Will Alconites hold up to copper wire?

Use silicon nitride.

Alconite guides (Al2O3) have a Vickers Hardness rating of 15.7. Solid copper wire has a Vickers Hardness rating of about 2.75. Under ordinary daily fishing conditions Alconite guides should hold up for a couple of hundred years.

Thanks, I use SN but some of us rodbuilders were talking so I thought I would ask. Just the info I was looking for.

Copper is pretty soft, surely it's some sort of copper alloy, but even then I doubt it's hard enough to cut or damage most ceramic rings.

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What fishing application would use copper wire?

Electric eels?

Couldn't resist.......

GOOD ONE CHRIS!

Dennis J. Danku
(Sayreville,NJ)

I know copper is used for trolling in the Great Lakes for salmon, similar to lead core. It adds weight to get the lure deeper depending on how much is let out.


And the electric eel comment got a chuckle here as well!

Yes Great Lakes trolling for salmon and steelhead

Electric Eels! I get it. Use copper wire and power your trolling motor. You guys who fish the Great Lakes think of everything.

Thanks for the reply and the laugh.

In the day copper wire trollers would take a a wind-up, spring powered Victrola (record player) and replace the turntable with a spool to hold the copper line. It was at least as sporting and a whole lot more creative and cheaper than spending a thousand dollars or more for an electric reel, a three hundred dollar battery, and a "trophy" [unnecessary] rod to winch fish up from the depths.

Sergeant Butters -

You are gonna need a strike indicator more buoyant than yarn if you are going to a copper line...

Didn't James Taylor already cover this in a song?

Bill

Bill,
Im up sizing. No more spider-web tippets and flies the size of dandruff. im fishing with copper wire and using a commercial net bouy for a strike indicator! Wait till you see the size of the flies Im tying!!!!!

As everyone else said, the Alconites will last forever in regards to the wire damaging them through abraision. Copper trolling wire is very soft and even cheapo store trolling rod guides hold up against grooving. Having said that, you really should use SS boat guides. Copper line terminations are normally either albright knots or tiny SPRO swivels. With repeated use and abuse, these terminations become blunt and rough. They are really hard on ringed guides, and will soon start to punch out the rings. The large frontal radius of the SS rings and the lack of pressed in rings makes them work the best for copper wire applications, and on a plus side, they are cheap. Braided Stainless wire is an altogether different beast that does require SN guides.

Oh, one other point about copper setups. Don't worry about any extra weight in these builds. With as much as 500 or more feet of copper line on a 800 Tekota or similar reel, weight isn't an issue. Aluminum reel seats are also a good idea because of the size of most copper reels which will almost certainly utilize reel seat clamps.

I also use the stainless steel boat rod guides on my copper trolling rod for the same reasons Tony has already described. Silicon Nitride for the braided wire.

Copper rod rigging can be quite elaborate with many splices - some of the splices being very large (some trollers will splice in Spro swivels). A typical rod might have a fluorocarbon leader spliced to copper, spliced to a short section of heavy mono (where the line is attached to a side planer release system), then spliced to superbraid backing then spliced to a few wraps of mono on the reel spool (to prevent the superbraid from slipping on the spool). The copper to fluorocarbon and heavy mono splices are particularly large and when landing large salmon these splices pass back and forth through the guides under a great deal of pressure. The impact of the splice (or swivel) at these points can shatter ceramic rings so it's best to go with a more durable guide able to withstand the impact. From a price performance standpoint, braced or unbraced stainless steel boat rod guides are ideal. I prefer braced because the bottom wire gives a third contact point to the ring compared to the unbraced with just two contact points (and as Tony mentions above weight should be a minimal concern on this particular build)

Size 10 runners and tip are about as small as I would recommend.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2014 01:14PM by John E Powell.