Swimbait Rod Build Help

[1984isNOW]

My buddy wants me to build him a deimbait rod because he grabbed some lures on sale around 1.5 oz give or take a half oz.

 

Again I'm looking at those North Fork Composites blanks on sale right now. Any tips or advice on something like this?

 

Many thanks!

But I'm open to presently affordable blanks, or I'll wait til a black Friday sale for the recommended blank if you feel we should go a differentdirection than NFC. Thanks

[J Francho]

I have a custom SB rod built on a 7' 9" H/F SCIV blank that I love for that size baits. 

[1984isNOW]

@J Francho  Thanks for the input, the only croix blanks I've seen for sale are scv, except for scIV material on the rodgeeks carbon 4 blank. But I'm new at looking for these things, you have carbon 4 or actual croix built scIV?

[J Francho]

It's a custom build by a rod builder on a SC blank. It has a full coral rear grip that exactly fits my forearm. It has spiral wrapped micro guides as well. It throws Hard Gills and Hudd 68s very nicely. 

[1984isNOW]

Hmm, I can't find scIV blank for sale that is actually manufactured by croix only that rod geeks one that doesnt have the same build tech as croix. I'll keep looking.

 

The spiral wrap - how many guides until they hit the bottom at 180? I think I'm going to do that for a number of rods to see how it feels for general use.

[J Francho]

Three to make the turn.  I'm pretty sure my blank came straight from SC, but that was years ago. 

[1984isNOW]

Ah gotcha. Just to make sure I'm visualizing accurately

 

1st at 0

2nd at 90

3rd and 180

?

[Chris Catignani]

12 minutes ago, PUTitinYOURmouthFISH said:

Ah gotcha. Just to make sure I'm visualizing accurately

 

1st at 0

2nd at 90

3rd and 180

?

That would work...I have one that way.
I also have one thats 0,60,120,180.

The guides that rotate are a little closer together.

You could take your standard spacing and just put in an extra guide where there rotating.

[1984isNOW]

1 hour ago, Chris Catignani said:

That would work...I have one that way.
I also have one thats 0,60,120,180.

The guides that rotate are a little closer together.

You could take your standard spacing and just put in an extra guide where there rotating.

Interesting you say to add a guide, I've seen numerous places mention being able to use less guides because the line is being held away from the blank.

 

I like the concept of 0-60-120-180 - seems like a smoother transition. I've also seen people say to off center the first guide to 355° (5° to the opposite of the spiral).

 

How are you measuring your guide spiral angles?

[spoonplugger1]

Like every other rod, you don't want your max weighted lure being at or exceeding the blanks lure rating, you get best results if your lure is closer to the middle, that said if my max was an occasional flyer and my bread and butter was nearer the lower limit, or I using a lot of treble hook baits I would look at the lower limit more carefully in my selection. The 5 or 6 power is your selection I would think.

Your style spiral wrap isn't that critical, some of us have built 540 degree spiral rods just to show they also work.

[Chris Catignani]

47 minutes ago, PUTitinYOURmouthFISH said:

Interesting you say to add a guide, I've seen numerous places mention being able to use less guides because the line is being held away from the blank.

 

I like the concept of 0-60-120-180 - seems like a smoother transition. I've also seen people say to off center the first guide to 355° (5° to the opposite of the spiral).

 

How are you measuring your guide spiral angles?

The part about using less guides has to do with the guides under the blank. You would need more on top to keep it off the blank when bent.

If you have the first guide at 5°...then it will always come into the pawl guide (on the reel) at 5°.

I used this thing to help line up the guides.

 

I will say this...I made a few rods like this and there OK. I dont make em like that any more.

I dont think it helps in any way, form or fashion. Guides on the top sit better on the boat deck and in the rod locker.

I think the guides under do have a place where you fighting BIG fish and have a lot of torque on a rod.

 

[J Francho]

2 hours ago, PUTitinYOURmouthFISH said:

Ah gotcha. Just to make sure I'm visualizing accurately

 

1st at 0

2nd at 90

3rd and 180

?

 

The first guide is ~25" from the trigger itself and slightly rotated at about 2:00.

[1984isNOW]

Thanks for the insight and input yall.

 

I'm still inclined to feel for myself the difference, plus it would almost entirely eliminate line catching on my tip when I'm not paying attention. I still like the physics behind it, but gotta see first hand.

 

@ALL what guides (type, size, strength etc.) Would you recommend? I'm totally clueless aside from something labeled light duty or medium duty.

[Chris Catignani]

8 hours ago, J Francho said:

 

The first guide is ~25" from the trigger itself and slightly rotated at about 2:00.

That looks like a minimalist wrapping on the guides...or is it an optical illusion?

[1984isNOW]

12 hours ago, PUTitinYOURmouthFISH said:

@ALL what guides (type, size, strength etc.) Would you recommend? I'm totally clueless aside from something labeled light duty or medium duty.

Also, would you do double foot guides all the way up?

[J Francho]

9 hours ago, Chris Catignani said:

That looks like a minimalist wrapping on the guides...or is it an optical illusion?

It's enough wrap to cover the guide feet.  They're micros. The rod is VERY light for how powerful it is. 

 

2 hours ago, PUTitinYOURmouthFISH said:

Also, would you do double foot guides all the way up?

Only the first couple are double foot, the rest are single. 

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

23 hours ago, PUTitinYOURmouthFISH said:

Hmm, I can't find scIV blank for sale that is actually manufactured by croix only that rod geeks one that doesnt have the same build tech as croix. I'll keep looking.

 

The spiral wrap - how many guides until they hit the bottom at 180? I think I'm going to do that for a number of rods to see how it feels for general use.

Rodgeeks is owned by st Croix and has always used the same tooling, materials and tech as ST Croix branded. Only difference is that they offer some actions not used in production rods. 

[1984isNOW]

3 hours ago, J Francho said:

It's enough wrap to cover the guide feet.  They're micros. The rod is VERY light for how powerful it is. 

 

Only the first couple are double foot, the rest are single. 

Cool thanks, I was thinking American tackle airwave because it'll Center the line quicker and more efficiently since it'll naturally be pulled to the side otherwise.

 

2 hours ago, Delaware Valley Tackle said:

Rodgeeks is owned by st Croix and has always used the same tooling, materials and tech as ST Croix branded. Only difference is that they offer some actions not used in production rods. 

 

On the website description for their Carbon 4 blanks it says they roll them using ST3 (smooth taper technology) but the description for SC blanks say "they include the best of SC engineering know how: IPC (integrated poly curve), TET (taper enhancement tech), ART (advanced reinforcing tech), and FRSV(fortified resin system).

 

So it reads like it's the same materials for the blank, but different construction - so not the same performance. AM I wrong about that?

[spoonplugger1]

If you just used a 0 deg. guide and a 180 deg. guide it wouldn't make a tinkers bit of difference, the transition guide is just added to keep the line off the blank if you choose to do so. it should be small and as close to the blank as you can get it in any case. I saw a book once that mentioned spiral wraps that was published in 1908, so this concept is nothing new.

[1984isNOW]

Line off blank is always the goal, not new but new to many. I think this is an often misunderstood concept and underutilized to boot.

 

Is the current sale at NFC real or do they always have crossed out higher prices listed? I know many companies advertise mark downs but it's pretty much always that price so not really on sale.

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

4 hours ago, PUTitinYOURmouthFISH said:

Cool thanks, I was thinking American tackle airwave because it'll Center the line quicker and more efficiently since it'll naturally be pulled to the side otherwise.

 

 

On the website description for their Carbon 4 blanks it says they roll them using ST3 (smooth taper technology) but the description for SC blanks say "they include the best of SC engineering know how: IPC (integrated poly curve), TET (taper enhancement tech), ART (advanced reinforcing tech), and FRSV(fortified resin system).

 

So it reads like it's the same materials for the blank, but different construction - so not the same performance. AM I wrong about that?

My post is all the info I’ve been given over time. All I can add is that I’ve built on dozens of Rodgeeks blanks and they perform impeccably. Imho all that alphabet soup referencing technology is mostly marketing. 

[1984isNOW]

4 hours ago, Delaware Valley Tackle said:

My post is all the info I’ve been given over time. All I can add is that I’ve built on dozens of Rodgeeks blanks and they perform impeccably. Imho all that alphabet soup referencing technology is mostly marketing. 

Have you handled side by side a rodgeek rod and a croix scIV? And I'm with ya on the marketing, but something about it has to be true to a degree.

 

From what I've learned about the technobabble the taper is supposed to be a smoother more consistent transition versus a hard stop - sounds like everything is just a little bit softer but I have no data on what any of this actually represents.

[1984isNOW]

Also @Delaware Valley Tackle using Rodgeeks do you think them painting the blank has an impact on sensitivity or performance in anyway. Must at least add weight which can have an impact on at least feel, which actually would logically imply impacting ccs data (I'm lookin at you @MickD )

[MickD]

Painting the rod blank will not affect CCS numbers.  They are static measurements of power and how the blank bends and are not affected by adding a slight amount of weight to the blank in the form of paint.  To affect the numbers one would have to add so much weight to the blank that it would in fact deflect under the weight.  That is not going to happen with any reasonable paint process.

 

Where the paint may affect rod performance is in the recovery speed of the rod and possibly its sensitivity.  The heavier the power of the rod, the less it would affect performance.  But yes, theoretically, anything that adds weight to the blank will slow its recovery time but will not affect its power or action as defined by CCS. 

 

I notice the debate earlier in the discussion about different ways of getting the guides to the bottom of the blank.  I don't think there has ever been any objective testing that has proven that any of the fancy schemes are any better than the simple spiral.  The arguments are all based on opinions on what looks best or seems best.  The simple spiral is as its name implies, simple, easy to lay out and execute, and it simply works.

[1984isNOW]

Okay gotcha, I'm still learning this CCS and all that. 

13 hours ago, MickD said:

Where the paint may affect rod performance is in the recovery speed of the rod and possibly its sensitivity. 

Affecting sensitivity, which seems logical to me, is most times something we avoid- but perhaps a very sensitive blank with a paint job will only be undiscernably affected?

 

Let's say there was a way to add a coating to a blank that takes a fast tip - let's assume hard noticeable stop at 25% of the rod length - and make it recover 25% slower. What would that do to the rod specs and data and effective performance?