Rod Building Guide Selection

[C-Man]

Guys,

I placed the same question on another forum but I would like to see what you guys have to say about it.

I would like some feedback on guide selection (make and type), I have successfully used REC Recoil guides but I do not like them because they are noisy. I have used Fuji Alconites and they seem to be pretty good guides (no issues thus far) and I have also used Fuji SiC guides with success as well.

I will be building my first rods with higher end blanks (St. Croix SCV) and I want to make sure I do this right. Per my experience with the guides listed above I really can’t tell the difference in sensitivity, weight, etc between the Alconites and the SiC guides.

The rods I will be building will be used for Bass fishing primarily. I will have a combination of spinning rods (6 lb – 10 lb test fluoro) and baitcasters (12 lb – 20 lb fluoro).

Any thoughts on this topic? Any other guide make, model suggestions? Pro’s Con’s?

Thanks

[dpage70]

Personally I use alconite's for just about every rod that I build. I just plain will NOT put a set of recoils on a rod, no way no how find someone else to build it if that's what you want . My opinion of them is there far more con's than pro's. SIC's are great but I just have never seen any huge benefit to justify the added cost with them, and when you add the total amount for a complete set of guides it's pretty significant. I use micro's 95% of the time and Batson's haven't been very good to me personally, not bashing them by any means but I have way to many rings come out and guides pulling loose from the thread. Others will I'm sure have a different experience but with my customers that's been mine. I haven't used enough Amtak's to give much of an opinion on them, I just don't see a need to change from Fuji when my results are very good, but I'm happy with the few sets of ringlocks that I've used.

Of the "regular" sized guides recoils will the lightest but again far more con's than pro's. Ceramic guides will last forever but the ring can pop out with some abuse, which is really the only con to them. If you use micro's the weight difference will not be noticed if there is any at all between them and recoils. you want to use the lightest guide you can. The less weight you add to a blank the more sensitive the finished product will be.

[leeshelton]

I personally think the alconites are the best bang for your buck. I many be wrong but I think they are actually lighter than the Sic guides. If you really want to make a rod lighter and more sensitive go with micros. I like the fuji micros pretty good.

[sarmst100]

I agree with all of thee above. I have used the Batsons in the beginning but I mostly use Ringlock Nanolites now but like Alconites equally well.

[LM Bass Angler]

<table width="90%" cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 align=center><tr><td>Quote, originally posted by leeshelton &raquo;</td></tr><tr><td class="quote">I personally think the alconites are the best bang for your buck. I many be wrong but I think they are actually lighter than the Sic guides. If you really want to make a rod lighter and more sensitive go with micros. I like the fuji micros pretty good.</td></tr></table>

+1

[C-Man]

Guys,

I appreciate the feedback, I was heavily leading towards the Alconite guides can't really see paying the extra cost for the SiC Titanium guides...not sure I want to jump on the "micro" ban-wagon

[thedude]

alconite micros - hands down best money spent. For spinning rods, consider titinium framed alconites or SiCs for the larger the guides because you will save on weight. Once you get to running guides, stainless alconite micros again.

some purists don't consider a size 4 a micro, but i've been very happy with that size both in terms of weight savings and ability to deal with line sizes past 25lb mono/floro as well as passing uni-uni knots. You can easily go smaller, but i feel that the alconite 4s are the best do-all guide out there and reasonably priced to boot.

[cidgrad]

I would agree that Alconites are probably the best bang for your buck for whats available on the market today. The Batson micros are awful cheap and I've built with a ton and had no problems. I have yet to have a single customer be able to tell me they could "feel" the difference between an alconite, SiC, or whatever ring (provided all had ceramic rings).

If you want top of the line ceramics you want Zirconia. Hands down it's the best performer in close to all performance measures.

For spinning rods, consider Ti framed guidse on the tip and then moving to stainless towards the reel. You get the weight off the tip and save $ on the big guides - which are really expensive in Ti.

[jimmy7]

alex, i am gonna disagree on this one...

the weight difference between a TKTAG 4 (Ti framed #4) and KTAG 4 (SS framed #4) was a whole .5 grain!!! You wont feel that! Hardly worth paying 2X for TI framed guides

My advice for the best overall feel of a high end spinning rod is to build with the #25 and #16 guides using a TI framed one (where you will feel a NOTICABLE weight difference) and then switch back to the SS framed guides towards the tip (as thedude already pointed out)

If you are building on a middle of the road blank where $$$$ is more of an issue then just use SS all the way thru!

[cidgrad]

Jimmy - you're right... but your method will spend more $. Just depends on the path you want to go. I was offering an idea to save $.

The difference in a YSG30 and a TYSG30 is about $30 RETAIL.

The difference in a TKTAG4 and a KTAG4 is $2.26. Five TKTAGs is still not more than half the price increase of the one TYSG, not to mention the next $8 - $25 or so price difference on the next one up.

So to me... it you are going Ti/SiC on the back, go the whole way.

[jimmy7]

the 5 TKTAG4 saves you a whole 2.5 grains for $10 more cost!
that is $4/grain of weight savings!

You are much better off spending $$ for titanium frames on the 25/16 sized guides! Yes, you will pay more, but you will notice the difference in weight!

[cidgrad]

Jimmy - do you have a source for K guide weights? I'd like to see a list of them just to have for reference. Last time I tried to get into Barkey's list of component weights it was erroring out.