My new setup!

[Angler 1]

i was looking for a medium sort of set up , a mate of mine had a musselcracker , when felt the rod ,man its was the perfect blank, for a sort of lighter than the t flex set up , i ordered the rod and when it came i realise dammit , this is heavier than my , tjomiies one, so turned out that my mates rod was indeed a garrick that was mismarked musselcacker for some strange odd reason , so now i have two set ups that are pretty much the same lol , so i decided to go with the slim look,the waft highlander series is a slimline blue marlin hmg blank anyway , and with the t53 its slightly stiffer maybe by an ounce than the t flex - reason - the t flex tip section is t 24, so lets see how this unfolds , i wanted to use "this lighter rod " for sandies blue rays and kob , but now its HEAVIER ! ANYWAY  to cut to the chase i have decided to keep the rod and make do with what i have just bought , so what if i have two of the almost same rods , at least i have a back up lol! its the only way i can convince myself that i havent made such a big blunder lol! i decide to go with standard NLG guides by fugi - 30-25-20-16-16-12 -12 tip , do guys think this would wor?k or should  go with the 16's right to the tip , , i did not want the rod to look too odd with the slm blank and mega big eyes!

[Half-Pint]

Don I would try and return the rod. Explain the situation to them and see what they say. I don't think you will be happy with having 2 almost identical rods however if you do keep the rod I don't see why you shouldn't go with 16s all the way through. With the size of the flip ups and first guides grinder rods look wierd anyway. I don't see how big guides could cause an issue but small guides could. Then again I know squat about rod building

[Angler 1]

just got back from the rod builder , we took the leather grip of and true as hell its a 390 / 5 hmg, so now just to remove all the other gunk they unecesarily put on , and it feels light as a feather . i spoke to Rob he said someone gave hi something to think about the other day , that is tapering the guides down instead of a uniform size all the way through, because the braid comes off i a helical pattern you would want to break down the spiral gradually , i thought of the amount of fricton but hey im gona try it any way , its only 4 mm anyway i doubt it would make a hell of a big diffferenece , im using 30 lb power pro on this set up aswell. rod will be ready in about two weeks the guy is caught up with work !