Starting a 7'-6" allstar soon, need suggestions

Joined: 28 Jan 2008 Posts: 11 Location: St. Louis

I'm going to take the plunge and start a 7'-6" allstar 15-30 rated blank soon and I'm looking for opinions on reel seat placement as well as number of eyes and their placement. It'll be a spinner, a pier rod, and I'll either be putting a mitchell 306 or possibly a 302. I'll be using the old style wire eyes and already have lots of them in sizes from 70 on down. All suggestions are appreciated!

Joined: 21 Jul 2009 Posts: 1

My suggestion is, when you decide on the reel seat and guide placement, hot-glue your tip on and tape on your guides and reel with masking tape. Underwrap the reel/guides with masking tape to protect the blank from scratches, if you wish. Then go test cast the setup under as realistic conditions as you can create. Remember that casting live/snobble baits is totally different from lead/lures, as you have to avoid slinging your bait off. Fine tune the placement of the guide closest to the reel for best casting distance. When it's set, fine tune the position of the other guides for even stress distribution. This is a lot of trouble, but can really make a difference in the rod's performance.

There are some great builders on these forums, and I'm looking forward to their advice, too. I'm planning to build a 9' lami 1083 e-glass spinner for pier live bait/snobble fishing for kings, using Penn reels up to my 850ss. I want hypalon split grips, but don't know what lengths to order, and straight, oval, or tapered?

I'm considering using a set of fuji bsvlg ceramic guides (30, 20, 16, 12, 10), backed by 50 & 70 stainless wire guides. I think all wire guides would look better, but would they perform just as well? Confused

I hope some of you will advise jigslinger, and maybe help me,too. Thanks in advance.

-Jim