Hi guys, new to the board and am waiting on my order for my first ever build. I am in the process of possibly ordering guides and am leaning towards the fuji alconites. The kit that I ordered comes with 9 titanium oxide guides + the tip (at least that's what the picture seems to show). I believe these are lower end guides but I hardly ever throw braid, and will definitely not being throwing braid on this rod. Will I be able to tell any true difference by upgrading the guides that come in the kit? I"m used to having higher end equipment but I'm not 100% what guides are on my current rods or how much difference I'll actually notice.

Any advice on this or really just anything in general for my 1st build is greatly appreciated

for your first build they will be just fine you can always strip them off and replace them with a higher end guide but for momo they are fine a lot of the off the rack rods have them

The best day to be alive is always tomorrow !!
Think out side the box when all else fails !!!
Wi.

Congrats and welcome to the addiction! I take it you bought one of the MHX multi-option kits? They didn't have those 3 years ago when I got into this hobby. They seem like a really good deal. In fact I may get one soon just to replace a rod that broke on a combo I bought a few years back, just to get the reel back in service.

Anyways, I'd go with what Matthew said. I certainly think the guides will suit you just fine. Be sure to read the article on here regarding guide placement. The guide placement charts on Mudhole for these kits seem a bit off to me, with some suggesting you put a guide 2" from the tip top. Anyways good luck and be sure to post pictures of your build!

All of the ceramic guides on the market are tough and you don't need to be concerned about using braid with any of them. Braid will not groove any ceramic guide, in fact you can't cut or even scratch any of these inserts using a hacksaw blade. In most cases the higher end ceramics are overkill for most types of fishing. The guide frames you are getting are made from 316 stainless steel which is more corrosion resistant the other types of stainless. So go ahead and use the guides that come with the kit.
Norm

guide placement

[www.rodbuilding.org]

The best day to be alive is always tomorrow !!
Think out side the box when all else fails !!!
Wi.

My .02

Stick with the guides in the kit. Some builders' first rods turn out like they have been doing it for 10 years. Most, though, lack in certain areas...with guide wrapping & epoxy being the popular categories. I'm going to guess that in a year or two you're going to want to re-wrap the rod anyway. You can update guides then if you choose.

The guides that ship with the kit are probably completely up to the task. Build, learn, and enjoy.

Yeah I bought one of the kits that come with everything. Thx for the info guys helps a lot. I'll post how it turns out

Hopefully you will be able to learn from my mistakes. I completed my first rod about a month ago. I thought that the more finish, the better. That is definitely not the case. I built my 2nd rod and it came out substantially better when I applied a thin coat of finish to the threads. When applying the finish, be careful to remove any extra. You will see sags at the bottom of the rod when this happens. I went back and applied a 2nd coat to fill in any gaps that may have happened.

I went back to my first rod and removed my guides. I will eventually re-wrap the guides once I get more supplies.

As most have said, the guides that come with the kit will be fine. As Norman said, braid isn't going to hurt them.

To answer your question concerning whether or not you would see any true difference by upgrading the guides?

Not knowing the sizes of the guides that come with the kit, I can only speculate. My guess is that the sizes of the guides that come with the kit you're purchasing are going to be the same sizes as the guides on the majority of factory rods on the market. If that is the case then my opinion is that it is going to (for the most part) cast like a factory rod.

If my guess is correct, then yes you would see a marked improvement in overall rod performance by not necessarily upgrading to better guides, but my upgrading to different size guides. And most likely a greater number of guides as well.

I haven't been building long, but IMO the guide train you put on a rod is just as, if not more important, as the blank you build it on.

I believe the rod kit Tyler ordered contain the CRB performance guides which contains 9 guides plus Tiptop. There are two dbl ft casting guides in size 8 and 6, and seven single ft Fly guides in size 5. Should be relatively light as set up.
Norm

Norm you were right on the guides that it came with, however the size 6 is single foot and there are 8 size 5s plus tip top. They seem very light and I am happy that I got 10 instead of the 8-9 I was expecting. Found the spine and mounted my handle tonight, will venture into wrapping the guides tomorrow.

Ahh ... I figured it was going to be the basic set up with 3 double foot guides in #12, # 10, and #8, and the rest being single foot #6's for the runners.

Should make for a nice performing rod.

Well guys thanks for the input it really helped me out. Got the rod built and it's drying now. All the information helped me prevent a few mistakes and I learned a lot, although I did still make some of my own mistakes. Overall I am very happy with it and think it turned out great.. no deformities or anything it all looks good(to me at least). Can't wait to use it. If I saw where to post a pic I would

Photo forum at the top of the page where it says "Photos". You have to create an account, but you can use the same username & password as this board to make it easy.