FloridaFishinFool's Custom Spiral Wraps... A Different Way...

[FloridaFishinFool]

As some of you know I have been working on improving my custom spiral wrap guide alignments for more than 25 years.

There seems to be some widespread misconceptions about why these rods are even made in the first place. One guy on another website thought it was done only for casting improvements.

The truth is a spiral wrapped rod solves 2 basic flaws of standard rods with guides on top.

1)Negative/detrimental rod twisting under load.
2)Increased line flow resistance under load.

It is clear to see how a loaded standard rod has problems when the load is trying to pull the rod over 180 degrees twisting the rod more and more as load increases.

And when a standard rod is loaded up, the line flow rides down along the side of the blank slightly out of alignment between each guide.




So over time of trial and error, I came up with a method of spiral wrapping rods that utilizes rod physics in our favor.

Any minor rod twisting is actually bringing the 180's closer into alignment with the spiral guides. So it turns negative twisting into positive twisting.

What you have to keep in mind is that every degree of angle or bend in the line flowing through the spiral guides is adding friction and resistance. The goal is the reduction of friction and resistance to its minimal level.

So aligning guides on a spiral wrap without testing line flow under load produces some really inefficient spiral rods like this one:



Please notice in the above rod, it is photographed under load.

Now follow the line from the reel to the first stripper guide.

Where is the line laying in the guide while under load?

It is riding around the 5 0'clock position slight off center. This rod is not balanced out.

Look at the next guide out, #2. That guide is way out of place! And under load the line is flowing at the 3 o'clock position. The line as it is pulled tight is trying to twist this guide off the rod when fighting a fish same as if I were trying to use my thumb to pop this guide off the rod to replace it.

The pressure of under load line flow is pulling this guide sideways! A mistake.

Spiral wrapped rods should not be built this way. Do they work this way? Yes they do. But is it as good as it can be or as efficient as it could be? No way!

Take a look at this rod build by another unknown rod builder...



The above rod is 99% of the way there! He actually got the physics of the spiral wrapping guide placement so close to perfect on this one...

Notice closely the line flow through the spiral guides under load... He straightened out the line flow as well as he could.

But what is important to notice here is where the line lays in the spiral guides... under load as the line tightens up, its pressure up against the ring of the guide is at the 6 o'clock position directly over the stem and foot and the side pressures are directed directly down the stem to the rod blank.

This is correct! The rod above this one is not even close. Side pressure is NOT directed down the stem and foot to the rod blank. It is actually pulling the guide sideways. This is not what you want see looking down a loaded spiral wrapped rod!

Most builders cram the entire 180 degree spiral wrap into less than 2' of rod blank length. This means under load the line flow through those guides will have some serious angular bends which increase friction and line flow resistance.

Here is an example of what you don't want to see on any spiral wrapped rods:

Stripper guide is at 12 o'clock position, and 3rd guide out is at 180 degrees. This means the entire 180 degrees of spiral wrapping is accomplished in less than 18 inches on this rod and 3 guides. This can only mean bends in the line flowing through those guides and increased friction as load increases.

[FloridaFishinFool]

Here is one of my early attempts at making a spiral wrapped rod now over 25 years old.

On this rod I built it for strength and used double footed titanium oxide guides. Way overkill for bass fishing I found out.

Today I use mostly single foot micro guides. Gives the rods a sleek corvette look to them as well as reducing tip weight.



You can tell I was still following some rules in a book on how to make these rods... the stripper guide is at 12 o'clock position because some guy online told me about line stacking on the reel which I found out from experience is not true unless the rod is so out of alignment it should not be used!

But I never had that problem, so today none of my spiral wraps have a stripper guide at this position because it simply does not work according to the physics of what the materials want to do under load.

So you can see an angular bend in my line under load flowing through the stripper guide. A mistake I no longer make!

[FloridaFishinFool]

This rod is an ultra fast medium 7'3" MudHole Generation 1 MHX rod blank with Winn grip I made at MudHole.

However, back then, I was advised to which guides I should use and this rod was too tip heavy for me, so I laid it aside and never fished it again. I did not like the rod as I originally built it according to what I was advised back then.

But after perfecting the spiral wrap process on my own, I decided to revisit this old rod and bring it up to date with where I am today with my spiral wrapping process.

After stripping this rod down, I used only micro guides on this build...

This is how it looked before stripping it down.



Here are the guides... the old heavy guides on the right, and the new micro guides I installed on the left. A nice weight reduction which gave this old rod a whole new life now and solved the balance problem.

[FloridaFishinFool]

Here is an old super rare Ryobi Boron graphite rod made around 40 years ago. It is a short 5' pistol grip rod I have used since a kid.



But I gave it my best shot and did not do too badly with this one...

[FloridaFishinFool]

This is my old Browning Stalker rod- a 7' MH moderate action... a rod that is now very hard to put down since I spiral wrapped it as a minimalist.

The line flow under load could not go through the original stripper guide, so I just added a hook keeper at that location.

So this 7' spiral wrapped rod now has 6 guides plus tip for minimal line flow resistance.

This is an awesome bassin' rod! I use it for swimbaits mostly and what a great joy it is now to use!

Sorry about the image being slightly out of focus. I'll try and get a better image, but the line flow can clearly be seen and how straight it is from reel into 180's.

One thing you should notice by following my images is that the actual spiral wrap location changes from rod to rod based on its characteristics.

[FloridaFishinFool]

Here is a neat little custom rod I inherited from my father when he passed 10 years ago. It is the only custom rod my father had, and it is only a 6' rod. Kind of soft and moderate action. Really different from what I am use to these days.

My father had to set this one aside for years and years because the cork handle shrunk away from the reel seat allowing reel to wobble around slightly on back end. The adhesives they had back then were not very good. My father used lacquer instead of epoxy. Some of the dark brown cracking off lacquer is still visible near handle.



So rather than remove my father's handle and reel seat I set about to restore the reel seat and handle joint by epoxy filling the void.



So I wonder now what my father would think about his restored and customized little custom rod, now done as a spiral wrap!

Just look at how straight that line flow is under load! Takes a lot of time tweaking those guides in place!

[FloridaFishinFool]

What I am about to show you is my entry rod into spiral wrapping. I have no idea who made this rod or when. All I know is I like to stop by garage sales in wealthy neighborhoods and see what they have for sale.

Well one day I roll up to a garage sale loaded with fishing stuff. Come to find out the wife divorced her husband and kept his fishing stuff and then sold it off in her garage sale.

I bought every rod and reel she had for like $5.00 each, one of which included this custom spiral wrapped rod.

[FloridaFishinFool]

One of my all time favorite spiral wrapped rods...

I love Falcon made in USA rods. No Chinese Falcon rods! Ugh!

So these old Bucoo micro series are now made in China, so I actively hunt for older American made Bucoo rods. They are thin wall blanks and very sensitive and light.

So I took my old BMC-7MH and stripped it down and put the original micro guides back on the rod, but in a spiral wrap design.

[FloridaFishinFool]

watch the line under load right before it goes into the 180's out near the tip.

[FloridaFishinFool]

Deleted double post.

[FloridaFishinFool]

Here are a couple of full custom rods I purchased some years ago from a former tournament bass pro who retired to Palm Coast area of Florida.

His health declined and he needed one of those colostomy bags installed, and once he did that his days of fishing in a boat were over.

So he put all of his fishing stuff up for sale on craigslist which is where I found him. And I drove up to his house in Palm Coast and spent the day with him having a blast!

I even restored some of his old reels for him, one in particular an all chrome reel that had turned green he wanted for display purposes, but not green. So I cleaned up for him all at no charge because he made me such a great deal on his fishing stuff.