This one is a Seeker CTSF66XXXXH Acid Roller Rail Rod dialed in to fish 100lb. This one is set up with A.A. Neptune Sundance Roller Guides, Amtak calcutta gold aluminum reel seat, 14" hard composite Rail Grip w/matching accent ring and butt, and hypalon rear grip. I intentionally left out a gimbal because this rod will be used by A.A. Roller Guide to demonstrate the natural stability of an Acid Roller rod, and will be fished on the rail without a harness.
Specs and building info:
This rod is wrapped close to the "standard" system..no "bumpers".
The rod is a Seeker CTSF68XXXXH, 80-150, trimmed to 6'6". It is set up as a 100lb rail rod @ 35-40lbs. of drag. Guides are set up to spiral to the left.
I dedicated an entire day to experimenting with different spacings and angles, in 1/4" increments for spacing, and 2 deg increments in angle for the transition guides, and deflection tested @ 35lbs. at each increment using a digital scale attatched to the line and hooked to the deflection jig. I also deflection tested with the rod rotated up to 30 degrees to the left and right @ 35lb.load. With the rod under load at 0 deg, the line between the transition guides was 1/8" away from the blank. I ultimately arrived at the following spacing and angles for this particular rod. Measurements are from the center of the roller screw on the tip to center of roller on the guides:
tip: 0" @ 180deg.
#1: 4" @ 180deg.
#2: 9" @ 180deg.
#3: 15" @ 180deg.
#4: 22" @ 180deg.
#5: 29" @ 162deg.
#6: 37" @ 30deg.
From guide #6 to the top of the reel seat is 22"(roughly 24" to centerline of reel).
The only guides that are angled are the first 2 transition guides.
Observations:
The critical measurements here were the distance between the first three transition guides. The distance between the 30deg guide and the 162deg guide is 8". The distance between the 162deg and the first 180deg. guide is 7". With this particular blank the span between the 3 transition guides is 15", with the middle guide roughly centered. With the span moved to 17", as the blank is flexed to full load, the line lifts off of the middle guide roller, and is suspended almost dead center in the guide window. Rotate the rod 30deg to the left, it contacts the side of the frame. To the right, it seats in the rollers' v grove.
Now if the span between the first 3 guides is moved closer together at 14", The angles needed to keep the line away from the blank can potentially make the line want to pop out of the stripper guides' roller when the rod is loaded up and rotated about 20 deg to the left, with the line held to the far left of the reel spool. The line never popped out on its own accord, but when popped out manually, it didnt fall back into the grove on its own.
The magic number for this blank seems to be around 15", and 3 or 4 degees difference in the angles either way of the 3 guides in the span have no adverse effect.
Heres the rod under load straight up at 0deg. The line is centered in all roller grooves, and has an 1/8" standoff from the blank.
Heres the rod under load at 30 deg. to the left. Line still in the roller groves. As you can see, 30 degrees is a prety extreme angle to realistically fish. At this angle, a conventional roller rod will encounter different issues in this scenario, as well as potentially contacting the frame. The conventional roller guides at the top of the curve of the rod will have the brunt of the load pushing down and sideways, twisting the blank under load over a short area as well as allow the line to contact the frame. With the Acid Rollers in this position, there is also some torsion, but it is distributed over the entire length of the rod. A conventional rod in this position wants to follow the path of least resistance and pull sideways or flip over, while the Acid setup does the opposite and wants to right itself.
Another observation is at the tip. At around 35-40 degrees under full load, the line will strike the frame. This will happen with any roller, acid or not.
Conclusion: Obviously, its not a good idea to allow any roller rod to be under full load at this kind of angle. But in my opinion, an acid roller rod will have a better margin of error because of the blank twist factor and the tendency for the torsion effect to swing the rod in the favor of the angler by wanting to right itself, vs, wanting to flip... Fighting the gear, not the fish.
From the building perspective: Obviously different blanks have different parabolic curves, and will affect the placement of these rollers. With the first guide in the transition, the line has a downward force on the roller...the next guide has an upward force into the roller...and the next guide in succession has a downward force into the roller. With a parabolic blank, the greater the possibility for the line to lift off of the center roller, and possibly drift into the frame. Basically this means the more parabolic the blank, the shorter the span of the first 3 guides needs to be. Reducing the span of course means a more extreme angle of attack as the line goes from roller to roller. This is minimized by reducing the angles of the guides bringing the line as close as reasonably possible to the blank.
Same principle applies to the distance from the first transition guide to the reel.
The more parabolic the blank, the shorter the distance needs to be to avoid line strike on the foregrip. Also, more parabolic rods dont really need as long of a grip as faster action rods, so a shorter grip helps in this respect also. 2 inches can mean the difference between line strike or not.
My plan of attack when laying out an an acid roller rod:
#1: Determine the action of the blank and estimate the distance of the stripper guide and mark with a china marker. My rule of thumb is 24" from the centerline of the reel for a fast action blank to 20" for a very slow parabolic.
#2: Estimate the span of the first 3 guides based on the action of the rod. and mark. Around 15" seems good for fast action 6-7 footer. If the rod is less than 6', maybe around 14". I place the center guide in the span around 1" closer to the 3rd guide for appearance, and to soften the angle of the line going through the stripper to the reel. This extra distance also helps to compensate for the varying angle as the line travels across the spool. Remember, an angle going into the roller isnt what makes it pop out of the groove...its an angle going in, AND an opposite angle going out that does it. The little extra distance from the middle guide in the span softens the negative angle. For parabolic rods, the span needs to be shorter, but shouldnt be less than 12", or the line angles will be too extreme. Usually, parabolic blanks tend to be smaller diameters, this will help compensate the line angles created by the shorter span...I'll explain more with angle placement.
#3: I space out the remaining guides to evenly distribute the load and mark the spots. With longer parabolic rods, an extra guide may be needed to compensate for the closer stripper placement and shorter span between the transition guides...purely cosmetic though. 6 roller guides + tip should functionally be enough for any rod up to 7', but another won't hurt anything. 5 guides + tip is fine for anything 5-1/2' and under, but 6 works too.
#4: I then install the tip at 180 deg., place the rod in my rod machine and tape all but the fisrt 2 transition guides into place at 180 degrees with 1/2" masking tape. I make sure to tape both feet snugly with at least 5 tight turns because I will be fully loading the rod.
The angle of the transition guides are directly proportional to the diameter of the blank + 1/4" to leave an 1/8" standoff between the line and blank. With the rod at 0 deg in the machine(taped guides pionting down), I look directly down at the blank and position the first transition guide to the left, just to where the centerline of the roller meets the edge of the blank within my line of sight and tape into place. It doesnt have to be perfect, just rough. Then I turn the blank over to 180 deg. and repeat the same thing with the second guide, but to the right. This sets up a rough left spiral line transition. Left because most big game reels are right hand crank, and the rod will be gripped with the left hand. The line will tend to stack slightly toward the left side of the reel spool with a left spiral configuration. It is easier for most people to push line over to the right with their thumb while gripping the rod, than it is to pull it over to the left. For the rare lefty reel, I'd transition to the right.
#5: Deflection test and tweak. I tend to assign rods to their mean line rating whenever possible. The mean rating is in the middle between the low and high line rating of the rod. In the case of the rail rod in the pics, it is rated by the manufacturer at 80-150lb.line, with a mean rating of 100lbs., so this rod will be set up to fish 100lb.top shots.
I usually set my lever drags at around 25% of the line rating at strike to compensate for knot strength, line wear, and the fact that the drag pull at the line increases as the spool diameter gets smaller during a long run. I initially push them up at close to full drag (around 35%, 40%tops depending on the reel) immediately after hookup, and kick it down to the strike position when the fish really gets into the spool. So I figure around 35lbs. would be reasonable to load this rod to test. But, because the guides are temporarily attatched with tape, around 20lbs. should put a sufficient bend in it for the initial tweak.
I load the rod with a deflection jig, putting a good bend in it, roughly 20lbs. I adjust the angles of the first two transition guides to where the line is about 1/8" or slightly less from the side of the blank. I make sure the line runs through the roller V groovs of each guide and dont contact the frames. I then rotate the rod 30 deg to the left and right and make sure the line remains in the grooves.
At this point I want to make sure my distance spacing estimate is correct, I attatch a fish scale to the line, anchor it to the deflection jig and crank it up to 35lbs. and make sure the line remains in all of the roller grooves. If the line looses contact with the second roller guide, I need to move guide #1 and #3 closer together, 1/2" each at a time until the line seats in all 3 v grooves and adjust the angles accordingly to maintain the 1/8" line stand off from the blank. If the span between the first 3 guides gets short enough, the 3rd guide may need to be slightly angled toward the second to soften the line angle. Finally I rotate the rod again 30 deg. to the right and left under full load, and pull the line to the right and left of the reel spool, and to the right and left with the line pushed down to simulate a near empty spool, and watch the first roller and watch for line strike on the foregrip. Once I'm happy with the placements and angles, I mark any location changes with the china marker, measure and record the angles, and remove the guides.
#6: I wrap the rod, replacing the guides as close as I can to the the angles I've recorded.
#7: I do a full final deflection test under full load, fine tweak any angles that are off.
#8: I then burnish/ pack any gaps formed in the thread from flexing and tweaking(suprizingly rare)and I finish as usual.
! 
Linear Mode
