My story: Bought a beat up Eagle Claw glass spinning rod. The rod is 2 piece, length 6’11’ .It was missing some of its eyes and was so dirty that the cork & Eagle Claw emblem were black. I took off the guides, which were shot, and trashed them. Cleaned up the blank & handle to where it really looks good. Despite working on the blank I can still detect the placement of the old guides. Guess the blank has suffered fading through the years. From the marks on the blank I can tell it had 5 guides not counting the tip top.
I want to rewrap the rod to use and while I want it to look good I am not concerned with restoration to the original specifications which brings up my question.
Question: According to the guide spacing chart at Mudhole there should be 7 quides while the original appears to have been equiped with 5. If you were wrapping would you go for 5 or 7 guides or??
I’d use 5 and try to put high standoff guides on when I rewrap it. Less weight on the rod than 7 guides, and obviously it was good enough for the manufacturer to begin with. I can’t really think of a good reason to go to 7 in this instance.
General rule is one guide per foot, which agrees with Mudhole. While weight is a factor Eagle Claw was noted for cutting costs of rods by cutting out the number of guides.
I once cast an old Eagle Claw factory fly rod that was an 8’ built with 5 guides - it was almost impossible to cast due to the slack between the guides! I have to disagree with ol’ blue on this one. I would go with 7 or 6 at a minimum and look for light weight guides.
Isn’t rod building fun - it’s always a personal choice.
Tape some guides on and cast it. If it works with 5, great. If not, add more until it casts like you want it to. Extra guides are cheap. You may or may not see a difference with the extras.
I have to agree with 7 here as well. You will find better casting, and most importantly it will help with fighting the fish due to better arch of the rod by the guide placement. OH yea wood working stores have some 12000 grit material for sanding and polishing. try that on the rod to shine it up and then coat with a finish of your choice I recommend U40. Just my two cents. Keep us posted with the progress and pics if you like.
Thank you all for your responses and words of wisdom. Since I have to order the guides I ordered a 7 guide combo and will start from there and see what happens. This will be a late winter project and I have plenty of time to decide which way to go.
Hello Tim, talk of guide replacement got me to remembering my spinning rod building days and something D. Clemens mentioned in his book called ‘cone of the line of flight’ or words to that effect. Anyway, if you make little ‘rubber bands’ from a couple different sizes of surgical tubing, you can attach the guides temporarily to establish placement regarding casting.
One can fasten the reel to be used, full of the line to be used, run it through the guides then tape it to the tip top. Loosen the drag and click the anti-reverse off and it’s possible to see where the mono is going to touch (or ideally not touch) the guides by moving the reel handle back and forth enough for the line to describe it’s arc as if casting.
From there it’s simple and easy to move the guides along the blank until they best accomodate the ‘cone of the line of flight’ of the mono. First time i applied this ‘rod science’ to a spinning rod (my Fenwick steelhead stick) i was amazed at how easy and how far i could cast even the lightest spoon (my steelhead hardware back when) even with 10 lb. test mono. Anyway, time for coffee.
I’ve turned several of those old Eagle Claw glass spinning rods into awesome fly rods…depends, of course, on the weight and action, but the lighter weight ones with the softer actions make great casting fly rods that are a ball to fish with…
I would go with 7 or 6 at a minimum and look for light weight guides.