I'm building a heavy stick for bouncing lead between the bridges in Niantic and in the breachways. It's a stout 9' Sabre blank marked "E900 - 9 B" and it'll be matched with an Ambassadeur 7500C3.

My question is on average, how far up the blank is reasonable for the first guide? When I built my Sabre 1088 the first guide was 28" from the reel. This isn't for any casting contests so I'm not sure if a little line slap would be a problem. I figured on using 6 guides but could add another and reposition to close the gap. Right now I have about 34" between reel and guide.
First time I've built a specialized rod to be used for only certain places. Thanks in advance for any and all responses.

9'Eglass black color lots of backbone good tip.That Blank i would not go more than 30" from the center of the seat.
Tape the guides on.lay the line thru the guides and place a good bend in the rod if the line touches add the 7th guide.
you did not mention which type of guides your using ,that will make a differance.

Oh yeah...sorry! Fuji BHNLG

True, with the stiffness in this blank, I could probably get away without adding another guide.

Multo graci Mike!

This would work Rich. From the tip 10 , 10 , 12 , 12 , 16 , 20 , 25 . I would use BNLGs. 10 tip. Place the guides with this spacing from the tip 5 , 5.75 , 6.5 , 7.5 , 8.75 , 10 , 11.5 . then 30 to the center of the reel seat and a 23 inch butt (reel seat center to butt) for the short italian guy! :)

My mistake...they ARE indeed BNLG's. I bought the danged stuff from Mike T 2-3 years ago and never got around to making the rod. If the rod didn't have the Sabre stcicker still on it, I wouldn't have known what it was either.

I found that I could space a bit differently and get away with one less guide Saltheart. You're on the money with going for the short Italian butt length though. :) I'll probably use the thing twice. If it's done when I come to pick up my rod from you, I'll bring it along!

Hey, one thing I just tried and it worked out real nice. To tone down the flashiness of metalic silver thread, I did an underwrap between the feet of the guides with 1 silver and 1 black thread side by side so it tempers the silver a bit.

I've got the bug!!!

Yep , you got the bug Rich! :)

Rich you always have had the bug!

JohnS