VERY SEXY!!

what blanks it based off mate? U think we all want ourselves one of those badboys

Great idea to oversize the guides. I hate it when manufacturers make the guides too small which results in tangles and shorter casts.

 
         Great job mate.
 
         Superb workmanship.
 
          Terrific colour matching.
 
                         Paul.
 
     

will just have to show you how to do neat knots, sorry couldn't resist  
 
Alex
It all comes back to your decision making process when selecting a really good rod to suit yourself. If you are having those issues but would rather stick to the knots and line then you have selected an incorrect rod for yourself. If on the other hand you are chasing maximum performance in the casting area then you will need a rod that has the guide setup that removes the turbulence from the coils of line coming off the spool at high velocity and shoots as straight a line as possible through the majority of guides. This requires small diameter rings.  
 
The smaller guides have an added benefit of lowering the weights placed along the rod, especially on the top half. This causes the tip to stop vibrating quicker when have let your cast fly. These vibrations rob line speed from your cast. This area is all about mass, velocity and moments of energy
 
Take my highest end UL bream rod as an example. My own rod is running a size 20 stripper to size 6 intersect and has suffers from negligible casting anomalies. The same rod was requested with a larger stripper to to intersect and that setup has proven to be sensitive to rigging and more susceptible to casting anomalies
 
Take another example where I am setting up guides for the largest diameter spool threadies available using size 20 strippers. This is giving far cleaner casting ability and longer distances then the same rods with regular use larger guide sizes
 
The sounds that lines and leaders make through a smaller then regular guide setup is actually the sound of the guides working. Take a camera that is capable of at least 60fps and record people casting various rod setups and you can see what I am on about.
 
With the running guides, sizes 6 to 8 are perfectly adequate for braids to PE3 and leaders to 40lb provided they are getting joined together correctly to take max advantage of the performance characteristics of the rod. Size 10 is more then perfect to 80lbs leader and PE10 braid, going bigger then 80lb then 12s and 16s for the 200lb end
 
With any high performance equipment the user needs to bring their ability up to spec and choose the correct accineliries for the job....this includes the knots, reels, lines and leaders setup for the rod to suit the job at hand