Ciao all,

an interested argument about rod is the the overlap of carbon, in italian it say spina but I don't know how it say in english. About this there are some theory where tie the guides, in axis of overlap or opposite side or at 45*. The rod with a guides tied in axis will be different from same of rod with the guides tied in other side the rod, excpecially in the butt.

Where you tie your guide ?

Max

Fly fishing Masters - Italian Fly Fishing School - Fly Fishing Masters

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You can have the perfect fly, tied with excellent materials but if you do not present it in the right place and in the best possible way, it serves no purpose! Massimo Magliocco

Ideally i would place them on the spine, well the opposite of it.. But as we all know blanks aren't always straight.. I tried a lot of set ups, i rebuild the same blank (FiveRivers SIG V 9ft#5) 6 times. First with regular singles then with recoil singles regular snake guides regular recoils, and after that also played around with the placing of the guides.. I don't think at the tip it made that much of a differance, but this blank was not a fast one..

Jerry

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When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car.

Max

I have been told by different rod builders that today the blanks are SOOoooo UNIFORME they do not have a spine and they don't even check the spine! I bet in four piece rods there are 4 different tubes! Unless they role each tube size separately. I never believed it!
I think I recall having a rod that didn't dampen well and I recall wondering if the tip actually twisted as I made the forward cast as if the sections were not working together. I didn't like that rod.
What do you think about this?

Bobby

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"Tight lines from Vermont where the winters are long the fish are wild and the women are good looking."

That is the way I do it too, Jerry. Here we use another terminology to describe the spine, we speak of the soft and the hard side. The latter being the side were the most carbon is (the overlap). All builders know you determine these sides by rolling the flexed blank (butt on the ground) with the tip in the palm of your hand. You feel the springy sensation of the blank rolling onto one side (the soft one). You can do it another way by balancing the blank on the edges of a drinking glass. The blank rolls on his soft side (least resistance). That is where the guides go (if the blank is straight in that position). As Jerry says it often isn't. It's hard to compromise, aligning the blank and putting the guides out of the axis will result in a rod twisting to find his spine when flexed. Put the guides where they belong and you're left with a rod "to fish around the corner". Yet I would go for the second option. Rather have a rod that isn't straight but casts well and doesn't twist whilst playing a fish, than the opposite. As for the overlap, this is as we know because the inner cut line doesn't lie exactly under the outer cut line of the cloth. Ideally when it does, this should leave you with no spine at all. Unfortunately this is almost never the case. With two piece rods aligning the outer lines is not much of a problem. You can see them faintly under the varnish. With (smaller) pieces of 3 or more piece rods it gets a bit more complicated as overlaps can be different in width on each part. Hence the problem of finding the spine. Multiple piece rods will often "spring" less noticeable (maybe that is why manufacturers say there is no spine anymore?).

Johan

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Johan Janssens

A couple of weeks ago i was ordered to build a rod i had finished up for myself (VXP 9ft #4), a pretty fast rod with a lot of power in the middle. My blank was as straight as you want them the one i ordered after wasn't. So i called the guy and asked him what he wanted and told him what for me is the downside of building on the straightest axis.. He still opted for a straight rod so i spined the butt and tip section and the middle two pieces i build on the straightest axis. So the most powerfull part of the rod was build of the spine.. I casted the two rods side by side on more then one ocassion and i couldn't really feel or see any difference.

I really thought there would be a difference but there just wasn't any.. Maybe when you measure the rod when it recovers with more advanced equipment (or use a better caster then i am) that it will show some thing, but for me they were identical.. Also for the guy who ordered it from me, in fact he asked me to build the five as well.. Maybe just a fluke, who knows, maybe some one with more knowledge of graphite can jump in to this..

For me the guides still go on the soft side of the rod..

Jerry

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When I die, I want to go peacefully like my Grandfather did, in his sleep -- not screaming, like the passengers in his car.

I was talking about the twist when the whole spine is out of axis. When you break the spine, you weaken it and hence you won't feel it that much, like I said. Most mass producers will take advantage of that fact. For me too the guides go on the soft side, if it didn't make that much difference on a rod with a pronounced spine we wouldn't bother, would we?

Johan

Personally, I think this debate should be held in another thread (rod building maybe?)

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Johan Janssens