and found it a "pleasant" rod but lacking some casting strength.   I needed to use a casting weight around 100 gr  and it felt too weak.   I shortened the tip by 9.5 cm, that made the rod a little stiffer and improved the cast.   I note I also lengthened the but by 5 cm.   I replaced some of the guides but never did a proper realignment.    I also removed the old reel seat and fixed the but a year later.

I leave what is good enough alone, and am still fishing it like that and its a very successful rod, for the small fish I target with it.  I can cast 110 gr carefully with it. 

Is now 11 years old and may be in for it's first proper re build shortly.

[Walleye Guy]

So much good information in these responses, thank-you to everyone who has responded.

I'm sort of a purist when it comes to restoring something so normally I wouldn't convert a classic rod like this but, like I said, almost all of the guides are smashed and I already have a Conolon 8-1/2 spinning rod (#2145, not shown on the pdf) and an 8' casting version would fit in better when I go trolling for salmon on my coworker's boat.

Jason: this rod does not have a trigger and the reel seat is in perfect condition except the chrome needs a good polishing.  The 10' rod (which I've been using while trolling for salmon on a coworker's boat) has the same handle.  I don't know the technical term but it's just round and there is no trigger.  The 8' rod which I want to convert has the same style handle...same cork, same chrome, same everything, it's just a little shorter.  Also, GREAT point on verifying if my reel fits into the reel seat.  I will verify that as soon as I get a few free minutes to run out to the barn.

Jurelometer: good point on different spacing between casting guides and spinning guides.  I'm hoping that the casting guides can go in the same place so that there aren't any cosmetic issues.  I'll discuss this with the guy who will be doing the rewrapping.

Swami: you're correct, I'd prefer the guides to all align in a straight line regardless of spine or no spine. 

Sensei: GOOD POINT, I didn't think about that.  I don't plan on replacing the reel seat so the rod spine is irrelevant.

On a related note, what is a stripper guide?

[Brewcrafter]

On a related note, what is a stripper guide?

General term for the first guide up from the reel seat. I think its' origins are from the fly rod community (where "stripping" line is part of the technique/mystique/voodoo) but will look to wiser minds to verify. - john

[oldmanjoe]

Stripper guide is the first guide on the stick .  John  beat me to the post!!

[oc1]

The guy doing the wrapping will be used to modern guide placement.  Modern rods usually have more guides and put more effort into minimizing line rubbing on the rod under stress.  So, if you want the original guide placement be sure to tell him beforehand.  He can probably match the original wrapping pattern and color too.

Also, the exposed areas of the blank will have bleached out a little over the years and the rod color under the existing guides will be a little darker.  If the guide positions are changed you will see a shadow of the old guide positions.

The original guide placement was for a casting/surf rod.  You will be using it as a trolling rod. We can now argue about which benefits the most from a modern guide placement; casting or trolling.