I'm new to rod building, always repairing my old stuff, but thinking of going full on and trying a new build.
My issue is this, I do not know what the blank id means from the letters. I've got one rod shop in my area, and for reasons I won't disclose, I will not use him for anything.
Is there a method to the madness for id numbers? It's kind of difficult to spend $175 on a blank that I can't put my hands on pre purchase. I need to shake it, bend it, ect... I'm the kind of guy that can walk into basspro and there's 15 of the "same" rod, and only 2 will be close to the same action. I know that in time ($$$) I will know about what I'm buying, but I'm trying to get ahead of the curve a bit.
Thanks in advance,
Danny
(BTW, nice looking web sight).
Hey Danny! Rods blank identifiers are like shoe sizes: there's no standard and everyone is different from each company. As far as the odd west coast fiberglass rod numbers go (196, 197, 270, 870, etc), they are just the numbers of the original mandrels that Leon Todd rolled those blanks on. They have no meaning other than that. Before I type everything out on my phone, are you more interested in saltwater blank info or freshwater blank info? The numbers mean different things for freshwater rods vs saltwater
Well my favorite, go to for everything rod is a shimano teramar, 12-30#, 7'6", this one is what is now the "southwest" series. It's a brown blank, kinda looks like "trigger wrap" but it's all in the laminate.
But not just that rod, but saltwater rods in general.
The lettering as stated will mean different things from each manufacture. I'll just start with a well known west coast manufacture, Calstar. Their lettering at the start of the blank number states which material it is made out of. One rod blank, say a T670 the T stands for the material usd in the blank, in this case it means glass. The 6 is the mandrel used and the 70 stands for 7 feet and 0 inches long. Now another rod blank a GF700H,the GF stands for a glass/graphite composite, the 700 for 7' long and H is the stiffness of the blank. In this length of the composties the letters after the numbers denotes the rods stiffness a L (light), ML(med/light), M (medium), H(heavy) XH (extra heavy)
There is no true rule that every manufacture follows to rate their blanks to another manufacture
The commonly seen 196(15#), 270(20#), 870(25#), 670(30#) blank numbers are from the original Sabre line up. Seeker Classics are made with the old Sabre mandrels... that's why they're classics! Calstar (Leon Todd was with Sabre) used the same Sabre model #'s as did Fenwick.
Mark and SoCal pretty much summed it up
Thanks guys.