A high quality custom rod is built, with a high quality blank and high quality components.
For this reason, Ramon’s Rods almost exclusively uses Fuji Guides and Componentry.
Fuji (established in 1945) is regarded to make the highest quality rod components by rodbuilders and anglers alike.
They have been the marketleader for decades and their products have stood the test of time.
There is a lot of different guides to choose from, but every guide can be distinguished in 2 categories:
Frame material and Insert material
There is 2 different material types for Fuji guides:
Stainless steel and Titanium
Most rods with Fuji guides have a Stainless steel frame they are seen as “The standard” when it comes to rods.
It is a very durable material, cost effective and now with the new Corosion treatment guides (CC and BC) they are also almost as durable as titanium in Saltwater environments.
They are however, rather heavy, especially in the bigger sizes.
Titanium framed guides are 3x stronger and between 35%-45% lighter, than their stainless steel counter part.
Using titanium guides on a rod makes it feel much lighter, during a cast the rod will recover much faster and in turn increase you casting distance.
The increased performance does come at a price however, as the titanium quite a bit more expensive than stainless steel ones.
There is 5 different matieral types for the inserts used on the Fuji Guides:
AluminiumOxide, FaZLite, Alconite, SIC and Torzite.
AluminiumOxide formed the foundation of the ceramic ring technology.
The “Hard Ring” is is durable and used on many different rod syles.
The insert is rather thick and quite heavy, this is the most economical choise for an insert.
FazLite is a relatively new material in the Fuji line-up and it is the most cost effective option, for an insert in the Fuji K-series of Guides.
The name FaZLite is also an abbriviation for: F=Fuji, aR=Azure, Lite=Light
The insert has a blue color and was designed to be the most affordable insert option that would be compatible with braided lines.
It’s performance falls just short of that of the alconite inserts in terms of smoothness and hardness.
Alconite is a mid priced insert.
It is 80% stronger and 20% lighter than a AluminiumOxide insert.
The insert is quite a lot smoother then AluminiumOxide but falls just short to the smoothness of that of the SIC insert.
Many consider this to be the “quality standard” for a rod.
SIC or Silicon Carbide, is an insert material that Fuji introduced in 1981 and it is still regarded as one of the best insert materials to date!
This premium material is much harder then Alconite and also quite a bit smoother.
It is also much more durable and lighter than an Alconite ring.
Torzite, the absolute best of the best.
This material is incredibly well researched and the results are mind blowing to say the least.
The Torzite insert surface area is 5x smoother, 45% harder, 2x more resistant to cracking when bent, 30% stronger to impact and on top of all that, 40% lighter than SIC.
