when you spiral wrap a rod do you want the spine facing up when you are holding the rod the way you would while fishing or do you want it facing down?

portageriverangler,

Traditionally you build casting rods with the spine up, spinning with the spine down. So you would find you spine mark it, and build with the reel seat setup on the spine, and the stripper guide is the only one up on the spine of the rod.

Tight Wraps!!!

Spine:

Or "Effective Spine" is an effect created by several manufacturing anomalies. The result is that the rod blank will favor bending along a particular axis when load is applied.

I build spiral wrap casting rods with the spine the same as they are on a spinning rod.