Fuji K guides - am I missing something?

[Lars Nielsen]

Fuji K series guides are designed to prevent wind knots, but my personal experience along with everyone else I ever discussed it with is that these guides give you more - not less - wind knots, they reduce casting distance and are impractical when packing your rod tube.

I know these guides have been dicussed here before, and most people here seem to hate them too. But why do reputable rod producers still use them like FCL, Yamaga, Jigging Master and others?

Shortly I will have the chance to influence some popping rod configuration and I know the K guides are going to come up. I want to be sure I'm am not missing something. Does anybody like anything about them at all? Any feedback is highly appreciated, even if it is just "You are right - they suck."

Thank you.

[Nathan Tsao]

The biggest mistake i see with K guides, is that too often the stripper guide is placed too close to the reel seat. With K frames you'll need to place the guide several inches further up the blank than you would place a standard MNSG guide. With proper positioning they can work well. I feel that they are the most effective on long surf rods where the blank has plenty of room to use a wide stripper spacing; sometimes up to 36" from the spool face.

[Alex Jordan]

Good observation Nathan - my RP250 tends to slap with the 20K max spool so I may try moving the stripper guide back an inch or so!

Bear in mind the new Torzites are imminent - smoother and tougher than SIC and a bigger internal ring diameter than SIC's pound for pound but $$$$$$$$ as they only come with Ti frames!

Tying some up on lighter spinning rods at the moment - watch this space!

[Cameron Mundy]

To the best of my knowledge K guides aren't designed to reduce wind knots but to prevent line wrapping around the guide itself, anyone who has seen this happen will know it generally ends in disaster when casting big GT lures often ripping the guide off the blank. 

[Cameron Mundy]

This is what K-Guides are designed to prevent.
Thanks to mark for the Photo

[Mark Harris]

I do agree it would be hard to flatten a K-Guide in the way shown in my pic there.

But the stuff about less wind knots is rubbish I think. I have noticed no more or no less wind knots with or without K-Guides.

[Farid Badri]

K guides DO NOT reduce wind knots or increase them.......they are designed to stop line wrap around the guide while casting.....as it has been mentioned. 

I have used them quite a lot on my builds......and because of their height (compared to MSNGs) you can not place them the same as other guides....also because of the design on the bracing you can not reverse their direction to help with reducing the line slap.

I have stopped using them because of cost.....in fact I have stopped using SIC guides altogether because of cost and no really benefit.  My go to guides now are the MSNGs with Alconite insert rings.....less expensive, mure durable than SICs, and in my opinion better looking (Alconite is a closer color to black than Sic)........in addition the increased height of the K guides really becomes a problem when trying to get the rods into a rod tube for traveling.

On the other hand I like the single footed K guides because they are a lot more robust.