Here's a question from Volume 4, Issue #3 Issue of RodMaker magazine:
"I recently saw a posting on one of the rod building internet bulletin
boards about single foot guides being damaging to fly rod blanks. Something
about the foot prying into the blank when pressure is applied. Is this true?"
Ben . . . Briarcliff, GA
In a strictly technical sense, there are always problems when you take
materials with different modulus of elasticity and fasten them together
and expect them to flex at the same rate. They won't, and areas of
stress do exist then. But practically speaking, you have to take into
account that the blank is not a fixed object and deflects when a load is
introduced. The amount of flexture in any given area the length of a guide foot
is relatively tiny and the thread wraps we use currently do not totally immobilize
the guide and the blank to each other. Movement between the parts does occur,
tiny though it may be.
I guess my point here is that we can argue about physical terms and properties
all day, but practical experience is sometimes a better teacher. Since the
mid-1907's millions upon millions of spinning rods with single foot guides
have been sold. To date there has been no problem with single foot guides
destroying the rod blanks they are attached to. The same goes for all the fly
rods that custom builders have attached single foot guides to. So technically
speaking, while some areas of stress do indeed exist, practical experience
teaches us that they are of no consequence in this instance. Single foot
guides and rod blanks seem to get along just fine. ~ Tom Kirkman
Publishers note:
If you have any tips or techniques, send them
along! Help out your fellow rodmakers!
~ Publisher, FAOL
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