Analyze our fishing line.

[MexicanGulf]

For a few months now I have been assiduously following a project created by some guys. The intent is to discover the flaws in our fishing lines and get to know them better. They use an electron microscope to analyze and derive real data. Unfortunately with fishing lines there are many variables, these guys not being sponsored by anyone need a little help from all of us. I would like to create an archive with real data of our fishing lines; Braid; Hollow Core Braid; Nylon; Fluorocarbon; I invite you to view their website and their YouTube channel.

https://linelaboratory.com/


https://youtube.com/@thelinelaboratory?si=xOcSALMxtM07Fet8


You will already find a small archive with the analyzed lines. the videos are made in a serious and scientific manner. These guys are working for the good of all of us. this is clear. They are not sponsored by anyone. They need our help. Anyone who wants to embrace this project can be of great help. It would be enough if each of us could send 30 feet of our favorite lines to have them analyzed and tested. In the space of 3 months I am convinced an encyclopedic work would be created.The guys seem to be in Australia, I will contact them this week via the contact form on their website and I will send 4/5 lines to be analyzed. Let us cooperate together for our own good. 

[MexicanGulf]

[MexicanGulf]

[MexicanGulf]

[Gfish]

Really cool. I'll see what I got. 30' is doable.

[MexicanGulf]

Thank you for being interested in my post. It's an interesting project where everyone has something to gain. I will send 10 fishing lines to be analyzed. It is important that as many anglers as possible participate

[Gfish]

I spent about 2hrs looking at test videos and printed charts. Great stuff. So far, only have 1 braid they haven't got to yet; Daiwa J-Braid x8 40lb.(0.32mm) PE = ?. Gonna check the mono section next. Thanks for the reference!

[MexicanGulf]

Check the site, they did a good job https://linelaboratory.com/

[jurelometer]

It looks to me like there are some issues with the methodology chosen for all of the measurements. I am not sure how "sciency" this guy is.

Just taking one for an example (braid diameter), take a look here:

https://alantani.com/index.php/topic,37780.msg446617.html#msg446617

As a non-solid, non-round product,  PE braid does not have an accurately measurable or useful diameter.  Others have tried to flatten  the braid and measure height and width.   Not sure that peering through a a $15 USB  microscope and using  a $7 scale is an improvement. The proper industry utilized measurement of volume for fibers (or multi-fiber lines) of all kinds uses the weight of material per unit of length.

Denier (grams per 9000 meters) is the most well known unit.  PE  is used by the Japanese tackle manufacturers (one PE = 200 denier), but the tolerance ranges for the PE standard sizes are quite large. Two braids with the same denier will fill the same spool with close to the same length of line. If two braids have the same denier, the stronger braid has an actual advantage. So we want to use this type of measurement to compare braids by size.

Something useful that this person could do:  A more specific PE number could be calculated (e.g., "this line is labeled as 2.5, but measures out as 2.87").

The purported tensile strength measurement as calculated for braid does not make sense to me at all due to the reasons mentioned above.

For monofilament, a good old fashioned "analog" caliper would do a better job for measuring diameter and any potential ovalling.

While advanced electronic measurement and motion equipment keeps getting cheaper and more accessible, making accurate measurement based evaluations of this kind still requires some technical expertise, and significant time and expense to do properly. The manufacturers are probably doing it, but they are not sharing much. No real money in it for a third party, so here we are.

-J

[oc1]

You are referred to a guy at StripersOnline who has compared just about every make and model of line with a bunch of different parameters.  I can't provide more info and a link after taking a solemn vow to never go there again.

[jurelometer]

You are referred to a guy at StripersOnline who has compared just about every make and model of line with a bunch of different parameters.  I can't provide more info and a link after taking a solemn vow to never go there again.

Paulus Just Fishing.  His web site is gone now, but can be found on the Wayback Machine.  I wasn't sold 100% on his methodology, but he did a ton of work to acquire and test multiple samples for many lines.  One interesting result was some high variance in breaking strength across samples of a single product.  Compare this to the subject of this thread.

-J

[Gfish]

Ok, but what if they increased the sample size/new spool, then increase the samples amongst new spools of the same "Genus, species and variety" procured from different vendors? That guy would haveta tie alota FG knots the same exact way.😟. As long as the sampling method is consistent it should yield usable results.
In biometrics they talk about "random unbiased samples" and your sample size from a given population has godda be at least 120.
Relative to quality control it would be real nice to know what to expect from a companies various line types.

[Brewcrafter]

Gfish - You have a good point, and as Jurelometer may have mentioned, this stuff is (or should!) be already being done - it's just the raw information or data is not "public" unless somebody wants to make a marketing ploy of it.  I am sure that the manufacturers are continually pulling samples; whether by time, shift, batch of material, whatever - to insure product is meeting standards and having been in manufacturing most of my life I am guessing it is probably a LOT of data points, most that would be boring and meaningless to us.  I would "guess" (or hope?) that the major manufacturers also keep a "library" of product in a controlled environment that they can go back to "if" an issue arises out in the market.  In my previous life, we would also periodically go back into the library to test samples that we KNEW were no longer in spec, but in the hopes of furthering our knowledge on longevity of product.  Tasting one year old beer is NOT fun (but is informative).  But just as with beer, so much of what happens once it leaves the manufacturer/warehouse is...beyond their control.  That discount line from MegaLoFish Tackle Emporium at 1/2 price?  What you may not realize is that it was scored as an insurance grab for pennies on the dollar after the previous warehouse burned down.  There is just so much we (or even the manufacturers) don't have control over.  I would hope (but do not know) that every major line brand has a dedicated quality control code.  I know in the beer world they varied from "easy to understand" dates to far more intricate codes that even I would have to refer to a resource to figure out.  BUT WHAT THEN?  Fishing line is not like milk.  I'm pretty confident that even if us, as hard core top level folks, were able to understand line codes do any of us know what it means?  Unlike milk, is it expired?  Toxic?  Who knows.  Kudos to the folks trying to pull this together, but they are basically trying to replicate what reputable manufacturers are already doing (with much better accuracy) but don't share with the consumer, and I'm not sure that is necessarily a bad thing... - john

[MexicanGulf]

It looks to me like there are some issues with the methodology chosen for all of the measurements. I am not sure how "sciency" this guy is.

Just taking one for an example (braid diameter), take a look here:

https://alantani.com/index.php/topic,37780.msg446617.html#msg446617

As a non-solid, non-round product,  PE braid does not have an accurately measurable or useful diameter.  Others have tried to flatten  the braid and measure height and width.   Not sure that peering through a a $15 USB  microscope and using  a $7 scale is an improvement. The proper industry utilized measurement of volume for fibers (or multi-fiber lines) of all kinds uses the weight of material per unit of length.

Denier (grams per 9000 meters) is the most well known unit.  PE  is used by the Japanese tackle manufacturers (one PE = 200 denier), but the tolerance ranges for the PE standard sizes are quite large. Two braids with the same denier will fill the same spool with close to the same length of line. If two braids have the same denier, the stronger braid has an actual advantage. So we want to use this type of measurement to compare braids by size.

Something useful that this person could do:  A more specific PE number could be calculated (e.g., "this line is labeled as 2.5, but measures out as 2.87").

The purported tensile strength measurement as calculated for braid does not make sense to me at all due to the reasons mentioned above.

For monofilament, a good old fashioned "analog" caliper would do a better job for measuring diameter and any potential ovalling.

While advanced electronic measurement and motion equipment keeps getting cheaper and more accessible, making accurate measurement based evaluations of this kind still requires some technical expertise, and significant time and expense to do properly. The manufacturers are probably doing it, but they are not sharing much. No real money in it for a third party, so here we are.

-J

It looks to me like there are some issues with the methodology chosen for all of the measurements. I am not sure how "sciency" this guy is.

Just taking one for an example (braid diameter), take a look here:

https://alantani.com/index.php/topic,37780.msg446617.html#msg446617

As a non-solid, non-round product,  PE braid does not have an accurately measurable or useful diameter.  Others have tried to flatten  the braid and measure height and width.   Not sure that peering through a a $15 USB  microscope and using  a $7 scale is an improvement. The proper industry utilized measurement of volume for fibers (or multi-fiber lines) of all kinds uses the weight of material per unit of length.

Denier (grams per 9000 meters) is the most well known unit.  PE  is used by the Japanese tackle manufacturers (one PE = 200 denier), but the tolerance ranges for the PE standard sizes are quite large. Two braids with the same denier will fill the same spool with close to the same length of line. If two braids have the same denier, the stronger braid has an actual advantage. So we want to use this type of measurement to compare braids by size.

Something useful that this person could do:  A more specific PE number could be calculated (e.g., "this line is labeled as 2.5, but measures out as 2.87").

The purported tensile strength measurement as calculated for braid does not make sense to me at all due to the reasons mentioned above.

For monofilament, a good old fashioned "analog" caliper would do a better job for measuring diameter and any potential ovalling.

While advanced electronic measurement and motion equipment keeps getting cheaper and more accessible, making accurate measurement based evaluations of this kind still requires some technical expertise, and significant time and expense to do properly. The manufacturers are probably doing it, but they are not sharing much. No real money in it for a third party, so here we are.

-J

I understand what you mean, but I think the situation is too complex. You end up going out of your mind.