On rods 4wt and under single foot chrome guides work well. I assume your casting under 50 ft. Using an SIC type ring in the guides will not pay off with short casting distance rods. I found the spacing guide in H&H catalog works well, I have tweaked the guide distances a 1/2 inch up or down and not gained anything in performance. I built two Forecast rods one with standard fly guides and one with extra large guides and after fishing both side by side found no great advantage with the larger guides. Now I use the smallest guides possible, buy guides that are just large enough to get your line and knots through. I perfer an oversized tip top. If a guide falls near the ferrule then move it to the ferrule and conserve tread wraps. On a 4 piece rod you will have some wrapping just to protect the ferrule, on those areas I use a tread that blends with the color of the blank and use no CP. so treads become invisable. I built two 3 wt's with guides closer together the added weight dampened the performance... FB.