Fuji guides

[boon]

I would speculate that most of the time the insert gets cracked from an impact and then the halves pop out of the frame at the next opportune moment. Honestly better than a subtly cracked ring staying in place and fraying up your braid. I've seen a cracked Alconite cut 65lb braid like a well-sharpened knife when it got loaded up.

I'd kinda love to know how they make them. I loosely assume they produce the inserts separately and then somehow press them into the frames.

[jurelometer]

I would speculate that most of the time the insert gets cracked from an impact and then the halves pop out of the frame at the next opportune moment. Honestly better than a subtly cracked ring staying in place and fraying up your braid. I've seen a cracked Alconite cut 65lb braid like a well-sharpened knife when it got loaded up.

Agreed.

I'd kinda love to know how they make them. I loosely assume they produce the inserts separately and then somehow press them into the frames.

Ceramics are not elastic.  An interference fit won't work. You would just end up with pre-cracked guides.

From what I have read, high tech ceramic parts like these are made the same way with some minor variations.  A ceramic powder is mixed with a binding agent.  This is injected or compressed into a mold to form the shape.  The product is then sintered (essentially baked - at something like 250c) to offgas whatever is supposed to be vaporized, leaving behind the hardened part that can be polished or otherwise further processed.

The easiest way to do this for fishing rod guides is to make the ring first, and seat it into the frame with some sort of adhesive compound, but it looks like Fuji is now molding and sintering the ring around the frame for modern guides.

Take this with a grain of salt.  I can't find anything from a guide manufacturer to verify.  I am extrapolating from what I could find about similar ceramic products.

-J

[boon]

I'm almost certain it's not adhesive, having seen a few broken ones popped out.

I would wager they produce the rings and then fit the frames to them somehow. Whether they're doing some cleverness to stretch the frames over the ring (presumably involving temperatures) or fabricating the frame around the ring, I couldn't say.

[jurelometer]

I'm almost certain it's not adhesive, having seen a few broken ones popped out.

I would wager they produce the rings and then fit the frames to them somehow. Whether they're doing some cleverness to stretch the frames over the ring (presumably involving temperatures) or fabricating the frame around the ring, I couldn't say.

What I was suggesting is that they are fabricating the ring right on the frame.
All the other options seem implausible. It seems highly unlikely that they are going to be able to stretch and then compress the frame around the ring. Stainless steel is not that elastic, and reforming the shape around a brittle ceramic ring is going to be difficult.

Think of the ceramic as a specialized paste or clay that only has to get up to around 250c, since the product is sintered and not fired at super high temps like pottery in a kiln.   Should be doable on a finished stainless frame.


-J

[JasonGotaProblem]

Ok picture is worth a thousand words. This is what I THINK they do. Not what I KNOW. in theory they don't need to STRETCH the steel. Just roll it at the edges

[boon]

Ohhh that would make a bunch of sense. The Frames do seem to have some kind of groove in them.

[jurelometer]

[Edit:  just looked at a K-series guide.  The ring is approximately the same outer diameter on both sides. It looks to me like the ceramic clearly overlaps on the front (tip facing) side, but it is  possible that the other side has the frame roll/crimp]


Agree.  I think Jason has the most plausible theory.  But I think that they only roll the back
side. It would be easier, cleaner and would allow a larger ceramic
overhang on the side that needs it most.

It would also explain why the back side lip on the ring is so small.

This one was bothering me all day.  I was fishing and kept looking at my guides the whole time


Good sleuthing!

-J

[jurelometer]

These frames are cold forged from a cutout of flat stock.  Perhaps they slide the blank over the ring and the crimp is part of the forging process.  If somebody can get their hands on a broken guide, ideally with a chunk of the ring, we could probably nail this one down.

-J

[JasonGotaProblem]

I'll break a guide for science. No big deal. How do we want it broken?

[cbar45]

I can't find my Angler's Resource/Fuji catalog to reference, but here's a thread that touches on how their guides are made, ninth and tenth post down:

https://rodbuilding.org/read.php?2,477430

[jurelometer]

I'll break a guide for science. No big deal. How do we want it broken?

I don't think it matters. You aren't going to be able to grind out a clean cross section.

 But you could probably come up with a double duty test to also learn a bit about how hard it is to break a guide ring by whacking the guide.

I can't find my Angler's Resource/Fuji catalog to reference, but here's a thread that touches on how their guides are made, ninth and tenth post down:

https://rodbuilding.org/read.php?2,477430

Ooh-thanks!

This bit matches our most recent guess:


2) DEEP PRESSED design
Concept Guides™ feature a super-strong ring housing first introduced by Fuji® that offers unmatched protection to the
ring. The housing is similar to a shallow bowl with no bottom. The ring presses into the open "bottom" of the bowl and
the edge of the bowl "wraps" to protect the outside of the ring. The result is a ring that totally protected by the frame.


-J

[JasonGotaProblem]

See, I'm not always wrong. Just... Frequently.