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A spine check is a non-dynamic exam. Sorry for the wording, but the computer gods won't let me use the one I want to use. A spine check allows you to check - for spine. A dynamic check, which Letcher Lambuth refers to as regulating the rod, allows the builder to come up with a more accurate rod. The tip is flexed and allowed to rebound. All sides are checked in this manner. The tip should describe a straight line while moving. Not a circle or oval. Then the next section is attached and this check is again repeated. Mother nature builds a lot more bamboo than makers build bamboo rods. Her tolerances are not quite as good as ours. It is unfair to say that because we missed our numbers by one or two or three thousandths that we have contributed to spine or set. All the rods I use have sets in them. From catching big fish. Don't beat yourselves up on this one. (Chris Raine) After some "conversation" with Chris, he added the following: Letcher Lambuth did not use this technique! He referred to the process of spining the rod as "synchronizing" not regulating. So I was wrong to use him as the reference for the dynamic check. So, I use the dynamic process of finding the spine. It is not my idea, nor do I take credit for rediscovering it. I just use it and I like the results. Hope this clears things up. What you say in accurate. But I will always choose to make a blank without a spine if possible simply because I feel it is part of being a craftsman. (Adam Vigil) P.S. If a blank makes a circle as you move it up and down or side to side it is time to cast that sucker into the trash.
The bottom line is that he suggested that, for anyone making a rod, the best way to determine where to put the guides in relation to the spine is to place the rod on a table as per his illustration and find out in what position the rod tracks best. I haven't currently got a blank to try this out with, but thought it makes an interesting departure from the usual recommendation that spine and guides be aligned. Maybe because a hex rod can't have the spine at 90 degrees to guides, placing it in line with them might still be the best. Alternatively maybe the spine should be at 60 degrees to the guides. Quads of course could have the spine at 90 degrees. (Stephen Dugmore) I suggest he is pulling your foot on this. The vibration method IS FOR finding the spine rather than aligning 90 degrees out. This method has been around for decades if not centuries and of course applies equally well for cane. (Ted Godfrey) It was presented in all seriousness by someone who has been involved with the making of Hardy rods for over 20 years. It was also made clear that the spine was not in line with the guides. This is definitely contrary to all the recommendations I have read in the, admittedly very limited, literature I have. Apologies if this is repeating common knowledge, but perhaps it might nevertheless be useful to other rod making novices such as myself. (Stephen Dugmore) I agree with you Ted and all my rods have guides on or at 180 degrees and I think that makes sense. And I also have to agree that all publications I'm familiar with suggest this method. (Jack Follweiler) Is there perhaps a difference in definition of spine here? Most of us take the word to mean the direction of least stiffness, but the fact is that our definition tends to locate the side with the most material (often where the prepreg mat overlaps) 90 degrees to one or the other side. Think of a yardstick that is obviously stiffest 90 degrees from the direction it tends to bend. (Jim Utzerath) Could be. Andy initially showed how the spine is determined by the more conventional (?) way of rolling the rod at 60 degree angle, ferrule down, and feeling for the kick. The position where the kick is greatest is set at 90 degrees to the guides. (Stephen Dugmore) Well, this debate has been around for quite awhile, but it's one that pertains only to fiberglass and graphite (where spines are inevitable), as a properly constructed bamboo rod will have no detectable spine. If a bamboo rod has a spine, it is because the mated strips are unequal to one another -- either in dimension or in quality of cane. Instead of having a discussion about where to locate the guides in relation to a spine, let's talk about why we get them, how to detect them, and how much a spine will affect the rod's ability to do its designed job. Even the high-quality, production rods from the Masters of the past will exhibit spines to one degree or another -- usually one tip moreso than the other. But that IS NOT to say that spines are inevitable in bamboo rods. Spines are most decidedly NOT inevitable, and are the result of something having gone more-or-less wrong. On the other hand, since there's no such thing as absolute perfection in our building practices, and since it's also the case that our techniques for determining whether or not a rod has a spine vary widely, perhaps we should be focused more on "degrees of acceptability." That is, in both theory and practice, there is a point where a spine (if there is one) is all-but-undiscernable, and it's at this point that a spine, in itself, cannot affect casting. Since we're not capable of perfection, that's the point we should all be shooting for. I'm thinking of a parallel in shotgun sports where debates rage around the "ideal load" for a certain purpose. A good load can make a tremendous difference (as can a poor one), but there's a point where the issue becomes purely academic -- a point where no theoretical issue is as important as being on target. (Bill Harms) I have a couple of friends in Europe that always come on me when I post something about putting guides in line with the spine. They put the guides 90 degrees to the spine. I have two commercial made rods that have the guides 90 degrees to the spine and notice a tendency to have the rod want to roll in my hand when I have a big fish on. One is a three wt. and the other is a 4 wt. This can be annoying. I find that I have to compensate in my casting style when I use these rods. YES I do still use the other type rods at times. I must be in the other 1 %. Oscillating the rod to find the spine is not new, I have been using this and other methods for a long time. There is a rod company here in town that makes their own blanks. They don't care about the spine at all. They put the guides on the straightest part of the blank. They sight down the blank, the side that looks straight is marked and the guides are wrapped on that side. To each his own, I prefer to put the guides on the inside of the bend on my rods except for Casting or Saltwater rods. Here is my reasoning. When a line is raised off the water, this puts a load on the rod. With the guides on the "soft" side, the rod will load a lot more. When the rod is stopped the bend wants to straighten out and has to rebound against the stiffer side. There will be resistance and the bend will want to come back forward. By then you are starting the fwd cast so the stiff side is pushing the rod back fwd and aiding in the fwd cast. I may be all wet on this but it is what I think. I have made a few rods with the guides on the "stiff" side and to me, they feel funny. (Tony Spezio)
1. A rod MUST be able to fight a fish. My feelings about the first few rods I made were quite different. I just wanted to FINISH them. Then I could go fish with them. We are going out with a stick and a string to try to fool a lesser vertebrate possessing a brain the size of a pea. And finally, URAC 185 is a very good glue to use in the building of cane rods. (Chris Raine) So far, I haven't heard of a fish complaining that the rod it was caught with had a glue line. (Neil Savage) So far, the only complaint I've had from the fish is the hook in the mouth! (Al Baldauski) Having a spine in your rod section does not mean that you have failed. Indeed, some level of "spine" is almost inevitable, IMHO, as we do not live in a perfect world. The bamboo can vary subtly across the circumference of the culm, slight differences in glue thickness in the seams, differences in the varnish coat, etc., etc. are going to give you some difference in flexing planes, even with dimensionally perfect strips. Having a glue line or open seam is also not a failure. Quite true. While these issues are of some importance to rodmakers that sell their rods commercially, they are not necessarily issues to you. Hopefully your skills will improve as you complete more and more rods... The only thing we can ask of ourselves as rodmakers, regardless of skill level is to try to make the next rod better than the last one. I have yet to see the absolutely perfect rod. It's a process of incremental refinement for most of us. The first few rods move one quite a ways down that curve. Cosmetics are important to the commercial builder, as at least some of their customers will nit-pick a rod to death. :-) For the hobbyist, the one you have to please is yourself. The catch-22 here is that the new maker gets hung on the notion of "perfection" before he is capable of approaching it. And I personally feel that they are the only things that are important to me as a COMMERCIAL maker of bamboo rods: 1. A rod MUST be able to fight a fish. 2. A rod MUST cast accurately 3. A rod MUST possess a subtle elegance in its look. And this is the proper ranking for the hobbyist too, IMHO. As long as your construction methods are in the ballpark, the rods you make should be able to fight a fish w/o coming apart. Some will no doubt argue that casting accuracy is more in the caster than the rod, but the overall character of the rod will contribute to some degree. Again, if one has their dimensions in the ballpark, the rod should cast OK. Maybe not to pinpoint, laser accuracy, but it will do well enough to catch some fish. And last, cosmetics, which is more for the angler than the fish. I seriously doubt the fish give a flying fig about water marks, varnish runs, bumpy wraps, glue lines, or any of the other 999 things a maker might find "off" in a rod. My feelings about the first few rods I made were quite different. I just wanted to FINISH them. Then I could go fish with them. And, in fishing them, one will learn much! :-) For some, even finishing a rod is the least of their worries. Indeed, they get so hung up on the notion of "perfection" that they never even start a rod. Or, they start, and get so* frustrated that their angles aren't exactly 60 degrees, or their dimensions aren't within 0.0000001", or whatever, that they just throw in the towel. A newbie really should track down one of the lower-end factory rods of the day and put calipers to it. You will feel better! :-) Again, IMHO, the majority of new makers will get finer tolerances than quite a few of the factory rods from back in the day, right out of the gate. The big thing is to "just do it", as the ads say. :-) The two biggest things that send the new maker heading for the exit are unreasonable expectations, and fear of failure. You will make mistakes. They will not be the end of the world, 9 times out of 10. There are things in rodmaking that no book can teach you -- they have to be experienced -- and when you run into them, you're at least going to end up with a strip that's less than "perfect". Know what? It probably won't render the finished rod unfishable. Yeah, you might end up with a glue line from it, but you'll learn from it, and the next time you'll have a better idea of what you can and can't get away with. Do the best you can at the time, and learn from it. The next rod will be better, and the current one won't turn out half as bad as you think it will! (Todd Enders) Bamboo Rod building is for all of us a matter of personal expectation. Too bad that there are those whose expectations will always exceed their ability. But It really does not matter. I once cast a rod made by one of the most renowned builders . I thought it was a piece of crud. As a fishing pole I would not have paid $20.00 for it. As an investment, I might have coughed up $5000.00 if I had had it. Conversely one of the nicest rods I ever cast (other than my own) looked like hell. I cost $5.00 brand new and had to be depreciated at $5.00 a year for the twenty years before I saw it. If I built rods like the latter, I am sure that I would starve to death; it had no class. If I were to build rods like the former, I still wouldn't have made any more money than he did before his death. If I were to fish forever it would be with the $5.00 rod. One of this list said, "You build rods because you have to." I don't think you will ever be a rod maker unless you have to, and then it makes no difference at all what you build. You will build good rods, bad rods, rods you have to hide in the closet before company comes, and rods that make your spine tingle when you cast them. Don't worry. (Ralph Moon)
It is "teaching" to cast with: in the "upright" position it is very fast and turned 90 degrees it is very slow. It, however, casts the same length of line with both fast and slow modes with same subjective effort (if you understand my expression)! With extreme line lengths the accuracy is affected by the asymmetry, with usual line lengths it is quite easy to handle. (Tapani Salmi) I made a rod with a built in spine also, but it was a rectangular quad. I put the guides on the long side of the cross section so that the rod "liked" to bend in the same plane as the guides. Before I finished the rod I temporarily taped the guides on the short side, just to see what it was like. From that experience I vote for guides with the spine either on the outside of the bend or the inside, not 90 degrees to it. (Darryl Hayashida) This is a subject that is dear to my heart and is important with respect to rod casting and guide location. Any rod can be subdivided into four quadrants by two planes passing through the rod cross section at right angles. One can think of this configuration as follows. ^ Soft Plane (vertical) Now depending on whether one defines (this is the key issue) the spine as the soft plane or the stiff plane depends on how one decides where to put the guides. The guides are always put on the soft plane (folks argue about which side, but in my opinion that does not matter) since the stiff plane keeps the rod from having induced vibrations in the stiff direction - IE: the tip of the rod vibrates in ovals when excited like Andy Murray said if you turn the rod section 90 degrees - he defines the stiff plane as the spine. The soft plane is the one that contains the curved rod when bent - one side concave and one side convex. It is my opinion that the only definite rule is to put the guides on the soft plane. Some folks put them on the concave side (I do) while others put them on the convex side (that is OK also). Either way, the guides are in the Soft Plane where they should be to minimize coupled vibration between the two planes. Some folks define spine as the stiff plane while others define it as the soft plane in their writing. The key here is to put the guides along the soft plane. If you put the guides on the stiff plane, the rod when cast will excite the soft plane (coupling of dynamic vibrations in two orthogonal planes) and cause the rod tip to wobble in oval like circles. If the guides are on the soft plane the rod dynamics limit the transfer of stored rod elastic energy into the stiff plane (well some goes there but it is very small when compared with the opposite arrangement). I hope this helps folks to think about spine and not get confused. (Frank Paul) After reading Frank's explanation on spines, I'm confused. A couple of questions: On what flat should the guides be located to maximize power of casting? On what flat should they be located to maximize accuracy of the cast? How about using a cantilever vibration test to select the proper flat for the guides? (Dennis Bertram) I was a little puzzled as well, until I visualized the rod as asymmetrical. Like a yard stick. The soft plane is the broad side of the yardstick, and the hard plane is the narrow. In this case the guides go on the soft plane, and according to Frank it does not matter which side. My problem comes when the rod is symmetrical. In this case it presuppose a spine, and if my figuring it out is correct, the spine should be at right angles to the casting plane. But that to me does not make real sense either. So I decided not to worry about it and do like I have always done, because it works that way. Did I really mess it up Frank??????? (Ralph Moon) Want to be more confused, read Ray Gould's new book on spines. I am still puzzled. I will have to read it a few more times. Like you, I will just do it the way I have been doing it for the last 25 years. I tried a different way twice, was not happy with it. (Tony Spezio) I don't think in terms of soft or hard sides but in terms of soft and stiff planes that orthogonal to each other (see previous post with figure). Think of a yard stick that has a stiff plane and a soft plane that are orthogonal to each other when you deform them. One wants to put guides on the soft plane, either side is acceptable to minimized vibrational coupling of these two modes. Some folks like to put them on the concave side and some on the convex side. From a solid mechanics viewpoint, there is no difference, as one side will be in compression and the other side will be in tension when deformed if the neutral axis of the rod section is in the middle of the rod. I usually put them on the concave side, but that is just my approach. (Frank Paul) You have it right, except when the rod is perfectly symmetrical, no stiff or soft planes, just equally stiff/soft is all planes, then there is no spine. One can then put the guides where they want as there should be no preferred plane for casting the rod. The "plastic" rods made by Gatti are supposedly extruded from a die to make them as symmetrical as possible. This is different than most rod manufacturers who wrap a mandrel with cut sheets of graphite or fiber glass. The edges where the wraps come together in the wrap cause the spine. Currently, plastic rods use such thin prepreg sheets, that spine has become less of a problem in these rods as well. As Bill Harms indicated, if any rod is perfectly symmetrical longitudinally and laterally, there is no spine, or we do not need to worry about it - I think that is what you said Bill - am I correct? (Frank Paul) Let me try. You can buy or make a spine finder out of two bearings and a foot of pvc. The bearings are at each end. Stick a section of your rod into the contraption. Where the rod contacts the bearings build up a round surface on the rod with masking tape or rubber washers etc. Push down on the free end and the rod will actually spin if it has a spine until it reaches its equilibrium point. That state where the rod is most stable under flexion. Sometimes you have to help it by gently spinning with your fingers but if a spine is there it will snap to the most stable plane. If you want to maximize fighting fish you put the guides on the bottom of the arch. If you want to maximize casting put the guides on the top of the arch. It is simple physics. You do not want the rod to be twisting or trying to twist when flexed. (Dennis Aebersold) On what flat should the guides be located to maximize power of casting? Ideally, I am not sure that maximizing power has anything to do with where the guides are located. That depends only on two things in my opinion. One, the rod construction and taper, and second the caster that supplies all the work/energy for a cast. There is no select flat to maximize power (work per unit of time) in my opinion. Once the taper is defined and the rod is built, the casting system - human arm, rod, and line together - is the integrated system that influences how effective and efficient the system behaves. On what flat should they be located to maximize accuracy of the cast? It is my opinion that casting accuracy (placing the fly at a desired/precise location) is best when the guides are in the soft plane of the rod, as the rod tip oval oscillations are minimum in this plane. Placing the guides on the stiff sides tend to make this problem worse in my opinion. How about using a cantilever vibration test to select the proper flat for the guides? Excellent way to identify the soft plane for guide placement. I usually do both the bending test, followed by the vibration test. The vibration test seems more sensitive in my opinion and often provides a corrected angular orientation. Of course, for "plastic" rods you have a full 360 degree orientation, but with a hex bamboo rod, you only have 6 sides to work with. (Frank Paul) I always thought the soft side was the concave side of the rod. If I read correctly in Gould's book, it is the Convex side. From the posts I could not determine if it was the Concave or Convex side. I put mine on inside of the bend "Concave" like I did and still do on plastic rods. I agree with Bill, if the blank is about perfect in all aspects, there will be no spine. I strive for that and have achieved it on several rods but not all of them. On the ones that I find a spine, sometimes I can diminish it some with a bit of sanding. (Tony Spezio) The way I handle the question of which face to mount the guides is as follows: when the sections are finished, straightened, glued-up and ferruled, I join the sections and select the position that gives best straightness through the ferrules. From that point I check very carefully for the rod's very slight preference, right or left, or up and down. I then place the guides so as to have them give correction to that preference so that fishing will bring it in even straighter. My rods have no spline differences that I can detect. KISS scores again. (Bill Fink) Again, the "spine" is the backbone of the rod. It is the flat that deflects the least. It is measurable. Here are a couple of pictures
that show a fixture that measures deflection. If you chose to place the guides on the flat that deflects the least, it will deflect the least of the six sides when you pick up your line from the water. Accuracy? Talk to me about how accurate your most accurate rod is while you cast in a gusty side wind with a 17 foot leader tapered to 6x. (Chris Raine) If I were fishing in gusty side-winds with a 17 ft. leader tapered to 6x, the spine in my rod would be the very LAST thing to worry about. (Bill Harms)
Personally, (and aren't all things rodmaking and flyfishing personal?) I take the strongest kick and place my guides on that spline (not spine). I like the strongest portion of the rod to help me on the lift and backcast and not the cast. I know others who will disagree with me one hundred percent! Perhaps it's my own casting style. I like the most power in the rod at the lift and not the cast. Others prefer it the opposite and they have their on reasons. (Mike Shay) Wrap guides on it, finish it, then fish it. I think you'll find it casts just fine. (Lee Orr) I think of each of the strips as a spline and the spine as the stronger strip. I've had a couple of tips in which there felt like there were two spine, opposite each other, in which case I put the guides between them and the rod cast well, feeling like it wanted to throw things straight and with the tip flexing less to either side. As far as which side you mount the guides, I prefer to put them opposite the strong side, as I want the strong side to come into play when I'm fighting fish or lifting the line from the water. Bet your rod will fish fine. (Henry Mitchell) Have you seen this posting at the rodbuilding forum? (Steve Shelton) If I can find my Spine/spline post from back a couple of years ago I will send it to you. Try this, Put the tip section flat on a table or bench with about 1/2 to 3/4 of the tip end past the table end. Hold the butt end down flat with one hand and bend the tip end down with the other hand. When you release the tip end it will vibrate up and down in an oval. When it vibrates closest to vertical that is the flat I would use to put the guides on. I normally put my guides on the inside bend. No tomato stakes, you made the section, finish it and fish it. (Tony Spezio) I think it was Bill Fink who said that, all else being equal, he simply aligns the flats so that the rod is as straight as can be through the ferrule and then places the guides to counteract any tendency of the rod to 'lean' in a direction. That makes sense to me, as if the tip and butt are not straight through the ferrule in the casting plane, the position of the spline is not going to have that much effect in improving the accuracy of the rod anyway. (Stephen Dugmore) I've suffered from this myself. Can it be that there are twists in the section? If the section is not straight, this problem can be a problem. (Mike Canazon)
This could also be a result of some strips being inadequately straightened, but a quick visual inspection of the strips (prior to and during planing) ought to have obviated that possibility. Usually a "jump" is the result of strips being of slightly different dimensions. It doesn't seem to take much to make a difference and, of course, this effect will always be greater in a tip section than in a butt. Not to worry: you'll get a better feel for this as you make more and more rods. As to whether the spline should go on the top or the bottom, you'll probably get a whole range of opinions. The only question, really, is whether you want the greatest strength in the back cast or in the forward cast, and I don't know which might be "better." (Bill Harms)
Here's my hypothesis: If the spine does matter, then I assume the rod would have a tendency to lean to the left or right of the vertical plane when loaded if the spine was on the side of the rod. That would seem to be the worst case. Having the spine on the top or bottom of the rod would supposedly make the rod stiffer in the back or forward cast. I set up a rough test. I clamped the handle of a 7.5‘ 5wt 2 piece rod in my drill press vice suspending the rod parallel to the floor. Rigged up a plumb line approximately the weight of 30’ of 5wt line. Hung the plumb from the butt near the vice just in front of the cork and marked the location of the plumb on the floor. I used that mark as the anchor point for a straight line on the floor to the tip location. Next I moved the plumb line to the tip of the rod and put a pencil mark on the floor noting the position of the weight. Marked a straight line from butt to tip on the floor. I then added enough weight to the plumb to equal about 4 times the weight of 30’ of 5wt line. Hung that from the tip of the rod and marked the location of the plumb on the floor. Did that whole routine 4 times turning the rod in quarter turns. Now...if the spine of the rod is going to make the rod lean outside the vertical plane when loaded, the marks I made on the floor with 4 times the weight of 30’ of line should skew materially to the left or right of the straight line from butt to tip. They did not. The loaded point was within a 16th of an inch of the straight line in all four rod positions. Actually they may have been on, but my testing setup wasn't precise enough to get any closer than a 16th. My casting stroke isn't good enough to stay within a 16th in the vertical plane anyway. I also noted the deflection of the rod in all four positions. There was a variance of about half an inch. Again, not material. I checked the rod for a spine using the traditional method. Both the butt and tip have notable spines and the guides are mounted on the stiff side. So why didn't the spine effect the trajectory of the rod tip in the vertical plane with a load on the rod? And why didn't I get more than a half inch variance in the deflection of the loaded rod? It appears that the position of the spine has no noticeable effect on the performance of a loaded rod (at least in the case of a trout class rod). Am I missing something? (David Bolin) The question that comes to mind is how does a static load comport with a dynamic load? (Vince Brannick) I agree. To that point..I tried to mimic the oscillation test this afternoon just holding the rod normally. Couldn't do it. I had to anchor the butt of the rod against my hip to get the tip to oscillate. The natural dampening effect of holding the rod in my hand eliminated any oscillation caused by the spine. It seems reasonable to assume that the spine really does cause the oscillation and stiff sides noted in traditional static methods. But maybe just picking up the rod with a few feet of line out totally eliminates the spine effect we see in those tests. (David Bolin) My own perception is that static or dynamic, the effecct will be the same. But then What do I know??? (Ralph Moon) Your approach addresses the static behavior of the rod structure, and its spine. The vibration test you mention more appropriately addresses the dynamic behavior of the rod structure in my opinion. It is my opinion that the spine is important when casting because casting is a dynamic process. Just a quick opinion. There are many others that do not agree. (Frank Paul)
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