Spirals & Guides Ques

[Out-Station]

G'day all. Looking for some advice on guides and spirals. I'm building a 6 foot bottom basher at the moment (late xmas present for brother!). I actually have this same rod already as a conventional overhead, it has 7 guides + tip so goes with the old overhead rule of one guide for every foot + 1 + tip. It needs to be said that this blank is avery fast blank and it took allot of work on the spacings to get by with 7 guides.

Now i'm building this same rod on a spiral, should i be looking to reduce guides by 1? Is this the norm going overhead to spiral? i was just goin to tape it up witht he same spacings as my overhead and see how it looked but thought i would just put it out there and get some feedback from anyone who's built a few spiral an see what they have found. Guides are mnsg's, blank is calstarGF600H.

Scott

[Willo]

Ya probably can use one guide less ...Cause with conevtional overhead you are tryin to keep the line off the blank under load
But all blanks are different so tape guide on and test it out ......you will soon see if you need another guide

[Out-Station]

Thanks Willo, I'll do some more mucking about and see what happens. I was going to go with 2 transission guides but i'll tape the bumper idea up and see how it looks. Whats the advantage on going with the quick transission? any ideas on that.

Scott

[Daintreeboy]

I've never done one but plan too so asked the question a while back on another site. Here's the answer I got that I will look at using. Perhaps some experts here can commnet on this but it sounds good.

basically :-
-tape some guides on
- tie a load weight to the tip( of the blank ) & run another piece of line thru the quides from the tip to the reel under light tension .
- load the rod up to your intended drag setting
- move the guides around to get the line thru the guides following the deflection curve of the loaded blank smoothly.( this is where the light tension line tru the guides makes repositioning much easier.
- general rule of thumb is a linein-linout angle at a guide of 150 Degree is too much & you need more guides.
- minimum 3 guides at the tip at 180 degrees.
- avoid a guide at 90 deg in the transition & keep the line in the transition close to the blank , but not touching the blank in the transition .
- have the rotation angle between the last transition guide and the first guide at 180 ...........HALF the rotation angle of the transition guides .
( this is because the torsion generated between those 2 guides is cumulative, whereas the torsion between the guides in the transition is singular.
- no need for the angular rotation of the guides in the transition to be all the same............its the line angles there that you want reasonably even, keeping the linein-lineout angle larger than 150 Deg ( more is better).

When developing your guidetrain its best to hold the rod in a test rig or have someone else load the rod while you look at it from the side & make adjustments.

[Willo]

Thanks Willo, I'll do some more mucking about and see what happens. I was going to go with 2 transission guides but i'll tape the bumper idea up and see how it looks. Whats the advantage on going with the quick transission? any ideas on that.

Scott
Ya getting the actual load under the blank a lot quicker ... when you use two or three guides you a futher down(or up...LOL) the blank before the line is directly under the blank...I just dont like all that side torque with the extra guides on the revolver style
I use 450mm from front of reelseat to stripper guide..... then 170mm to transistion guide then another 170mm or so to next guide ...then regular guide spacings from there on
Ya can play around a bit with the transition measurements....
Just use two guide sizes as well ..16 stripper and the rest 10's or 8's
Have tried both ways and find I prefer the bumper method ....But other rod builders have there reasons and prefer for building the revolver method ..
Again mate just my humble opinion
Willo
Side note...those measurement were based on 8 ..10 .. 15 kg 7'- 7'6" blanks

[Stuart]

Blah blah blah blah spiral wrap blah blah. Only kidding mate. Yes they do work and yes some love them, I dont. I have built my fair share of spiral wraps over the years and no, Im not making the claim that Im an X spert. In all I built around 300-450 and I felt every stinking one of them. Every blank is different and while some say there is a certain set up to doing these, thats actually not quite true. Its far better to be shown than try to explain such a set up as a spiral wrapp. he advice given is pretty good however have you tried to hold guides in place when under load with the drag you will be using...good luck? Its better to get the basic layout before trying to load the rod. Follow the advice you posted and if you need anymore help let us know.

[Willo]

For keeping guides in place i use surgical rubber cut into little rings and sometimes evn small zip ties.....beauty of setting up spiral guides is there under the rod and stay put not like a over head that when ya load it they all want to turn under the rod... which I guess sort of explains spiral wraps...LOL
Again I have only built about 60 Spiral wraps ...so still learning...... I build one ..fish it.. and learn from it..,and thats sort of where I am now with them..and at the Mo cant see myself goin back to a overhead..
But everyone to there own
Willo

[sid_fishes]

Willo , mate my last spiral[ and i have not had the chance to fish it yet] my stripper is a 20 , the transition is an 8 then went to a 12,10 then 8,s to the tip. i did not measure anything just went with the feel of the blank[ 7ft 10-20 lb blank]
my measurements that i just checked are damn close to yours. it looks odd with the 8 but i cant wait to try it out.
and now i want to try a rollered spiral...maybe im just sick
ian

[grave41]

Hi,i spiral wrap the same as Ian so the line is kept as close as possible to the blank by using the 8mm guide in the middle of the spiral.Works for me and i love them.
Graham

[grave41]

Ian your sick!!! but i love it!!
cheers Graham

[grave41]

Ian ,
Maybe a combo of both rollers and guides.
Graham

[Out-Station]

Thanks everyone, some good stuff there, same old story i recon, tape it up load it up and get to fine tuning, Willo i use small zip ties also, work good i find.

I can see the logic in the small transission guides to keep the line close to the blank thats a good tip. I had a quick look with it last night and i keep going back to the 7 guides, seems to me the guie spacing needs to be more condensed at the butt end than on a conventional rod to get the line under quick smart, hence my spaceing blew out in the upper section if i went back to 6 guides.

Thanks everyone, this one will take some thought.

Scott

[Willo]

Willo , mate my last spiral[ and i have not had the chance to fish it yet] my stripper is a 20 , the transition is an 8 then went to a 12,10 then 8,s to the tip. i did not measure anything just went with the feel of the blank[ 7ft 10-20 lb blank]
my measurements that i just checked are damn close to yours. it looks odd with the 8 but i cant wait to try it out.
and now i want to try a rollered spiral...maybe im just sick
ian
Yeh Mate Great minds think alike...LOL...LOL
The measurement between the stripper ..bumper and first guide under blank remains about the same.... sometimes I vary the distance from reel seat to stripper ...just depends weather I am building it for a low profile reel like a Shimano Talica or a bigger dia reel like a Tyrnos which also might require a bigger stripper guide
I now just use the one size guide after the stripper all the way along the blank
Yeh seen a few spiral roller rods online and keen to have a crack at one ...Evidently when you buy the set of All American spiral roller guides you can get the measurements and angles they recomend to use in the transition part of it
Old sayin Mate ....Ya never know till ya have a go....LOL
Willo

[Owen]

I have a spiral roller setup using the AA guides.
I ended up using a small ring guide in the transition.
It wasn't needed to keep the line off the blank, but during testing I noticed if you loaded and released the line suddenly like a lure breaking out then the line could jump up on the roller. Worst case it could get jammed between roller and frame.
On larger lines it wouldn't be a problem but on light line I didn't like it so I used the extra guide.
To be honest I don't see any value in heavier line ratings because you'll likely be harnessed anyway.