# Spiral wrap quide spacing?



## itch2fish

New to rod building, and new to the board.

Would like some advice on spiral wrapping. I'm building two trout rods (on a xsb822.5 and an ip843), but am having difficulty with guide spacing even when strictly adhering to spacing guides I've seen posted. Line still lays along the blank when under a load.

To solve the problem I'm considering going ahead and simply spiral wrapping the rods. Leaves me with two questions: 
1) Does spiral wrapping impact casting performance?
2) Any insight on spacing and orientation for sprial wrapping?

Would appreciate any advice!

Many thanks...


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## Zombie

Well, most of the trout rods I build are spinners so the spiral wouldn't apply. I do my spirals with the bumper guide at 90 so I lay out the guides like a conventional and flip them. I still tweak a bit but I make mine very simple. It works fine and I really haven't seen a big difference in casting difference vs. a conventional set-up. Everyone does them different, that's just how I do it. I build them usually on my FW bass rods and SW live bait sticks. Randy.


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## tmstamps

I just built an IP845 with spiral wrapped guides. I took the layout offered by Batson on their website to determine the guide spacing from the tip. They have measurements for each of their blanks. The guide closest to the reel seat is on top and then the next two rotate at 60 and 120 degrees where the remaining guides hang below the blank. I posted a few pictures last week.

http://2coolfishing.com/ttmbforum/showthread.php?t=212163

I fished with my rod last weekend and had no problem casting or feeling a bite. I landed 3 keeper trout and 2 keeper reds. Hope this helps. Good Luck. - Tim


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## delrod

*my dos centavos*

have built a few of what you speak. the simple spiral has the first and second guide at normal spacing, but 180 degrees apart. you then sandwich in a bumper guide at 90 degrees to keep line off blank. works well and is simple. built a wader on a 782 with split grip, split reel seat, no fore grip etc. goal was extreme lightness. micro guides at 6, 5, 4, and 3's to the tip. didn't like the simple spiral. just didn't feel right. so revolved it with all guides at regular spacing using 2nd and 3rd guides to spiral around the blank. casting distance unaffected basically. did not test but common theory is that the downside is less than 5 percent or so. i'm rambling now, the short answer is, different spiral methods work better for different applications. depends on rod action, lenth, etc. best way is to tape em up and go out in the yard and test a coupla different ways. eventually the rod will tell you what it needs to do. best investment i made yet was to buy a box full of cheapo guides in various sizes and frames.(single foot, double foot, fly )where i could mock up whatever i wanted, then buy the good guides to put on the rod. lose a little postage and time, but the rod is nailed. keep a log book and if you build the blank again, you can save a step. rock on delrod
ps. go to rodbuilding.org and search for spirals and you can read for weeks.


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## Eastern Tackle

I'm not sure why a lot of builders default to only one bumper guide on their builds? I had one that the builder said would be OK. He ended up taking it back. The line touched the rod under only about 15lb load.

A lot say the one guide transition is OK/approved, but not for me. I'm not sure if builders just don't want to spend the extra time & materials and they are trying to maintain profitability or what? I like at least two guides. Here is a shot of JM with a three guide transition. It was done by a japanese builder. Its hard enough to get a two guide transition done now in the US, let alone a three.


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## Comedie

I rarely do anything but look at this site, but here goes......
First off, published guide spacings are merely a generic starting point. Blanks differ even when supposedly 'identical'. Guides differ greatly in heights. Reel heights differ. Reel positions differ. And so on and so forth. If you are trying to use canned numbers for spacing, the result is not likely to be an optimal rod. You might end up with a good one, but just as easily you can end up with a bad one. The only way to get the optimial build for a specific set of components is thru static testing and casting. 

Second thing I see mentioned in here is spiral casting and transitions. In general, the longer the distance you take to transition the line from 0 degrees to 180 degrees, the easier it is to build a good performing spiral. You can still cock it up, but it is easier to get a decent performing spiral.
Lots of ways to explain why, but here's an easy visual. Get a thin plastic or fiberglass rod. Put one end thru the tip, run it thru the 180 guide you plan to have nearest the stripper, the then up to the reel. Skip everything else. The nearer that 180 guide is to the tip, the closer that flexy rod will match the blank direction. What that flexible rod is showing you is the path of least resistance thru those key points. That is pretty relevent for casting. 
Turns out that it also approximates the path of good static test tuning for loading too. Just remember that the path shown is approximate and likely not the very best path. It is showing the path of least resistance based upon the resistance of that piece of flexy rod. Put in a different flexy rod, and it will show you a different but similar path. But as a simple visual aid for seeing the effect of transition on a spiral , it is really nice. Once you understand that visual, you immediately understand why a long multiple guide transition is an easy path to follow.

That said, I'll add that my own LOST spirals use no transition guide. There is no guide at all between the stripper and first 180 guide, and the transition distance is fairly short. I get away with it because the key piece of the design manipulates the line path to something akin to the low resistance path just described. So it sorta behaves like a spiral with a transition length much longer than what it really has.


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## pg542

Comedie said:


> I rarely do anything but look at this site, but here goes......
> First off, published guide spacings are merely a generic starting point. Blanks differ even when supposedly 'identical'. Guides differ greatly in heights. Reel heights differ. Reel positions differ. And so on and so forth. If you are trying to use canned numbers for spacing, the result is not likely to be an optimal rod. You might end up with a good one, but just as easily you can end up with a bad one. The only way to get the optimial build for a specific set of components is thru static testing and casting.


 ....Word up.... regardless of conventional, spinning, spiral (any method) size, type, action, brand, color or flavor..


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