I am building a two piece downrigger rod for my six year old granddaughter to use on her fathers boat. Two questions. I am using a spiral wrap for the eyes and have read that when using a downrigger they are side dependant, and the spiral should always be on the side that faces the stern. That is for the port side, the spiral would be ccw and for use on the starboard side the should be cw. Any personal experiences with this? Second question. Do you need to make a line up mark on the butt and tip sections, and if so what might be a way to do this.

I'm not sure why they'd be side dependent. Any pull on the rod will bend it in the direction of pull, not which side your spiral transition guides are on. With enough pull, the lever arm effect of the guides will cause the rod to turn so that the guides on the underside of the rod are in line with the direction of pull. Do you have any information from folks doing this type fishing that would be based on any actual experiences to the contrary?

Most will spiral the guides to the same side as the reel handle, which they feel better accommodates lying the rods on the boat deck or for transport. I am assuming, of course, that these rods will be outfitted with level wind reels, otherwise a different piece of criteria may come into play.

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Yes it will be a level wind, last thing l want is to have one of my grandkids turned off fishing because of bleeding knuckles from a knuckle buster. Single action reels will come later.

Not many single action reels left, but there are man non-level wind reels (which do have anti-reverse) and which do require that you stack line back on the reel by hand. In these instances the dominant hand of the user plays a role in which side to spiral to.

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I build a bunch of downrigger rods. There is absolutely zero difference in which side you place the transition.

Tony Childs Wrote:
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> I build a bunch of downrigger rods. There is
> absolutely zero difference in which side you place
> the transition.


Great, l won't concern myself with that aspect then. How about when you put the top section into the butt section, l want her to get it lined up properly when putting it together. How do you put marks on the rod as line up marks, and have it look like it is indended to be there?

I have done some rods with just using a gold dot (paint pen) on each piece of the blank. On the female, I just run the finish from the wrap over the dot, the male just dab a dot of finish over it.

That sounds like the way to go. One more question. Do you mark the wrap before the first coat of finish, or should l wait until the first coat is dry and then paint on the finish before the second coat?

I put the dot on the blank edge not on the thread.

When I put dots it's one coat finish, then the dot and another coat of finish (otherwhise the ink can blend in the thread).

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Eric
[www.emfishing.fr]

Eric MONTACLAIR Wrote:
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> When I put dots it's one coat finish, then the dot
> and another coat of finish (otherwhise the ink can
> blend in the thread).

I did a dry run, wrapped a dowel, and put adrop of paint on it, within 10 seconds, an 1/16th circle turned into a 3/16th line. I'll put a lite coat of finish on it and then a second the next day. Thank you