This may sound like a silly question, but is there an ideal point on the blank where the center of gravity should be on a 7' 6" spinning rod relative to the reel seat placement on a rod that I'm about to start?

I suppose you mean balance. Many people like a neutral balance which means that when holding the rod in a natural fishing position, it is neither tip nor butt heavy. However, as rods get longer, it is hard to achieve this without very long butt handles or the addition of weight to the butt.

I'd suggest you build as light as possible and design your handle length to suit your personal requirements. Let the balance fall where it may. If you build light enough, it shouldn't be tip heavy by much. Use light guides, short wraps and minimal finish. This helps as well.

You can also do a search of this forum's archives for more information on rod balance. Tons of information and personal opinions to read through.

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Yeah, if it's tip heavy you can always add weight to the butt! ( Here we go!) Really though Mike, You might attach the reel to the blank temp. at different points and judge what feel best to you. Keep in mind the weight of the guides, and hang something of similar weigh from the blank while doing this.

if you want to achieve that you can by taping on the guides and reel seat and then take a weight 1/4 or 1/8 ounce on a string and attach it to the tip hold the rod straight out from you and open your fingers and see if it tips back or forward and then move the seat accordingly 1-2 inches at a time forward or backward most time it will be froward you may end up with as much as a 10-12 inch rear grip space.
this isn't always a bad thing as to when it comes to fighting a good size fish you will be able to use the full length of your fore arm to fight the fish and that does ease the torque on your wrist .

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

As always, you guys are GREAT! Thank you for the advice! I've only ever built baitcasters for inshore saltwater fishing and I'm pretty good at it.....But I have a customer that wants a spinning rod, which I've never built before. Fortunately though this site, I've got how to get the guide placement all sorted out...........again, I thank you all!!!

Comparatively speaking, spinning guides are much larger and heavier than casting guides, so achieving balance is much more difficult especially with lighter spinning rods. They almost always end up being top heavy, so I just work on making the lightest rod possible. The reel usually helps to offset the weight as well. I also don't like adding weight to rods as a personal thing unless I know the rod will be used for lots of short one-handed casts (flipping, punching, etc) where a pivot point would be important.

Keep in mind also for your customer that the weight reduction of higher quality guides makes a much bigger difference in spinning rods than it does for casting rods. The total guide set for a casting rod would maybe be 3-5 grams, so paying more for weight reduction won't be a big difference, just a gram or two. The guide set on a spinning rod can weight up the 15 grams or more, so this is where a 30-40% weight reduction on guides makes a difference and can help with your rod balance issue as well.

Happy building,
Nick

The finished rod with the reel and line should balance just in front of the reel where the fore grip is. It should be easy to flip / pivot forward and backward in the casting position. This balance point is more noticeable on Fly Rods due to the amount of casting and the casting of the line and not the weight of the lure. If the rod does not balance in this area it will feel heavier than it actually is while casting. Rods used for live bait or trolling are not going to matter that much but rods used for artificial, where multiple cast are performed in a shorter period, will matter.

I agree with Lance on the balance point, although I actually like to have mine balance right on the hood that holds the front of the reel foot.

I would caution you on moving the reel seat forward (towards the tip of the rod) just to get a good balance point. Too far and you could have a rod that is very difficult to cast and fish because the rear grip is too long. Take into account clothing that will be worn when the rod is being used as well. Your customer isn't gong to give a hoot about how nicely the rod and reel combination balance, if he can't use the rod. For me personally, and my physical dimensions, anything more than 12" from the butt of the rod to the where the stem of the reel connects to the foot of the reel, makes a rod extremely uncomfortable to fish. I am 5'8" tall and average build.

As Lynn and Mathew pointed out, I would mock up the rod, complete with rear grips, reel seat and tape on the guides. I would also run line through the guides, but I wouldn't hang a weight from the line unless you were hanging a weight that you think would be equal to the weight of the thread and finish that will be going on the guides.

I chuckled reading Lynn's post about adding weight to the butt ........the "here we go" is classic. I chuckled because adding weight to balance rod and reel combinations is a lively point of debate on this site. I will say that I have no problem adding weight to the butt of a rod to achieve the balance point I want. I do this only on rods that will be fished using slack and semi slack line techniques, where the rod isn't loaded with the force of retrieving a bait (lure)

How you add weight is up to you. Since it's a rod you're building for someone you may want to make it easily changeable. Many manufacturers are coming out with some nice looking butt caps that offer the ability to change weight. They may not offer enough weight to get the perfect balance point you're looking for, but they will get you closer than adding no weight at all.

If you don't like the idea of a butt of that type you can always do as I do, and add the weight inside the butt of the rod blank. But it would be nearly impossible to change. And if you change reels on the rod, unless it weighed the same as the reel you were changing it out for, you would want to change the amount of weight. I do it the way I do because I balance the rod to the reel that will always be used on that rod.

Anyhow ......... hope I've helped.

I'm blown away with all this killer-good advice from y'all.....again, I thank you!

David the weight I suggested hanging on the blank was intended to represent the weight of the guide train without actually taping guides on, this may or may not be a fair representation of guide train weight. Aside from that , luv you bro! You get it. This place needs a little poke on the butt at times.

lol Lynn .... luv ya too bro! And yeah, I figured that's what you were referring to when you mentioned hanging weight from the end.

As far as you or I getting it ..... I don't know .... I just know that adding weight to the butt of my rods that it is appropriate for (and it isn't necessarily appropriate for all rods) make the rods less fatiguing to use, it without a doubt enhances bite detection, and it makes certain presentations easier and more accurate.

A case in point for anyone interested.... I recently had a friend in the boat with me. A very good tournament angler. Like me he loves pitching and flipping. He's a G Loomis guy and fishes with GLX rods. We were having a decent day pitching docks and shoreline cover and just having a generally good time talking. He asked me what kind of rod I was using. I told him it was one I built so he asked if he could check it out. It was the rod I built on the Immortal 72MH blank. The first thing he said was that it was pretty heavy. And it is. Especially compared to his GLX and the reel he had on it. A Daiwa Tatula.

I use an old discontinued Shimano Castaic SF reel. It's the same size as a 200 Curado B series reel. A heavy reel by today's standards. Anyhow, I told him part of it was my reel was bigger than the one he had on his Loomis, and the other reason is because I added 2 3/8 oz of weight in the butt of the rod. He looked at me like I was crazy and asked me why. I just told him to give it a try. He made his first pitch and said wow ..... this thing pitches excellent! And he said it doesn't feel as heavy using it as he thought it would. He made a few more pitches with it and asked me if I had put hybrids in it. (hybrid ceramic bearings) Nope, dead stock. He was surprised. I told him it pitches so well because of the weight I added in the butt. I explained that where I added the weight makes it much easier to accelerate the tip.

Increased tip speed, more distance on a pitch and since it takes less effort, it's easier to control and therefore more accurate. I also told him (I have the rod balanced tip light) that with it balanced the way I have it, it makes it easier to fish for long periods, and it makes feeling a bite easier. I think I pretty much sold him on the idea. Although I wish he could have gotten a bite while using it. I would have loved to have him feel the power that blank puts into a hook set.

To get back at me a bit he said "well my rod is more sensitive" While he was playing with my rod I gave his a couple of pitches, and it is more sensitive, but not by that much. LOL

Anyhow ....... despite the aversion there seems to be to adding weight to a rod. it can actually be a good thing. The nice thing about it is it's easy to find out if you like it or not. Just tape some weight to the butt of your favorite rod and give it a try.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2017 06:20PM by David Baylor.