Building a Fly Rod - Part 5 Guide Placement

You might have noticed from the pictures that when it was time to start fitting the pieces I transferred the marks showing me the guide side of the blank from masking tape to the blank itself. The best way to mark directly on a blank is to use a China Marker. That is a waxy pencil for marking on glass, metal or fishing rod blanks. The best part is that you can rub the marks off with a finger or cloth as you need to.

This blank has recommended guide placements at 4, 9, 15, 22, 30, 39, 49, 60 and 71 inches from the tip.

Having measured for the guide placement and carefully marked the blank it is set aside. I will prepare the guides for wrapping by carefully filing the guide feet so that the thread, while wrapping, will easily fall into place and flow easily up and over the guide feet without any bulges or over wraps.

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When the guides are all ready to go after that long and fussy job I will measure the rod blank one more time just to double check that all of the markings placed earlier are accurate.

Guide placement can be checked once the guides are in place, wrapped but not epoxy finished. At that point the rod can be strung and pulled into an arc. Any flat spots or misaligned guides are pretty obvious and can often be nudged into place without a complete re-wrapping.

Now that it is time to wrap the first guide this rod is starting to come to life.