rod guide repair

Funny story this summer while on a BWCA trip we were sight fishing smallies in about 10 feet this lake has around 25-30 foot clarity very clear and I saw a rod on the bottom in about 6-8 feet. Ended up going down to get it was a St Croix eyecon spinning rod so I was super pumped of course. However the rod guides mostly the tip have several groves in them from lead-core or heavy braid making it pretty much unusable. Wondering if there is a way you can sand this out somehow? Would be cool if I could salvage this rod.

Better off rebuilding it. I don’t think sanding the ceramic is a good idea as it will probably never be as smooth as new. The tip is an easy replacement. Warm it up with a lighter a little and it should pull right off. Measure the I.d. of the tube on the tip and order a new one from mudhole or whomever with some tip top glue.

Brady Valberg wrote:

Better off rebuilding it. I don’t think sanding the ceramic is a good idea as it will probably never be as smooth as new. The tip is an easy replacement. Warm it up with a lighter a little and it should pull right off. Measure the I.d. of the tube on the tip and order a new one from mudhole or whomever with some tip top glue.

Good advise here. My rod repair guy down here only charges a few bucks per guide, and will use high quality guides. If you are interested I am pretty sure you could ship the rod to him and he will replace all the guides that need replaced. PM me. You can call him and discuss.

Got any pictures of the grooved guides? I’m wondering if they’re ceramic or stainless steel inserts as I’ve never seen grooved ceramic guides before. Usually only see that with metallic guides like Minimas, wire fly guides, or recoils.

Either way the grooved guides can’t be repaired but replacing them isn’t expensive or difficult either. The tip top replacement is especially easy – only takes a new tip top, some glue, and a little heat.

Replace tip and any bad guides. Many rod builders around so wouldn’t be hard to find someone to do it

It’s not that difficult to replace guides yourself. It just takes practice. They might not look as fancy as factory wrapped guides, but they certainly can work as well. Plenty of tips here:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=spinning+rod+guide+replacement

Randy Wieland wrote:

Replace tip and any bad guides. Many rod builders around so wouldn’t be hard to find someone to do it

x2

Thorne bros replaced mine a few years back. It was 3 guides that lost the inner ceramic or what ever material it is. Cost under 20 bucks

tswoboda wrote:

Got any pictures of the grooved guides? I’m wondering if they’re ceramic or stainless steel inserts as I’ve never seen grooved ceramic guides before. Usually only see that with metallic guides like Minimas, wire fly guides, or recoils.

Either way the grooved guides can’t be repaired but replacing them isn’t expensive or difficult either. The tip top replacement is especially easy – only takes a new tip top, some glue, and a little heat.

My mistake the rod is actually an older Fenwick model. The label had been worn off on the rod itself but I found the Fenwick label on the rod butt. The guides are not ceramic and they are some type of metal. Look like recoils but not 100 percent sure. I think this rod may have been made when they didn’t have high-quality titanium recoil guides like you can find today. I will upload some pics of the damage when I get the chance.

Ok if it’s a Fenwick then that makes sense, they use a lot of the stainless ringed guides like the ones in the pictures. No need to get pictures. Those are cheap guides to replace like less than $20 in material for the entire guide train.

Attachments:

1. 

   berkley-ss304bb-spinning-rod-guides.jpg
   

2. 

   284303.jpg
   

3. 

   284302.jpg