Okay,

I've read all the post about guide spacing, figured out (I thought) the whole stress didtribution, and even conjured up the whole 'equal angle' system.

As I 'understand it', you want the line to follow the path of the rod as it bends as closely as possible, avoiding 'too large' an angle between any guides. Of course, to save weight, you want to use as few guides as possible. It 'looks better' if there is a progressively 'longer' space between each guide, but I kept the 'line path' as the most important criteria.

So, I was setting up a 9' 9wt. fly rod for some salt water fishing I'm planning.

The line path up to and including a 90 degree bend looks great. Nice shallow angles and smooth transitions at any bend level. I used single foot guides (Fuji Alconites) for the first time on a fly rod. I even took Tom's advice and used Fuji single foot spinning guides for the 'strippers'. Looks different, but I wanted performance and I'm not what you'd call a 'traditionalist. I added the 'extra' stripping guide about 4 inches in front of the first one ( I know that only the first guide is 'really' the stripping guide, just trying to be clear..).

I ended up with 12 guides on this rod. Most nine foot fly rods I've seen have between 8 and 10. Since I'm using very light guides, I'm not too concerned with the weight, I'm just worried that I've misunderstood something here.

I set it up with 9 plus the extra stripper first, but I didn't like the way the angles looked. 10 was better, but with 11 and the extra stripper it was very even, so that's what I went with.

Am I being too concerned with the 'angles' thing? The rod casts phenomenally well, better than anything I could do before (perhaps I've also become a more accomplished caster as well, but..).

I've noticed tha the last few rods I've assembled since I started coming to this site and thinking about it more have ALL ended up with more guides than I used before, albeit smaller and lighter ones.

I'm looking for a bit of assurance from the gurus here that I'm not missing something important.

The guy that got me started in fly fishing took one look at this rod and said 'What the heck is that, it can't be a flyrod????' (Until he made a few casts with it, that is). But it does look a bit different. I did intentionally add a few 'extra embellishments', just for fun, that make it look very unlikea traditional flyrod.

Thanks,

Buddy

Sounds to me like your on the righ tract. I have always used more guides than traditional. You just want to do what works best. Sounds like you test cast the rod and it works well. I have built rods with a few more guides than yours and if it works better then so be it. After all that is why most of us started building rods is to make something better in the first place. There will be a topic at the conclave in a week covering this material. I expect after it is over there will be a lot of talk about it.

Good luck and happy new year!

Bruce Young
Landing Gear

You did nothing wrong. In fact you most likely did everything right.

Take your rod with the 12 guides outside and make 10 good casts, careful to record the distance. Now set it up with 9 or whatever, and do the same. You'll know which set-up is better. 9 guides will provide good stress distribution, 12 will be even better, if they still allow the rod to perform the way you desire.

If you are using single foot guides on the butt section for the stripping and related guide/s, use Rich Forhan's locking wrap to ensure they can take the kind of abuse strippers often must.

An added side note - Rich and I have been comparing notes on a new and revolutionairy guide number and placement system that may well best anything yet seen. If I had more time away from the magazine I might be able to push ahead a bit more quickly with it. As it is, Rich is working on it and hopefully we'll have some answers very soon. Sorry to get everyone excited about this as it isn't ready yet, but it will be worth the wait. Just wish I had more time to fool around with it.

............

Can't add much to what has already been said, but 12 guides on a 9ft doesn't mean anything. Blanks are varying. Sounds like you did everything correct. Stress AND cast. Atta' Boy!