The Convertible Casting/Spinning Rod 12 16 2020
I am going to be brief on this one. I never thought it could be done; but now I know that it can! The reason that I thought that it couldn't be done is because the spine of the rod has to be orientated with the real seat and guides. The rod bends the same way whether you have a casting or spinning rod when you have a fish on; down! The spine of rod blank before the rod is made is the way that the rod naturally bends! It will always bend the exact same way! In other words you determine how it bends by allowing the butt of the rod to spin freely on a surface and you put one hand in the middle and one at the top and give it a little bend. (not too much that you break the tip or anything like that) Then when building a rod you put a little piece of tape on the butt of the blank as to where the rod is bending. Do the test again and that tape will always be in the same place when the blank it bent!
The rod bends the same way with fish on it, down. Spinning guides are on the bottom side of the spine and when a casting rod is made the guides are placed on the top of the spine. So that is the problem. You can't just turn a casting rod upside down and use it as a spinning rod because the rod is bending against the spine and it break! Same goes or spinning rod.
So you have to be creative to solve this problem.
The real seat issue is easy. You just make a double real seat that will attach a real to the top or bottom. And one whereby the finger rest for the casting rod can be removed so it can be like a spinning reel seat. This has already been done in the reel seat business. There is one something like that. But it isn't for that purpose.
So what about the guides? Here is how the problem is solved. You need a two piece guide system. Part I. One that amounts to a mounting part of the guide which would be wrapped to the rod as usual. But it does not have the rings for the line on it. Instead it is designed so that the ring part of the guide can be temporarily permanently locked into place! Whalla! And on either side. Part II The ring part of the guide can be double footed for casting or long footed for spinning and fit into either the top or bottom of part 1. There are many current technologies that could be used to lock that ring part onto part one temporarily permanently.
What would be great about these new guides would be that you would never have to worry about getting up North to a fishing hole and finding one of the ceramic rings on one of your guides is cracked, rendering the rod useless then because that sharp crack will break your line, when you have a fish one!!!
Just snap or pop in a new guide! Have a few spares with you!
Copyright 2020 Thomas Murphy
Yep I do believe I thought of it first.
Easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a good man to make money from the inventions of his own human mind.
A little more on the two piece design. So part one would fit on the rod with a receptacle for the ring part of the guide on the top or bottom. Part 2 could have a circle that fits over the tip of the rod with the other guides removed and is moved down the rod until it reaches its receptacle and snaps in that way. Or it could be designed so that it doesn't have to go through that process. The receptacle could look something like a reel seat. A reel seat can be said to have two "hoods" that the foot of the reel fits into. Part 1 the Receptacle could have four hoods. Two on top two on bottom. It could also be designed so that a spacer is placed in the receptacle between the two unused hoods so as to accommodate for increased strength/less wobble. The receptacle itself could have one double hood that screw locks the guide in place. But that isn't the way I initially envisioned it. Something a lot simpler than that would work. Perhaps the feet of the guide have a notch system. Perhaps there is a spring loaded "key." Anyhow it isn't too hard to figure out. A spring loaded collar on part 1 receptacle that fits over a key footed guide and locks in place. Backwards or perhaps forward pressure releases the spring loading. Or it could be a tolerance tensioning system. Might even use an o-ring. With time perhaps the initial system could be perfected to be lighter and stronger.
Could you imagine buying a fishing rod blank with the guides already located in place? But it could still be either spinning or casting? Might take rod building to a whole new level, more widespread?
And it could be done!
****'
Another advantage would be that...sometimes one worries how a fishing rod was initially made? Was that guide that was wrapped on there very sharp on the lower side? Whereby it eats into the rod over time and causes premature failure? Was there a downward bur on the end of it that facilitates the same. With this system that concern would be lessened. The guide wouldn't be free floating per say (part2) But part one would be established in such a way as to make that issue nonexistent.
