Getting kinda bad.

[gstours]

In the last part of our salmon season I've gotten a chance to troll with some new people.   We were trolling along an a fella got a dandy strike and being a monofilament user he of course had to set the hook.
  The line broke and he was flustered 😫 of course and wanted to blame the knots.   After a while during a lull an inspection was made as the old rod had been used many years.   It amazed me that the fellow would continue to use it in this condition.   

[Wompus Cat]

Yep he needs to turn the Rod over and use a Spinning Reel > >>>>>>

[gstours]

As I offered to replace the guides ,  He comments that he knew it was getting kinda bad.
  A free total replacement is planned.    I've been helped by others and it was my turn to help others.🤷‍♂️😊

[David Hall]

Yep it's ready for a new life.  Good on you for helping a fellow fisherman in distresss.  You can give that old rod another 10-20 years depending on how well he takes care of it.

[Bill B]

Ohana at work...good thing is anything you do will be an improvement.  Bill

[oc1]

The poster child for grooved guides.  That rod must have seen some stuff.  Is it solid glass or tubular?

[oldmanjoe]

   Yep the favorite stick needs the guides turned , I mean replaced  .........

[JasonGotaProblem]

I've gone on record that ive never seen a rod with grooved guides, or even heard of specific examples.

I guess I can't say "never" anymore. I even took a screenshot.

So thank you for that. I guess it's not 100% fuji marketing BS after all.

[gstours]

👌,  ok,  the rod is solid glass, sorta pale, sunbleached lite green in color, hypalon foregrip and the buttcap had been missing for many years.   It is a skiff rod, by western coastal standards.
  Yes I even volunteered to lube the Longbeach reel.    It's a great little winter indoor project.🎣
Hopefully it will get many more years of good service and keep the memories coming......

[jurelometer]

I've gone on record that ive never seen a rod with grooved guides, or even heard of specific examples.

I guess I can't say "never" anymore. I even took a screenshot.

So thank you for that. I guess it's not 100% fuji marketing BS after all.

Don't turn off th BS detector just yet.  These are not ceramic rings.

"Groovy" metal rings are quite common.  Especially  cheap chrome plated brass, but also stainless rings.   Back in the days before ceramic guides, folks in the know would routinely check  guides on larger saltwater rods for less visible grooves  (but I have forgotten what the trick is).   I found my first set of grooved all-metal  guides when  reloading a rod/reel that had  frayed mono.  The new line frayed while loading (duh).   The grooves in the guides were not visible to the naked eye. 

If have seen plenty of rings as bad as the one in Gary's photo.  I expect that with the sinker sizes  and current speeds encountered up there  in Alaska , worn metal rings are pretty common.

Plenty of cracked ceramic rings in my life, but have yet to see a grooved ceramic ring, live or in a photo.  Try scraping some sandpaper on a ceramic ring of a guide that you are going to toss.  The stuff is amazingly  hard.  I think somebody here (Keith?) mentioned  seeing wear in some very early  first generation ceramics.

I think that there might be some argument that braid (especially coated braid), can theoretically  pick up fine grit from being  pulled  through silt, and roughen up the ceramic ring surface a small amount.   The guide companies claim that the the harder (and more expensive) ceramic rings will resist scratching  better, but even the cheapest modern ceramics are so hard that I am skeptical that there is a practical difference.

The guide companies tout the difference in hardness and smoothness of high end  vs low end ceramics, but have a lot less  (i.e.,  nothing) to say about  actual measurable perfomance differences or real life degradation of either.

-J

[Cuttyhunker]

I've only ever seen the tiptop grooved like that using SS or monel wire trolling for stripers as a kid on Cuttyhunk.  I remember some of the groove depths were twice the diameter of the wire   The switch was to rollers or carballoy tips. 

[Jeri]

A good many years ago I built myself a boat rod hoping to double use for mono and stranded wire line, and initially built with ceramic lined guides, which ended up heavily grooved from the wire. Changed to Aftco rollers and it cured the problem. It was so long ago, that I can't even remember whether they were Fuji or not, but they certainly grooved and wrecked a holiday deep fishing with nylon.

Seen a lot of metal guides grooved with braids, even those ones with the thin sliver of stainless as an insert. For now, all braid rods will have higher end ceramic inserts.

[oc1]

I'm using Spectra with stainless insert guides and will be proud if I can ever make a groove of my own.

They say to drag a cotton ball or piece of nylon stocking through the guide to highlight a crack or groove.

[jurelometer]

I'm using Spectra with stainless insert guides and will be proud if I can ever make a groove of my own.

They say to drag a cotton ball or piece of nylon stocking through the guide to highlight a crack or groove.

That was the trick. Thanks.

If you want to wear out some metal rings, you need to wind under heavy load.  It was more of a problem for larger saltwater rods.  

And I never knew of the existence of  the wind-on multistrand wire that Jeri mentioned. Can't imangine anything rougher on guides than that stuff  on a trolling rod.

Always learning something new here.

-J

[philaroman]

one of the oldies I bought, had braided copper on it...  finally makes sense