Hi, I need some info, first why are rods spiral wrapped? Second why do some rods have more guides then others. As an example I see 7 ft. rods with 5, 7, or even 10 guides. I know its more expensive when using more guides. Is less guides better for casting? More guides better for hauling in big fish? Need to hear pro & cons on this from people who know rods. Also what is a acid wrapped rod? Rudy
Spiral wrapping eliminate rod torque and makes fighting a fish easier. With a conventional rod less eyes are needed on a stiffer rod.
Oh where do I begin. I'll respond when I get on a computer. Cannot type so much on this little phone.
Bryan, do you use spiral wraped rods? I fought it for years but after landing a 50lb-60lb rooster fish with one I now have 3, one my go to Pacific halibut rod.
Lee, no, I don't have one because my favorite fishing rods have aftco lite roller guides and I love those rods. But, I'll be making some rods in the future and they will probably be spiral.
Spiral - Helps give you leverage while fighting the fish as long as the guides spin opposite to the reel handle. The rod will want to twist isn that direction, and will counter the weight and force of the reel as you are winding.
Number of guides - I for one like a lot of guides as long as the wraps are not too long. This will help distribute the force across the blank equally. Too little guides will create greater stress angles on the blank that leads to breakage. I have yet had to repair any of the rods that I had build due to a break in the blank. I will place guide for each blank even though the blank is the same model from the manufacture. It's all about weight distribution and each blank is different like each person is different. This is one of the reasons I got out of wrapping rods professionally. Customer didn't understand why a set of 5 rods had different guide placements, and I will not wrap a rod with uniform guide placement based on the bend of one rod. Sorry rod wrappers, I know you do things to meet your customers' expectations, and understand what you go through, but I am not that type of rod wrapper. I'm sure your rods are not build in the same manner though.
Casting - for spinner reels and convention reel rods (not spiral), realistically, other than the guide placement, the guide heights are very important. My 6' ultralight rod, for example, had 7 guides plus the tip. All guides were extra high so the line coming off the reel barely touched the stripper guide. And once I got the guide placement, the line only touch (as far as I could see), the tip as I casted. No slap could be heard on the guides or the blank. My best cast on a football field was 50 yard using 1/2 oz and 2# main line from my Penn 420SS reel. All other store rods that I have, my best cast was 35-40 yards under the same conditions. Casting rods, on a full spool, if you string the line through the rod, I like th e line to only tough the tip of the rod with exception to the side to side touches as the line moves from side to side.
In short, after guide placemnet, it's guide height that will help or hurt your casting distance.
I really need to wrap a spiral to see how it will affect my casting distance. There is a guy up in Marin area I think that has developed a routing method that doesn't use guides until the line is on the underside of the blank. I'm dying to see his rods, but have yet to find it. It doesn't help that I cannot remember the maker's name.
My childhood best friends dad was a wrapper, I still have one of his rods. His rule always made sense to me, the line shouldn't touch the blank. We would put a blank under load and move the eyes around with masking tape to keep the line off the blank under as much bend as we dared. This seemed to give the rods really solid lifting power on halibut and catfish.
Ron
Ron, I've used the acid warped rods for a couple of seasons now. They in general do not come close to casting distance as well as a conventional rod. Now I don't build my own, so I'm at the mercy of what is available. I use them for jigging from the boat or possibly chunking bait. The twist is greatly reduced when in a prolonged fight or at least it seems that way. I recently purchased one of the rods from Alan (Black Pearl) on this site and for the money it looks like a very nice rod. I have yet to fish it, but I'm confident that it will hold up. I hope to get a couple trips with it this fall and can't wait to test it out. I do see the advantages of the spiral wrapped rods, but like everything else in life it's a balance.
Bob
It was my good fortune to meet an old man a while back. He is a wealth of knowledge. He has been building rods for many years. He has built acid wrapped rods that he can cast at least as far as a regular rod. If not farther. I do know that a spiral wrapped rod will cast as well as a regular rod if it is done right.
BTW. The turn acid wrap comes from someone saying "that person must have been on acid when he wrapped that rod". A spiral wrap does help in a long fight. Less so if a harness is used.
Bob
Bob
Maybe that's the problem with my casting...I'm just not old enough yet.
Bob
Spiral/Acid wrapping rods is nothing new it has come and gone several times since about the late 50's. I have used a couple and don't really notice a difference in the twisting effect some claim it helps to prevent over my standard wrapped rods. All rods by their nature have a spline/spine and if rods are wrapped correctly and are matched to the right reel twisting should not be a problem. Lee, you fish for cow sized tuna, how many acid wrapped rods do you see on cow rods? It is my thought that if there was in fact a advantage to a twisting effect this would be the place where it would pay off the best, on cow sized tuna and I would think Long Rangers hunting cows would use them more than standard wrapped rods. On boats I have been on and people that I know that do hunt big fish don't use acid rods on them but some do use them on smaller fish.
Also could someone that wraps spiral rods answer this, do you start your guides on or off the rods spline when wrapping?
Quote from: SoCalAngler on April 05, 2013, 06:15:54 AM
Lee, you fish for cow sized tuna, how many acid wrapped rods do you see on cow rods?
One, it was a Seeker 2x3.
Reviving this thread: I'm going to build a jigging rod for my 112HN. I'm thinking of doing a spiral wrap. The last time I built a spiral wrapped rod was in 1982. I don't remember much about it, and it was a plugging rod for a pro tour bass fisherman.
How do you start with guide placement?
I understand that you set the spine on the bottom of the rod as per usual. the casting eyes will be oriented correctly added so will the spinners.
Ronald
I've got two acid wrapped rods, both wrapped by J.Akuhed (Jim Racela) who came up with the term acid wrap. You get the stability benefits of a spinner using a conventional reel. Also called a spiral, Roberts or revolver wrap. My rods are both Seeker Black Steels... a G6480 and a G6470. It's nice to just fight the fish and not the rod too.
Hi Rudy,
I'll try to make this as straight forward as possible, rod building can be a huge number of compromises for different rod, and different people.
Spiral Wrapping: Basically each rod blank has a natural spiral in its construction – the spiral layers of carbon or glass. This does introduce a small internal spiral torque effect – depending on which direction a particular manufacturer wraps his blanks. Then when we build a rod, either spine up or spine down, there is a further desire within the rod blank to twist round to ease the direction of the spine. In a spine up rod, this effect is minimised. Add to all this the offset power being exerted by the reel (conventional only), there can be a significant twisting effect to be felt – hence the possible benefits on a rod that has been spiral wrapped. The true extent of these forces can really only be felt with quite heavy boat rods that are doing some heavy lifting – and as someone has pointed out, can very easily be reduced by using a rod belt with a gimbel.
In some cases, by using spine alignment - you can negate a lot of the twisting effect, when first building a rod. However, as spine alignment is rarely considered in any mass produced rods, it is why most custom rods will feel 'sweeter' than an identical factory built rod – getting the spine right for the design is a major issue. The rod with all the internal torque elements wants to pull round to the plane that is the easiest line for its internal structure – starting with a rod built with the spine to suit those internal torques builds a sweeter performing rod – build it on the opposite plane, and you will always have a rod fighting those internal torque issue.
Ring Spacing: The simplest schemes of spacing are basically a minimum number of rings so that the line follows the curve of the rod – when the rod is pulled over at near full working curve, and that the line doesn't touch the blank. However, and this is a big factor, there are numerous schemes and design ideas floating around now that change that earlier precept, as well as the size range of the guides. However, the original scheme does work exceptionally well for boat and heavy lifting rods. Another generalisation form the older schools of thought, is that fixed spool rods need less rings than conventional rods, as the reel is on the underside, however they (fixed spool) need larger guides to cope with the coils of line coming off the spool of the reel – this developed into the 'Cone of Flight' theory of guide placement, using the coils and working to gently and progressively reduce the coils in the line as they travel down the rod, to finally come out running in a straight line.
Casting Distance: We do a lot of work with distance issues on our rods, as we build a lot of surf rods, and distance is a major priority in the design, and we do build both conventional and fixed spool rods – so have developed some theories that work for us, and can equally be applied to some of the shorter designs of rod – boat casting or even rivers and the like. On fixed spool rods we use an adaptation of the Omura theory which basically uses high leg guides – which are sometimes called 'stand off', and use these very much like 'cone of flight', and that for a 12' surf rod will usually equate to about 6 guides, plus tip.
Just diverting a little at this point, there is a recent design theory which builds similar rods with 10 guides for a fixed spool reel, and we have been getting a serious number of these factory built rods though our workshop for rebuilds, in redesigning the guide layout back down to 6 guides, we are getting over 30% increase in distance. The 10 guide design is choking the smooth flow of line during the cast, by strangling the coils coming off the reel.
Onto Conventional rods, again there is a natural harmonic of line flow with the line coming off the reel during the cast, and our opinion is that it is best to work with this harmonic, rather than try in force it into some other flow pattern. Here you can now see why an 'acid wrapped' rod would not be able to work with the line harmonics for maximum distance casting. Our scheme of spacing for distance seems to add at last one extra guide over all the other designs that we see. Our most usual surf rods are 14' long, and built with the reel low down, we generally see rods coming from manufacturers and other custom rod builders with 7 or 8 guides, we nearly always end up with 9 or even 10 guides, and we certainly seem to get more distance – but then we also try to use slightly smaller guides than the norm, as guide weight can be a serious issue when looking at the performance of the blank, especially at the tip area, too many heavy guides and you kill the distance that might be achieved, through too much 'ring weight'.
Cost: You mentioned a possible cost implication. This is more to do with factory mass produced items where a factory might be producing 100's of rods per day, the unit cost of each rod will go up but the cost of guide, thread, resin and labour – however when building your own 'special', then the cost is nothing – except the difference between perfection and a rod that just 'does the job'.
So, in conclusion, a rod for fighting seriously heavy fish has spine alignment to suit, where as a rod for casting distance, might need the spine to be used on the opposite side to get maximum power into the cast. Here is the huge compromise in the design issue between the two priorities, and at times 'acid wrapping' can balance out some of the issues. We can't often get manufacturers to change the core problem of the clockwise or anti-clockwise wrapped blanks – we have to best work with what they are producing, and some will have this inherent issue in their build.
Hope that helps
Cheers from sunny Africa
Jeri
Hi Jeri, thank you for the very informative information. Its going to take me a while to absorb all of this but it will put me on the right track of what I want a rod to do for me. Again thank you very much, Rudy
Jeri, very informative!! Now it is very clear to me the theory behind the acid wrap rods. Some time ago Diawa put out a inter-line rod. The line goes up through the blank. I have one of these and have enjoyed fishing it in the past. The only problem I have with these is that they are a PITA. To line up. Line over 40# is not an issue but under that you need a special tool to line it up. They are excellent for boat fishing where distance is not as important on the cast( in most situations). Any insight on these?
Bob
Bob, that sounds like a Sabiki rod for bait fishing. They are still made & can be used with conventional or spinning reels. To load with light line just put a little split shot on the end of the line & drop it down the tube & hook up your sabiki rig & wind it into the tube so that it doesn't tangle. Rudy
Hi Bob,
Interlines!!!
Given that all blanks are built on a super smooth mandrel (mostly steel), as well as a very light coat of release agent, the inside of a rod blank is incredibly smooth. And in bait and lure type rods used on boats they could be very effective – however there is a serious down side.
All water has suspended particulate matter, and when this is drawn into the blank, it acts like a very fine grinding paste, which does eventually start to groove the carbon or glass of the inside of the blank – and once that starts – just wait for the line cuts and breaks to occur with frequency. The fact that the line is running in and out over the entire length of the inside of the blank, is also going to cause a lot of friction – another problem under which all lines suffer – both nylons and braids.
With more traditional rods built with guides we have gone through huge developments from original chrome plated steel rings and then all the various ceramic inserts. The value of the ceramic inserts is that they are incredible smooth and dissipate heat very well. Some of the earlier 'softer' ceramics that were around early days were prone to grooving with either steel lines or braid – though on close inspection they tended to not be quality rings, and this like all our reel components (bearings, lubricants, drag washers), there is a quality issue and where a product might be made.
There are basically 3 companies globally that I know of that truly make their rings outside China, and the biggest and most obvious is Fuji. They make superb ceramics for their rings, and even with the lowest grade of Aluminium Oxide, they will sustain protracted braid use and never groove. However, the rest despite many of the companies being based in USA, are actually made in China, and there lies the problem – the quality of the ceramic inserts.
There is also a lot of hype about the friction capabilities of various ceramics, and quite honestly the differences are so small, that unless you are continually catching super high speed fish like Sailfish or Wahoo, there is little benefit of one grade over the other. I am currently repairing 11 rods from a lodge in Angola, and they are all fitted with aluminium oxide rings – and these rods have literally seen hundreds of Marlin and Tarpon, and still none of the rings are grooved, some have broken rings and I'll be replacing them with Fujis.
So, back to interlines; the hardness factor of the inside of a carbon fibre tube, is way lower than any of the ceramics that are available in rings, so there will be wear issues inside the rod basically from the first fish you catch.
A point in closing, before everyone goes looking at their rods – Fuji actually stamp their name on their rings – few other companies do – it is because they are proud of the quality of their product – and justifiably so – in my humble opinion, we use nothing else, as our reputation rides on the final performance of the rod we build.
A tip for getting thinner line through – just super glue the thin line onto a length of 50lb, and it pushes straight through, then cut the super glue joint.
Hope that helps
Cheers from sunny Africa
Jeri
Good points jeri? I never even thought about the wear on the inside of those interline rods. The salt water has to have an adverse effect in such that it wears quickly. I was under the impression they used some type of spiral guide or special coating. I don't use mine much anymore. I have also tried the heavier line super glued to the lighter running line. In a word a "hassle". That's the main reason I don't use them any more. Now that you have further informed of the "wear" factor I can tell you this won't be used much. Anyone want to buy ana interline rod....CHEAP! :D
Thanks, Bob
Bob, did you read reply #17 above. If the rod is flared at the tip like a funnel then it is a sabiki bait rod. Rudy
Hi All,
Interlines have been used as sabiki rods for quite a while, and for this purpose they would serve very well, but in other styles of fishing they do have issues - you just have to accept the limitations of some products.
We never siad that tackle manufacturers were going to sell you something that would last for ever???
Cheers from sunny Africa - well th sun is going down now.
Jeri
I know a fellow who came across some of the interlink surf rods, he uses an Abu 6500 and it flies
I use three interlines: Daiwa Sealine Interline 10-30lbs, 20-50lbs and this one Daiwa Sealine SL-XB561XHF
The best I ever fished in Norway.
I've gone away from using what some refer to as the spine/spline or whatever and build on the straightest axis. Good article on Rodbuilding.org that covers that idea after reading it and going to build a blank class at Lamiglas and seeing that several trapazoid shaped pieces of material are rolled around a round tapered cone. I've also noticed when I used to try and find it a blank can have more than one sweet spot and many times not on the straight axis.
Also on the side for the transition guide, I generally put them on the same side as the reel handle so the rod can be laid down not on the transition guide since it is generally the smallest guide on the rod. I've noticed no difference in reduction on torque.
Keta was a tough nut to crack. I had to let him borrow on of my rods to convince him.
Also when working with customers who are skeptical, I suggest to them that we wrap it spiral and they go fish it for a while and if they don't like the way it fishes bring it back and I'll re-wrap it. Nobody has taken me up on that yet.
There really is no right or wrong way to build a rod as long as you don't create flat spots due to errors in guide spacing, so if you've got a process you and your customers like that is what counts
Spiral wraps: eliminates rod torque, which usually isn't a problem, especially w. smaller conventional rods, but tall guides under a lot of pressure want to fold over, rather like a dog led by a leash, (the line), hope that makes sense. The worse it is the taller the guides and more the pressure. Rods have more or less guides than others because they are designed to do different things than others. A stiff unlimited class rod doesn't need as many guides as a whippy Tarpon rod, because it doesn't bend. The more bend, the more guides needed, unless you are using tall guides, but rod torque is an issue then :-\. That's why test bending your blank is so important. You need to know how and how much the blank bends in order to determine guide placement and the number of them. Hope that helps ;). cheers
I've built a few hundred rods, mostly conventional. I'm not saying this to hold myself out as an expert, but rather to describe a system that worked for me.
I would build the handle and give it at least 48 hours for the epoxy in the reel seat to dry. Then I would tape on the guides, mount a reel and string the guides.
I would tie off the line to something solid (ripped a doorknob off once; don't use your bedroom doorknob with a locked down drag). Then I would put as much flex into the rod as I could handle, while making sure that the line didn't touch the blank anywhere, moving and adding guides as needed.
Sometimes I found that I could remove guides if my spacing was optimal.
Taking it to the next level would require going out and casting the rod, while fine-tuning the guide placement. It honestly never occurred to me to do this, but I've read about it on rodbuilder.org. Like I said, I don't consider myself an expert, just experienced with a system that I found satisfactory to me and my customers.
Quote from: floating doc on October 22, 2013, 02:59:58 AM
I've built a few hundred rods, mostly conventional. I'm not saying this to hold myself out as an expert, but rather to describe a system that worked for me.
I would build the handle and give it at least 48 hours for the epoxy in the reel seat to dry. Then I would tape on the guides, mount a reel and string the guides.
I would tie off the line to something solid (ripped a doorknob off once; don't use your bedroom doorknob with a locked down drag). Then I would put as much flex into the rod as I could handle, while making sure that the line didn't touch the blank anywhere, moving and adding guides as needed.
Sometimes I found that I could remove guides if my spacing was optimal.
Taking it to the next level would require going out and casting the rod, while fine-tuning the guide placement. It honestly never occurred to me to do this, but I've read about it on rodbuilder.org. Like I said, I don't consider myself an expert, just experienced with a system that I found satisfactory to me and my customers.
I do something simular, but I have a jig mounted on a wall in the shot that holds the handle. In the reel seat I use another jig that has various size reel spools marked on it. I use dental rubber bands to hold the guides and run a line from the reel seat thought the guides to the tip. On that line I hand a 1oz ball. I take a second line and attach to the tip top only and run that down to my anchor. Pulling on that line flexes the blank, and move guides accordingly, pull some more and adjust the guides, I do this until the tip is pointing straight down.
That's a nice system. I never was that well equipped, and I was pretty transient during most of the years that I was building rods.
Hi Guys,
In looking at some of the replies, it seems that there is almost a need for a tutorial about how rod blanks are made, and this might help cover some of the findings that some folks are coming across.
'WeSeekHer' – difficulty in finding 'spine'.
Rod blanks, especially carbon/graphite rods usually have a base wrapping of fine glass fibre scrim to give the blank 'hoop strength' – to stop the tube from collapsing on itself when the rod bends. This scrim layer is then followed by several layers of carbon cloth, and in more complex blank designs, this can be followed by further layers of differing strength carbon to give strength to differing areas of the rod – stiff butts, powerful mid sections, etc.
What happens in good production factories, is that as each layer ends, they start the next material at exactly the same point, and wrap each layer of material in 'whole layers', such that the entire circle is wrapped in the same number of layers. A bit like wrapping a piece of paper around a pencil – and covering the pencil with 5 wraps – at one point, at the start and finish point of all the wraps, there is actually 6 layers for a very small area. This is the spine!!!! It will inevitably be stronger/stiffer than the rest of the wrapped area.
In the case of mass production, many companies don't have the precision of wrapping that would be theoretically desirable, and different layers are overlapped or joins on different materials are less than perfect. This is when there appears to be more than one spine, and is usually the sign of a speedily produced blank, where quality control is taking second place to quantity.
Your multiple trapezoidal layers are not getting aligned perfectly during the wrapping process, overlaps or gaps will inevitably result in multiple spines appearing.
Another huge cause of blanks with an inherent desire to twist, is if the last layer or wrap doesn't end up perfectly straight down the line of the blank, but ends up at some other angle. This then pre-loads the blank to a desire to twist under pressure. Lastly, a point to note, is that none of these defects can be seen with the naked eye – you just find them through testing of the blanks. If we come across a supplier of blanks that offers this kind of product, that will be the last time we will use their product.
As said earlier, on rods with a definite spine, and the direction of rolling of the layers (clockwise or anti-clockwise when viewed from the butt end), the 'torque effect' can be designed out by the rod builder – it has nothing to do with height of guides. That said on a poorly made blank, with no regard to spine in its build, high guides might well just exaggerate an existing problem.
Acid Wrapping could be considered a suitable solution on rods that have less than perfectly made blanks. A point worth considering is that only rods for use with conventional reels appear to have the problems that you are experiencing – why don't the same torque problems appear on rods with a fixed spool reel???
If you were to build your conventional reel rods with the spine orientated such that the 'soft' side is down (non rings), then you would have no torque issues, as the rod would in all fish fighting situations be always bending to the line/direction of the least resistance – so the rod would actually be balancing itself, without the need for spiral wrapping of the rings.
We get this factor a lot in the surf rods that we build, as they are very critically functioning in both 'soft' and 'stiff' planes – casting and fish fighting – and any problems like the torque effect would be hugely magnified, as we are using such very long rods, and the majority are just one piece. Get the spine wrong in a 14' long pole, and the torque effect that you mention, would be severely magnified, almost to the point where rods would be pulling round so much in the cast, that it would be near impossible to cast straight, or in the extreme case of severely powerful casting styles actually destroy the blank in the cast. We never have these problems as we build 'on spine'.
Getting back to the more conventional shorter rods that the majority of you guys are using – if the rods were built so that the 'soft' side was down (opposite the rings), then all the torque factor would be eliminated. The biggest problem with a lot of rods is that they aren't built with this consideration, and as soon as the reel seat is glued into position – in any one of 360 possible variations, there is every probability that 359 will be less than perfect, which is why if you were to pick up 10 identical rods from any particular manufacturer, you would find a lot of fine variation in the perceived action and response. The problem in the factories, is that they just don't have time to spend an additional 10 minutes finding the spine on every rod they make, as the total production time of their rods is usually only 20-25 minutes per rod.
Guide Spacing.
This is a huge 'can of worms', and rather than go into the multitude of different theories, the 'pull to curve' method works, as well as 'test casting', however a lot of these theories start and develop in one branch of the sport of fishing, and then are instant assumed to be 'the' theory that works with all other branches of the sport. What they are not taking into consideration, is the vast variations in actual rod blank actions that are available for any given length of rod. In our own work with surf rods, we have just come up with a guide system for one particular blank – 14' long that only needs 5 guides to maximise performance, while a previous design of 14' blank required a minimum of 6 or 7 guides to realise maximum performance. Both blanks were designed initially under the 'pull to curve' method, pulling the blank round fully to 90 degrees – don't try that with all rod blanks please!!!
The fact is that once you have found a particular spacing scheme and number of guides for one particular blank design/model, keep it on file, but don't take it for certain that a similar rod will be the same.
The point of an earlier contribution about harmonics of the line coming off the reel with conventional reels, is very critical with any form of casting rod. The line comes off the reel in an upward arc, which is then pulled down towards the rod by the first ring – this is the start of a sine wave of line action, as the line progresses along the length of the rod. The frequency of the sine wave is actually reducing until it is to all effect straight – but to ignore that first development of the sine wave of line coming off the reel is a mistake, and here the actual size of the reel makes a lot of difference in spacing of the first guide. By working with the sine wave principle, we get superior casting distances, way over any of our competitors, and we are talking in casting distances of in excess of 4-500 feet!
There is a lot of science that we all accept in the reels that we use, and the engineering tolerances – why do folks believe that there isn't that much or more in the rods that they are using?
Hope this hasn't been too confusing – we have over the last 30 years that I have been building rods, found that there are no quick answers, or that previous schemes will work. That isn't in anyway a brag – but an admission that we are still learning new things and approaches to how good rods can be built; we still haven't come up with a single scheme that works for everything – and there is a need to continually learn.
'Dynamo', I would very respectfully suggest that there are no 'global answers or statements' when it comes to the design of rods. 'Unlimited' rods are not designed to bend to 90 degrees, if they were because the fishing situation dictated so, then many more guides would be necessary – probably as many as on a high class Bass rod – up to 10 or 11 guides?
In final question this discussion about 'spiral wrapped' rods – if it is the ultimate solution and offers so many benefits –why haven't all the main manufacturers started building their rods in this fashion?? – Or it is it just a solution to a poor blank?
Cheers from sunny Africa
Jeri