Happy Thanksgiving week guys!

 

I got a great deal on Immortal Rod blanks. This is the highest quality rod blanks I have used up to this point. I bought a 7'2" and a 6'10 Immortal Medium blanks and I will build spinning rods. 

 

I'm asking what would be a set of spinning guides that would compliment the blanks? I've used LAZR guides before and like them, but wondering if there is a step up in guides or perhaps a lighter set of spinning guides? 

 

For these rods, I'm looking to throw neds, small swimbaits, and small tubes, so I don't need a super heavy sturdy guide. Looking for more of a lighter guide that will hold up to the applications mentioned. 

 

Appreciate your thoughts and insights on my question. 

 

-Mike 

Mike...take this advice with a grain of salt.

Look for some kind of guide kit. I can't tell you how many hours I've wasted looking at guides and finding that they are out of this size or that color.

The LZR guides are great.
I pretty much use Alconite in these kits:
Fuji KL Spinning guide kits

Fuji KLW Casting guide kits

I'm a lightness freak and I use either Mudhole SSR guides or Minima with a ceramic tip top.  I've built a few Immortal rods and think they're the best for the least $.

Great to hear. Thanks for the suggestion!

1 hour ago, Chris Catignani said:

Mike...take this advice with a grain of salt.

Look for some kind of guide kit. I cant tell you how many hours I've wasted looking at guides and finding that there out of this size or that color.

The LZR guides are great.
I pretty much use Alconite in these kits:
Fuji KL Spinning guide kits

Fuji KLW Casting guide kits

I've built cheaper blanks both with kits and piecing together guides. Kits make it so much easier and take out the guesswork. I agree. I have not tried Alconite yet, so maybe I'll try the Fuji Alconite. thanks

Alconites are great.  If you want to splurge, SiC in a titanium frame.  

Love the titanium frames. Last build was Fuji alconites, which was quite a while ago. The more I read about SiC the more I’m impressed with them.

SiC guides are needed for times you have high friction loads, wet lines on a bass rods are not high friction loads where the lesser ceramics can heat up and damage your mono or fluor line. I have 40+ year old saltwater rods that see far more of this then any freshwater rod using the same light guides you see on your rods with zero problems. One self built rod has been fed a diet of 80 lb. braid, 2+ lb. sinkers and fish approaching 10 ft. in length. Guide designs are way over engineered for the fishing loads they see, concern yourself with knocks, storage and transportation issues when selecting guides, if your rod is riding in the back of your truck with a loose spare tire, rods on deck to stepped on, etc. you have guide and blank selection issues already. By the way a gentleman with a Rainshadow Immortal, RX8 medium power steelhead rod rated 8 to 12 lb. line, 3/8 - 3/4 oz. lure wt. caught a 125 lb. salmon shark in the Sitka, AK area close to 20 years ago. The carbon used in your blanks has been long tested and used, like many of the RX8 line they are nevermore not because there was something wrong with them, but because the public wouldn't spend the extra $10 in the case of the above rod. I own many RX8 rods, most now discontinued, they are superior products in their category.

Yes, Spencer, we rodbuilders and anglers do tend to overthink things and go for the ultimate when less than ultimate will serve nicely.  I have some old cheap rods that I used to use and never saw a guide grooved.   Those guides were junk compared to the modern stuff we have today.   I saw tiptops grooved, which is why I use SIC tiptops on all my rods.  

 

Regarding blanks, I still buy top of the line blanks when I want the most sensitive, cleanest, crispest feeling rods.  I have found that their True Natural Frequency, which is a measure of recovery from deflection speed, is normally higher than lesser blanks.  And I use the smallest guides I think I can get away with in order to minimize the deterioration of TNF caused by the weight of guides and tiptop. 

21 hours ago, spoonplugger1 said:

SiC guides are needed for times you have high friction loads, wet lines on a bass rods are not high friction loads where the lesser ceramics can heat up and damage your mono or fluor line. I have 40+ year old saltwater rods that see far more of this then any freshwater rod using the same light guides you see on your rods with zero problems. One self built rod has been fed a diet of 80 lb. braid, 2+ lb. sinkers and fish approaching 10 ft. in length. Guide designs are way over engineered for the fishing loads they see, concern yourself with knocks, storage and transportation issues when selecting guides, if your rod is riding in the back of your truck with a loose spare tire, rods on deck to stepped on, etc. you have guide and blank selection issues already. By the way a gentleman with a Rainshadow Immortal, RX8 medium power steelhead rod rated 8 to 12 lb. line, 3/8 - 3/4 oz. lure wt. caught a 125 lb. salmon shark in the Sitka, AK area close to 20 years ago. The carbon used in your blanks has been long tested and used, like many of the RX8 line they are nevermore not because there was something wrong with them, but because the public wouldn't spend the extra $10 in the case of the above rod. I own many RX8 rods, most now discontinued, they are superior products in their category.

Appreciate the info. Crazy shark story, wow. I think a lot of people and manufacturers err on the side of overbuilt or tougher than they need, plus the manufacturers can sell that concept and make money off it. Love to hear that the RX8 rods are exceptional products. I look forward to building them. Do you have a guide brand you use more than others?

8 hours ago, MickD said:

Yes, Spencer, we rodbuilders and anglers do tend to overthink things and go for the ultimate when less than ultimate will serve nicely.  I have some old cheap rods that I used to use and never saw a guide grooved.   Those guides were junk compared to the modern stuff we have today.   I saw tiptops grooved, which is why I use SIC tiptops on all my rods.  

 

Regarding blanks, I still buy top of the line blanks when I want the most sensitive, cleanest, crispest feeling rods.  I have found that their True Natural Frequency, which is a measure of recovery from deflection speed, is normally higher than lesser blanks.  And I use the smallest guides I think I can get away with in order to minimize the deterioration of TNF caused by the weight of guides and tiptop. 

In intrigued in your idea of using the smallest guides you can get away with. Let's say on a 6'10" M spin rod, what would your guide sizes be? or are you talking smallest as in minimal material guides? thanks.

Ersteman, It's pretty simple, use the smallest, lightest guide that will pass the knots, or other interferences that need to pass through them. If you are using light small diameter lines and no knots, you can go very small with the running guides. I have match and steelhead rods that were built with 4 mm running guides 40+ years ago, some are factory G Loomis rods, when Shimano first brought out the long spool Aero reels back in the 80's to the US, they had a whole line of spinning rods built with those guides, they have been used in Europe and Japan for a very long time, I saw a German ceramic guide set owned by the owner of Snake Brand fly guides that were made somewhere around WW II, they had beautiful white ceramic rings and bright yellow shock rings. Things aren't as new or untested as some would want you to believe. Do yourself a favor and install one of your spinning reels on one of your casting rods and put a weight you would normally use on it and go cast it. Just about anything you do with a spinning guide set will be superior, but I think even this terrible combo will surprise you. The knowledge needed to build your best rod is not in the box used by the factory rods, they have to build not knowing what you are going to use as far as reel, weight and line. this is not new to me I bought a long match spinning rod from England 40 years ago that has a 10 mm first guide, it casts 8 lb. mono on a 2000 Shimano Spirex reel into next week.

I have built spinning rods that the first guide from the 2000 Shimano reel are high frame guides with 10 mm ceramic rings, followed by an 8 mm, 6 mm, then 4 or 3 mm guides depending on the rod and when I built it. All cast as well as my standard guide patterned rods on the same blanks. 8lb. braid, tied to an 8 ft. 8 lb. fluro leader that is long enough to spool on reel. I didn't come up with this pattern, and I have a write up from Bob McKamey the dad of Hunter McKamey the gentleman that does the Mudhole vids, Hunter built the rods they compared some 15 years ago or better when he was a kid, after learning about it from Pat Vinzant a rod builder who specializes in light, high performance spinning rods. I'll be happy to send it to you if you like, as always you don't have to build a rod out to try different things, you just need to tape on a guide set and go test cast it, there is no rocket science here.

Like Spencer says.  I use size 4 running guides on most bass spin and BC rods, Fuji KB's and KT's.  For spin I like the Fuji KLH reduction guides, usually 20H-10H-5.5M, then KB and KT 4's.  With this combination I don't even bother to test cast anymore since I can never improve on the KR software recommendations.

I just wrapped a rod with the gunmetal SIC's and they look like jewelry, smooth as silk on the underside, no need to grind the feet.  

 

My leader is usually 15 pound test tied to 10-15 pound braid with an "improved" Alberto knot (improved = tightly set half hitches of the braid tag end after tying the knot) and the knot passes 4 mm guides fine.

 

I don't use any guides other than Fuji for either spin or cast.