There is definately some merrit to the spiral wrap. Before I made my first I played myth busters in the basement. While taping the guides on top first and putting under load as long as you were straight up and down things were fine. If you went slightly off center (as what happens while cranking under load) it wants to pull the rod 180 with the guides underneat. Then I tried taping the guides in a spiral. First I will say it looked wierd. When under load, the more load you put on it the more it tries to stay upright. At 20# it would actually flip the reel right side up if the weight of the reel was upside down. While cranking under load you could crank a noticeably heavier load than standard guide placement. Before the rod wanted to twist under less load. I also offset my reel by redrilling the feel seet holes on the frame and moving it as far to the right as possible (leffty reel). This made my crank arm closer to the rod center line and made. Now my spool is off center but works hand in hand with my spiral transition. I have caught several tuna on it and can say I love it. I can crank hard enough that I get blisters on my thumb now and am looking to upgrade the handle.
All American Roller Guide builds roller guides specifically for heavier acid rods, and I use a couple of 80 versions. Even on the lighter stuff (40-60) I think that their tip roller, designed to be on the bottom, can save a lot of line wear, I like 'em.
David Jones
I now use acid wrapped rods exclusively when bounceballing for halibut. Since we're essentially slow trolling the bottom with 2-3lbs of lead, the rod has a constant load.
When using conventional wraps before, I would get maybe 1 to 1 1/2 years of use before the rod would break, always in the same spot around 18 inches from the tip.
I'm thinking it was due to the side torque since the pressure was from the top of the rod. Now I don't have these problems, and you really do notice a difference when handling the rod, since you don't have to fight the side torque. You can just lay the rod grip in the palm of an open hand and everything stays upright.
It's great for women for this reason too.
Forgot to mention this........my first acid wrap had a Neptune roller guide tip and it worked great. Excepting on the smaller diameter lines (I use spectra so it's super thin) that had a tendency to nest in between the roller and the frame. Now we only use good conventional tips to eliminate this.
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