Degree wheel for spiral guides

[gstours]

I ran across this recently and thought as a free download its worth sharing.  Acid rod.com  on the left side bar has a Free "How to" help w ideas section.   There's a nifty degree wheel with instructions and options of how to position the rod blank accurately
for your planned spiral wrapping.
   Just saying.

[gstours]

Also at the very bottom of this page is a great, simple to understand article by Fugi for us all.
Static Load Positioning for Running Guide Placement

[happyhooker]

Nice info--worth a read for rod builders/rebuilders.

Frank

[boon]

As a random thing... I've noticed that many spiral rods just go straight into the twist... but if I look closely at a couple of high-end commercially produced rods, the second guide is actually clocked slightly past centre in the opposite direction to the spiral... that is, if the spiral goes left (looking from the butt) the second guide is slightly to the right. My understanding is that, when done correctly, this causes the line to align with the middle of the stripper guide, and prevents issues with off-centre line lay.

Any thoughts about this? I can take a photo of one of mine to illustrate, if that helps?

[Jeri]

A few years ago, we tried this on our long surf rods, and looking to have at least 3 or 4 guides out of the 9 we were using on a 14' long rod. We found that the most optimum starting point was to have the first guide just slightly off center to say 5 degrees, before embarking on the full spiral turn. This through our testing seemed to the best lone flow with casting, and got us into the turning guides as soon as possible.

The whole exercise became mute when nearly all our anglers changed over to braid and fixed spool reels, but we still have all the test results and schemes for possible changes in themes in the future, as the benefits of spiral wrapping, even on a long surf rod were immense.

[oc1]

If the stripping guidr is offset from the conventional spool then the line will want to bunch up on one side.  It's not completely unmanageable because you have to manipulate the line lay with a finger anyway.  But, if the stripping guide is in line with the spool there is more room for error when not paying much attention to line lay.
-steve