I just bought 2 PacBay Rainforest II 10'6" blanks that's I'm planning on building into light DR rods for silvers and blackmouth.

I've never built or fished a sprial wraped rod before but it looks like it would work perfect for a rigger rod.

Anyone fish or wrapped a rod like this?

Absolutely, I built 3 IST1266, 2 7' 8-17# Bass Rods,2 Rainshadow RDR86MH, 2 RDR86M and just picked up 2 RCLB79ML's, and a RCJB84H of which all will be spiral. After I built and fished my first 1266 on spiral, I pretty much made up my mind on spiral wraped rods adn have been building them that way ever since.

Chad can you point me to any good reference material on laying out this wrap?

Do you have a preference as far as transition 1, 2 or 3 guides?

TIA
George

George,

What weight are the blanks you bought? 1263,1264,1265. I am assuming the blanks you bought are actually Batson Rainforest blanks that are now discontinued. That won't matter in the least, just curious cause you said they were Pac bay.

My personal preference is a 3 guide transition. I keep the first guides in the lower section of the 2 piece rod, and have the first 180 degree as the last guide in the lower section. By doing that all the guides in the upper section are all on the 180 axis. I also spine both pieces individually, then together to fine tune it.

I would use this table to start with (http://www.rainshadowfishing.com/showthread.php?t=1853) and just rotate the stripper guide 10-15 degrees towards the spiral, second guide 45-65, 3rd 110-160, 4th 180. If you get everything taped on where you like them, put a reel on and put 10 or so ounces of weight hanging from the line and adjust the guides to where you have a smooth transition throughout and no steep angles.

Karry Batson posted this one (http://www.rainshadowfishing.com/showthread.php?t=1470), they use more guides than I do but you get the idea. I think my 1266's have 14 guides plus tip and my cousin fished one for Buoy 10 last year with 10 ounce cannonballs and flasher set ups and said they loaded perfectly and he landed alot of springers in the 20#+ range.

I've used one for kings and coho DR fishing. My friend calls it the 'maphrodite' and I believe it was built on a Rainshadow back bounder blank. I'm sold on the design. The Batson crew built this rod so the advice above should be very sound.

Chad gave some good advice. Though I'm not a huge fan of the spiral wrap, I have built quite a few. It does have its advantages if you can get by the hidious look of it. Starting out I would do exactly what Chad recommended and use the Batson Recipes! I have fished damn near all the spiral wrap rods in the Batson vessel's and where the advantage really stand out is when your vertically jigging with braid, it really minimizes the amount of tip wraps. Although the purpose of spiral wrapping is to eliminate the torque or roll of the rod that's caused by the line pulling against the guide frames on a casting or boat rod making the rod to want to roll against the spine and roll left to right in your hand, i feel as if it is unnecessary unless your trolling big game fish. For Salmon, it is unnecessary, just harvest and be happy! Good luck!

Brad, a backbouncing blank? Are you sure it wasn't a Bullet Proof series blank? Backbouncing blank for a rigger rod seems odd!

You're probably right Chris it was a shorter rod a 7'9" or 8'.

Chad thanks for the info. They are the 1263 blanks and I'm sure they are the discontinued Baston blanks even under the PacBay label. I know there is connection between the two companies.

They are a bit faster then I prefer for rigger rods but I think the will work fine and they were clearance so I got the for about 50% off.

I'm building these rods for myself to use and I think the spiral wrap looks interesting athstically, so if it's improved functionally and "looks cool" I'm all for having a couple on my boat.

I'll post pics when I get started, on to choosing components, one of my favorite parts of building. :~)

Love to see this when you're done....

For me, we typically fish single-action/mooching reels so the reel on the bottom makes more sense in the holder for our needs -- but in our case you want the spine opposite from the guides --- which the Shimano Convergence rods have done properly.

B

I have built all my plug rods in a spiral wrap. Love it. Rods no longer shift from side to side when placed under load in the rod holders. Like Chad said, from a torgue standpoint, it is far more beneficial on larger (especially pelagic) fish, but it does feel very comfortable with smaller (salmon/steelhead) fish too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOTM9pja06s

Here is a short video of a 7 foot spiral wrap rod in action on Lake Ontario battling a decent king for that lake. The rod was made custom by the Fish Doctor. Its a 1 pc rod.

Resurrecting this old thread.

I was too busy/lazy (pick one) last winter and didn't get these rods going, so I've promised myself that they will get done this winter.

I just received all of the components from Mudhole so I'm getting ready to start putting them together.

I had a thought while fishing this last weekend and wanted to toss it out here for some feedback.

Most spiral wraps I've seen rotate counter clockwise but I'm thinking about making them different for each rigger. Counter clockwise for the port rigger and clockwise for the starboard. It seems like this would align the guides better for the direction of the torque on the rod when loaded up in the rigger.

Anyone played with this? Thoughts?

Rod specs:
PacBay Rainforest II 1263 blanks
15" graphite butt
Mudhole CRB 16mm trigger seat
4" EVA foregrip
9 PacBay Minima 4 guides
12,10,10,8,8,8,8,8,8 and 8 tip

I've been building my DR rods as rainshadow RDR96MHR's. Your blank oughta work too. I would suggest a "simple" spiral, with butt guide aligned directly with the reel seat, then the second guide at 90 degrees on the side of the reel handle, and then the third guide at 180 degrees, to align with all the others 180 degrees on out to the tip top. Here's a resource that'll help get the degrees correct. Download the top left pdf on acid-wraps for the tool that I've found helpful:

http://www.acidrod.com/acidrod_layout.html

It will work perfectly. I can post pix of my builds if you want. In terms of guide spacing, you can follow rainshadow's website, where you'll likely find a recipe for the blank you're building on. In my opinion, if you're building on a casting reel platform, the spiral is absolutely the way to go for a DR rod.

Have fun!

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I have a friend in Poulsbo that a rod builder, he wraps them in red or green, port and starboard, I think he wraps twist left or right also. Dicksons Rod Building.........fun to make your own toys

Fishbadger, thanks for the info. I had been toying with using the Forhan Revolver style spiral but then I read some things that indicated there was no difference in performance between the two styles. Seems like the simple spiral would be easiey to lay out.

I'd love to see some pix of your builds. If I can ever figure out how to post pix on here, I'll post some as I get started.

Panhandler, neat idea to make them red or green for port and starboard. :-)

Cabela's had a nice 8 1/2 foot spiral wrap rod on sale for ----$10 !!!! a couple weeks ago, I regret that I only bought 2. Love it for king salmon, the rod stays put in the holder with no tendency to swivel. Went back to stock up and they were sold out, I think the original proce was $50. Nice guides and a folding hook holder, with a bright yellow tip.

I built two of the Batson RDR9' rods for my downrigger fishing. They are wraped in aposing twist for each side of the boat. I wraped my guides in a continues twist with the tip and first guide from the reel being 90 deg. From each other.

I'll post some pix when I can get down to my boat,

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Waboman,

Continuous twist with the stripper guide 90 degrees from the tip?

So if I get you right the tip is 90 degrees off the reel?

Sorry! I should have said 180 deg.