guide spacing

[Dano_the_jigasaurus]

Does anyone know of charts, guidelines, or formulas for determining guide spacing for an 8'6" - 9' musky rod. I cannot find any spacings for rod this size, I have found 8' saltwater and fuji concept spacing, but I am not sure how to adjust the spacings for a longer rod.

thanks

dan

[Mike Wallace]

The way I do it may be unscientific, but I have confidence in it:

Put the guides where you think they should be, load the rod as if fighting a fish, and look to see if the guide placement will keep the line off the blank.

If the line stays off the blank, and it looks good to you, you will be okay.

With this method, I usually end up with more guides than I probably need, but I am confident that the loaded rod will perform the way it should. I did an 8'6" muskie rod and ended up with 9 + tip top. I spaced them (from the tip) 4.25, 8.75, 13.25, 17.75, 22.25, 27.75, 34.75, 44, and 55 (first guide was 27.5 from the middle of the reel seat).

This looked and felt good to me when I placed them and loaded it. Performed like it should have, too.

[harvey lee]

Yes, there are guide charts for spacing. E-mail me and I will send you the proper spacing.

[email protected]

[Wildabeast]

Take a look at a few back issues of Rod Maker. There is no magic formula for guide spacing and any published guide spacing should be taken as a suggested starting point. I determine guide spacing by dynamically loading the rod. The first (largest) guide I determine with the reel that will be used attached to the reel seat. From there you look at where the axis of the reel (mainly spinning) intersects the rod, that gives you a choke point. From the choke to the reel I follow the Fuji New Concept concept. From the choke point to the tip I use the smallest practical guides (usually single foot even on a Muskie Rod) out to the tip. Casting reels are handled in a similar manner with the first guide taking into account the width of the reel then rapidly moving down in size to get to the running guides. The running guides are placed by following the trace of the loaded rod. Depending on the rod blank you may need more guides or less than the usual 1 guide per foot of rod length. For example, I have a couple of x-fast blanks I use for bottom bouncing walleyes. The spacing on most of the rod is very wide, but towards the tip where the x-fast action takes over the guides are spaced quite close together. Looks a little strange at first but is perfect for the particular blank.

[upnorth]

If you are building a casting rod I would very seriously consider a spiral wrap. If you are familiar with it is where you take 3 guides to make a transition from the top of the rod to the bottom of the rod like a spinning rod. Couple of benefits are, you need less guides($$ and weight) more comfortable as the rod does not want to rotate in your hand and easier on the rod when you fight a fish.

The big thing is that the line always wants to go to the bottom of the rod and will twist both the rod and your wrist in an attempt to get there.

Here is chart, I know it only goes to 7' but you will need to add one or 2 guides and adjust the spacing accordingly. Mainly the 1st guide from the reel would go about 24" inches from the center of the reel seat. And if you look the last few guides from the tip towards the seat they add about an inch per guide.

[Dano_the_jigasaurus]

Upnorth,

The spiral wrap is a sweet idea. How do you know how much to offset the guides?

I am not following your chart either does it have guide size on it in addition to the the space? turnover (from center?)

thanks

dan

[so haaad]

Do a Web search for static guide placement.

[upnorth]

Dano, there is no hard and fast rule on the transition. I have done 2 and started the 1st guide about slightly off center about 15 degress and the next one about close to the center of rod and 3rd about 15 degrees short of the 180 degrees point. From the point forward the guides would be on the bottom. If you already havea similar reel as you plan on using in the seat and string the line and just be sure the line doesn't rub or bind in any way.

The chart shows both the distance and the size of the guide. The top number is the guide size, but that is subjective. I don't necessarily follow and use as many smaller guides as possible and make the rod work to keep the weight in the tip area down.