Which is the "Soft" Side of the Spine?

[dave potts]

The way I determine the spine is to put the butt end of the rod section on a hard surfice. I used to use a glass top table in our conference room at work. Now hold the tip of the rod section with one hand and roll the rod as you bend it into a parabolic curve. The rod will want to jump and settle into one spot. put a piece of masking tape on the rod and with a pen make a mark on the convcave part of the rod. That would be the top in your cereal bowl analogy. The spine, or strong side of the rod, is 180 degrees away or on the convex side-the bottom side in your cereal bowl analogy.

You can place the guides on either side depending on the action you want to feel on the casting stroke. I put them opposite the spine which makes the rod feel a little stiffer on the back cast.

As I said before, most rod makers claim it really doesn't make a difference where you put the guides.

Dave

[Gemrod]

Dave,

THANK YOU

THAT was the confirmation I was looking for!

You see I know how to find the flip. It is interpreting the result that bothered me. I know how to put it on a hard surface and look for it. There are also spine finders where you place the blank in a pvc pipe arrangement with beariings in it and mounted at a 45 degree angle. Sort of like mounting a flag pole support on your deck.

Now....if you push DOWN on the tip it will flip....but people will begin to talk about the stiff side....or the TOP....and it is all relative to which way you are pushing/bending the rod. If you have it on the floor the so called TOP is the concave side. If you have it in the 45 degree spine finder and are pushing down on the tip the BOTTOM is now the concave side.

That is why I tried to simplify it by using the cereal bowl analogy. I would NOT use two book ends to do that. I would use two rod supports from my home made rod wrapper.

I just wanted to refer to ONE vision of the bend. The cereal bowl...and then talk about top or bottom. It all gets quite confusing when people use different terms, and different methods of checking for the spine......it is all in reference to the WAY you are looking for the "effective spine".

Your last post was the exact clairification I have been searching for.

Thanks again.

(although you also switched terms on me again. You used concave and convex...which has not been in this entire thread....and dit NOT use stiff or soft which HAS been used in this thread!) I still got the answer I have been searching for. I hope you can see how it can become so hard to understand with so many terms, and so many different ways of actually looking for the spine. I just wanted to know...ya know? I just simply wanted to get it straight in my head.

Thanks again Dave.

[Gemrod]

Seems I always figure it wrong. Part of the reason I was so curious is in my mind it seems it should be the opposite. I guess I have a dyslexic mind. I am certainly no physicist. It just seems to me the outside curve would be the stiff/spine axis as it has forced the weak side inward. But the explanations say the opposite. The inside is the strong axis and therefore mark the guides on the outside axis to put them on the soft side. It just seemed to me it is backwards. But as usual....I am wrong again.

I appreciate everybody trying to beat it into me. It just takes a bigger bat for me than most.

Thanks again everyone.

[TampaJim]

The outside IS the strong axis (dominant spine). You do force the weak side inward.


Again, my belief AND experience tells me that it doesn't matter. However, if you want to build rods based on spine orientation - it isn't going to hurt anything.

[Gemrod]

Got it TJ. Re-read some of the posts and I mis-understood one of them. Thanks for the succinct confirmation.

Appreciate it.

[dave potts]

I was thinking that this would make a good u tube topic so I did a search and sure enough there were several already on it. Below I attempted to post a link to one but if the link doesn't work just go to u tube and type "rod spine" into the search box.

Dave

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLRZQp3l6L8