Buying the right Rod: Fuji Guide

To choose the right rod will depend on the rod specification itself. The first thing that came to my mind is the guide. Line manufacturer had outdone themselves on providing us with varieties of super line. By the word super line, it usually translated to strength, abrasion resistance and low diameter. Thus, not all the guide would be able to take the pressure of this line and will resulted friction line, unsmooth and could cause line snap.
Guides are synonyms with name Fuji. Typical anglers would settle down just with having Fuji mark printed on the guide. Many does not realise the variation that Fuji offers. Other than Stainless Steel, other Fuji guides that I know is made from ceramic. Ceramic often preferred for its hardness, smoothness and long lasting.I think there are 4 main grades for ceramic guide that Fuji have. By rank from strongest, smoothest and also happen to be most expensive are:

SIC (Silicon Carbide) - Hardaloy - Alconite - Aluminum Oxide.

Most of us actually only manage to get Aluminum Oxide and Alconite as these are the typical range for the rod manufacturer to offer at budgeted price. Aluminum Oxide however would give you problem if you are using Spectra Line. If you thinking of getting one on one with the big boys in the deep, make sure that at least you are having Alconite Fuji guides. Should you think of wire line, SIC would take your worries away.
The price tag of SIC is much higher than Alum. Oxide. These explains why the typical rod does not equipped with SIC. A lot of custom rod fan would have at least 1 SIC guide at tip. The tip took most of the beating from line and it is actually a very good idea to have SIC on it. Therefore, you are not spending loads on getting all of them with SIC. It does make a lot of different on the rod budget.
If you carefully observed, there are no actual standards of how many guides should there be on each rod. The count and distribution of the guide along the rod actually depending on the stress load distribution. By virtue of physics, high stress load on a single point would make the weakest link, hence prone to breakage. Reputable manufacturer really have this into the consideration. Just for a general guidelines, there should be a guide per ft length. For instance, 7 footer rod to have 7 or at least 6 total number of guides. Fast action rod will have closer placement from the tips for its curve concentrated on the first third from the tip and Slow Action rod
(power) will have more even placement towards the bottom. By observing the placement, we could actually imagine how the curve would be like under high loads.
Next thing about the guides are the shape. There a double foot guides, single foot guides, high-frame, low-frame, Concept, conventional and spinning guides. Each style of guide has its optimal application.

Come back for the second part..