The effect of Tiptop size

[ROF]

Dirk was casting one of my Redingtons with the SA Comp line. He mentioned that he feels that the line sticks coming forward and pointed out that the Redington tiptop is tear shaped and may resulting in pinching the line.

What is the effect of the shape of the tiptop, the diameter, wire thickness the approach angle? Any magic numbers from distance casting experience?
It makes sense to me to have a perfect round tiptop...?

In most cases the tiptop ID is smaller that the guides...what happens if you attach a eg larger tiptop?

Could not find a thread on this topic, plse redirect as required.

[George C]

REC tips are the worst. They have a wire loop shoved into a tube that is then crimped and the acute edge of the tube forms the bottom of the “ring”.

Standard wire tips in general are brazed together and, at least in the PAC bay tips I’ve used there are no sharp edges or angles for line to get trapped. The larger sizes, however, are heavy and this is noticeable on many rods.

The Fuji Arowana torzite ceramic tips are very light, lighter than a typical small wire tip, and have no place to trap a line but their small diameter makes passage of line cluster-fcks an issue with fast running fish.

The friction issue you’ve encountered may be somewhere other than the tip, however. Snake guides can trap line in the angle where they meet the blank (the presumed cause of “haul lock” ) and single foot wire guides have a narrow V at their base which could conceivably pinch a line. Finally, some rods seem to become “grabby” when old. I have an old 5wt that does this. It happens only when wet. The rod is unfishable without silicone spray. I think it is a surface tension issue between the worn finish and the wet line. When finishes are microscopically abraded my understanding is that water spreads rather than beads on them and this may be the issue.

[James9118]

Some years ago the BFCC used to cast a #9 'saltwater ' event. The rod used was a Reddington CPX originally fitted with the standard wire tip ring. During one of the winter breaks Mike Marshall decided to replace the original tip ring with a lined one that had a much smaller internal diameter (he did this because he felt the wire tip was more damaging to the line). Subsequently the distances recorded from that point onwards were less than previous seasons. I'd have to trawl through the BFCC results to quantify this (I used to have this data but lost it in a windows crash).

James

[Willy Franzen]

I ran into this issue with a brand new 905 Scott Centric. The tip top was much smaller than the the tip top on my 844 G Series and I was having major issues shooting line until the full head was out of the tip top. I also noticed far more noise than I expected considering I fish a 906 Radian quite a bit. After a few emails with Jim Bartschi, he sent me some of the Radian styles tip tops with hot glue. The switch made quite a difference. He said he tried it and didn’t notice a difference, but I have no doubt that it made a drastic difference for me.

[Dirk le Roux]

The issue was on the forward haul, not the shooting. With Leslie's Redington it felt a little like trying to haul MPR cord through those small guides.

Haul timing seemed to play a role in that later hauls, when the tip to line angle is more acute, presented more resistance.

Dirk

[Willy Franzen]

The issue was on the forward haul, not the shooting. With Leslie's Redington it felt a little like trying to haul MPR cord through those small guides.

Haul timing seemed to play a role in that later hauls, when the tip to line angle is more acute, presented more resistance.

Dirk

Did you notice if the problem went away as you got to the point where the running line was out of the tip top? That should be a clear indication that the tip top is the issue. I could definitely feel resistance when hauling, but for me the problem manifested as having to work extra hard to work line out.

[gordonjudd]

The issue was on the forward haul, not the shooting.

Dirk,
That makes more sense to me. Could you test that effect by turning the rod 180 degrees (reel up) so the direction of the pinching effect was reversed?
Gordy

[ROF]

images (10).jpeg (10.05 KiB) Viewed 1490 times

Recently obtained a bunch of old 2 piece rods in various stages or disrepair. In the process of repairing some, I noticed that the tip top angles differ from perpendicular to about 30 degrees from the axis of the rod. Similar to spinning rod vs fly rod. How important is this approah angle of the tip top? It appears if it is designed such that when the rod is at max flex position, the tiptop is parallel to the casting trajectory...

[ROF]

images (11).jpeg (30.83 KiB) Viewed 1477 times

images (10).jpeg
Recently obtained a bunch of old 2 piece rods in various stages or disrepair. In the process of repairing some, I noticed that the tip top angles differ from perpendicular to about 30 degrees from the axis of the rod. Similar to spinning rod vs fly rod. How important is this approah angle of the tip top? It appears if it is designed such that when the rod is at max flex position, the tiptop is parallel to the casting trajectory...

[Dirk le Roux]

Willy, Gordy

Thanks, both the running line attentive and rod reversing are good suggestions to isolate that issue. Will try them once I can cast Leslie's Redington again.

Leslie's question about tip top angles intrigues me too now. Can anyone explain the considerations?

All the best,
Dirk