well, as tittle says.
before spending money building a rod on a brand new blank or restoring an old rod, I always perform an static test to be sure the blank doesnt have a hidden nick or a invisible hit on the shipping or while handling it on the store before sending it, that could compromise the finished rod on a good fish, it wont be nice to spend a good amount on time and money to build a nice fishing rod just to having it break on a small fish, on old rods that friends want me to restore and install new guides, thread, etc I normally test the rod before taking the old guides out from it lifting from the floor 1/4 (25%) of the recommended line rating of the blank, so far every blank and rods passed the test, once the blank have the grips and reelseat installed I do another static test just to check where the running guides should be placed and once the guides are installed the rod is finished.
well, I just have my 1st blank exploting at my face while lifting 8# of weight from the floor while the blank was rated 30#, it was a 7'10" 14-30lb
composite blank, that I planned to build for inshore fishing, this was suposed to be a rod for my new Abu Garcia toro beast 60 but the blank is no longer in good shape LOL.
the blank had the same specs of the rainshadow Revelation line for swimbaits 7'10" 14-30lb, same butt size and tip, but I will never know, fool of me that was blind it by the good selling price.
so, for all the seasoned rodsmiths out there, let me know where I did something wrong, maybe I need to start with a weight of 1/6 from the line rating and keep adding weight or something or never test them before building it. :-\
-- for new blanks, before intalling grips and reelseat, I install a tiptop and do the static test as I already said, I never bound the weight once is lifted from the floor or anything like that, just be sure the blank has enough backbone to fight a fish with the 1/4 drag of the line rating as max, I did a lot of reading on the matter and seems like a normal procedure but I could be wrong.
- once installing the grips and reelseat I do an static test again with the guides attached to the blank with masking tape just to know where is the natural curve of the blank and adjust the guides on the proper zones of the blank, this time I dont try to lift any weight just attach the line from the reel through every running guide to something heavy or sometimes the same 8# of weight just to make a curve on the blank.
now the bad news are that I was recenly told by the owner of Getbitoudoors the blank doest have any warranty at all because it was on extremely discount from the normal price :-\ :-\, they also (Getbitoutdoors) dont want me to tell the brand of the blank but put on the selling add that "were" from one of the mayor rod blanks brands on the market BUT they werent allowed to tell the name of the brand because of the extreme discount but you wont be dissapointed they said on the add.
ooh well, seems like I need to live with the experience an not "fall in those atracting low prices again" specially if there is no Brand involved on which you can go directly and tell them the problem.
Live and learn ...
time to save for a UC or calstar blank for that abu Garcia toro beast 60, I have two nice factory rods to pair it, I have an okuma shadow stalker inshore rod and an phenix BD 70H rod, but my plan is to sell all my factory rods and use only custom rods made by yours truly.
Wow seems to me the supplier would want you to be happy with your purchase, I can see nothing wrong that you did. A 30# blank should easily be able to lift 8# static load.
Store credit for the amount you spent would be a fair compromise. I'd want to know who the manufacturer was also.
Allow me to take a bit of a contrary position:
1. How far did the rod bend? I think that a 90 degree load test is the important one. This is how far a rod should be able to safely bend for casting and fighting fish. Any bend beyond this is not going to happen casting, and when fighting a fish, the extra bend does not give you any extra lifting force, it just puts an extraordinary load on the blank as discussed in the "how many guides" thread. It is nice if a rod has some margin of error so that it does not blow up when accidentally high sticking next to the boat, but this is not to be expected, especially for a long light, fast taper, extra stiff rod that has no fiberglass.
Anchor the rod butt horizontal to the ground, and pull on the tip until it is pointing 90 degrees downward, If the blank can handle this without blowing up, then you have a working blank.
If you want, you can pull with a scale. More on this later.
2. Testing the load by tying to the tip will not distribute the load over the blank. It will just pull the tip toward the butt with the load concentrated somewhere on the upper half of the rod, right at the apex of the inside curve on the blank. Even if you did not bend past 90 degrees, the load will be much more concentrated toward the tip (and only at one spot) than it would have been if the line was strung through a set of guides, distributing the load.
3. If the guides are placed properly, you can manage a tremendous amount of lifting force by angling the rod correctly to load toward the but section(hint- not too high on the lifting) The tip bends down and the butt takes over. I have broken a 30 lb core fly line on an 8 weight fly rod when trying to stop a big pargo from reaching the rocks. If I tried lifting an 8 pound weight off the ground with that rod, I would have blown it up for sure. I have seen plenty of rods break under very light load because of high sticking. My point here is that how much load a rod can handle is often subjective, it depends a bit on how much skill the manufacturer is expecting from the fisherman. Especially with thin wall carbon fiber rods.
4. Even after wrapping, you may have an expectation of being able to dead lift 1/4 of the line rating by using the blank as a lever, and that might even be a reasonable expectation on certain classes of blanks. But not all. The longer, lighter, stiffer, and/or faster the blank, the more likely you will be pushing the blank beyond its limits.
5. The line rating is just that. The weight class rating of line that the manufacturer expects you to use. And they will tweak those numbers to make a marketing goal. I don't think we should trust that some sort of fixed ratio for dead lift testing will always be appropriate. When in doubt, you can always ask the manufacturer.
6. My suggestion for the future would be to do the 90 degree test on the bare blank to check for defects. Then build the rod as per normal. Now with the reel in the rod, and the line running though the guides to a scale, see how much force it takes to bend the rod to 90 degrees. That is an actual useful load rating. You could even write this on the blank next to the line rating ("90o load "), as an added value from a custom builder. 8). Setting the drag beyond this rating means that you will have to manage the bend in the rod more carefully.
7. It would not be a Jurelometer post if I did not mention safety glasses :). Just for everyone else. I am sure that you were wearing them.
--------
It would be interesting to compare several different brands with the same rating and usage to see how close they are at 90 degrees. I don't think that a 7 foot muskie rod rated to 50 lb line will have the same lifting capacity as a 7 foot saltwater jig stick with the same rating.
As a caveat, this is just a hobby builder's opinion. I only build a few rods each year. YMMV.
I do agree with David. A store credit, or an explanation why your test was unfairly destructive, and the rod was not delivered as defective is in order. Or both. The listing on the web store probably had some text that stated "seconds with cosmetic defects" or overstock. If they did not state that these blanks are are structurally inferior seconds and that some may fail, they should be on the hook. At least until you fish the rod, then all bets are off.
-J
I'm under the impression that you've tested many rods this way so I'm thinking you got a bad blank. They should stand behind what they sell, deep discount or not. On the bright side you don't have any time invested in it. Hopefully it didn't cost much
I had a client buy 20 blanks, I built 4 for him and all 4 broke the first time out, just absolutely junk. I tested a few more any they broke too. These weren't 2nds , he bought them at the factory. I keep 1 around just as a reminder to stick to brands that have stood the test of time.
In reality, Get Bit Outdoors will come out ahead by refunding your money or giving you full credit towards another brand blank.
It's the old 20/20 rule in retailing and customer service —
It might take 20 years to earn a solid reputation — and 20 seconds to lose one forever.
An unhappy customer will tell 20 people of his bad experience with their company — and those 20 people might tell another 20 folks each.
It doesn't take a calculator to do the math — and a reliable retailer doesn't need a calculator to do the right thing.
Best,
Fred
@ David, totally agree on what you said, but seems that the store have another vision, I answered back to getbitoutdoors store telling them that in the future instead of saying that they arent "allowed" to tell the manufacturer of the "nice" brand of the blank just sell them as their house brand and stand behind of that product even if they are some generic chinesse blanks for $5 dlls wholesale price.
@Jeff, you have some good points on your comments thanks, specially on the parts of longer, ligther and faster taped graphite rods are more prone to break when reaching their limits, but a composite rod "should have" the best of both worlds, sensitive, light but still some glass on the blank to make them more user-friendly for hard users or beginners, I try to recommend composite blanks to my friends anytime I can they want to get a 100% graphite rod because I know how hard they are on the rods.
I might have to start with less weight on the "before building it" tests, maybe 1/6 of the line rating or something and see how the rod it feels as Im applying force.
in this rod let me tell you that I was surprised how easily and steady it lifted the bag of 8# weight from the floor as if you could lift more weight easily, I actually had a smile of my face because the rod never shaked or felt weak when I was doing it, I was about to check the curvature of the blank when I just heard BAM!! and I felt a hit on my finger (yep, I was wearing glasses but seems that I need to start wearing leather gloves too), the broken part hit me on my finger and it made a small cut on the finger because of the way of the cut in the graphite, nothing to worry about but it wasnt funny.
when I was reading how to make those static tests before and after the rod is built, some seasoned rodsmiths think that once the guides are placed on the blank you make make the blank weaker by puting some new stressing points that the blanks didnt have on its natural curve, if you install many guides on it well you just make it a broom stick and it will be "stronger" for sure, the hard thing to do is to find the way to install the less guides on it but still keeping the natural curve of the blank to let the blank work its way while fishing, but DO I KNOW, Im just a hobbyist and still learning from my mistakes, but not sure if this was one of them ;D hence my initial question.
@ compadre Sheridan, I dont have much experience as many of guys here but I was surprised for sure the way this happened, thats why I wanted to share it with all of you, if Im doing something wrong or extreme then I will change for sure my methods, good thing it was one of my personal blanks, it wont be funny to deal with this with a $150 or more blank and heard from the manufacturer that it was my fault so, no valid a warranty :o :o, this blank was around $50 so, not really that cheap but it wont leave a mark on my wallet but for double of that I could have gotten a better blank or at least a blank that could have any warranty ::)
whatta bad story of your friend with those 20 blanks
I have tested many rods by dead lifting 10 lbs from the floor which has always been my benchmark. Sometimes I had to stand on a higher level to achieve it without high sticking
There have been times when I notice the rod is going to bend too much to lift the weight and is therefore not strong enough or does not have enough backbone.
I have always regarded this test as dangerous.
@ jurelometer
My brain does not want to understand your point 2. ??? Why is the stress on the rod different if I hang a weight tied to the tip only or if the line is threaded through say 10 guides? Please be so kind as to explain that. Thanks
the Euro Test Curve system for rating long F/W bank/float rods asks precisely that,
"how much weight does it take, to make the tip perpendicular to the butt?"
I believe it originates w/ the Brits, so it's in pounds
my 3.0TC is marked 10-20# (more like, 8-20# being extra-long 13', moderate IM-6)
methinks, 14-30# would be 3.5TC-4.0TC ballpark
anything well over 5.0TC is mainly for casting out 2-3 lb. chumming contraptions
don't think anything approaching 8.0TC is even made
just a [mostly] factual tidbit... you sciency guys decide how/if it applies ;D
Quote from: Cor on October 16, 2020, 02:44:38 AM
I have tested many rods by dead lifting 10 lbs from the floor which has always been my benchmark. Sometimes I had to stand on a higher level to achieve it without high sticking
There have been times when I notice the rod is going to bend too much to lift the weight and is therefore not strong enough or does not have enough backbone.
I have always regarded this test as dangerous.
@ jurelometer
My brain does not want to understand your point 2. ??? Why is the stress on the rod different if I hang a weight tied to the tip only or if the line is threaded through say 10 guides? Please be so kind as to explain that. Thanks
Cor - What I think Dave is describing I am about to totally oversimplify and will probably totally mess it up, but:
Plain rod that is bent that had a weight (force) attached directly to the tip is pointing...down. And all of the force of that weight is focused there at that one point. Now, let's say I'm a cheeseball rod builder and we have that exact same rod, BUT, the line is anchored at the butt of the pole, goes up to the tip. and goes to our weight. You would have something that resembles a bow (with the line creating a straight line from the butt end to the tip end, and then dropping down to the weight (force). The downward force on the tip will not be different (yeah the old High School caveat of "ignore friction"). Now imagine that as this rod blank that is bent with only a tip on it, you reach out with your finger at the midpoint of the line between the butt and tip and pull it up towards the rod. Your finger will meet substantial resistance (in a bow this energy transference is what makes an arrow fly). That force you are feeling is a vector directly perpendicular to the line created between the anchor point at the butt and the tip (this is totally independent of how much line you have from the tip to you weight (force). Your tip to weight distance could be 5 feet or 50 feet - no difference - the only thing that matters is the force), So, let's say you pull the line at the midpoint up to the blank, and magically insert a guide that is wrapped at this midpoint - the line now goes through there but the force against that guide is directly perpendicular to a line between the butt of the rod (the anchor point) and the tip of the rod (where the line weaves through to the weight/force). This new "rod" with only a tip and one midpoint guide (and the line anchored at the butt) is now distributing the "force" of the weight at two points: the tip (directly toward the weight/force) and at this new "midpoint" guide (with the force there being directly perpendicular to a straight line between the butt and the tip - again think of how a bow works). Same amount of force (weight) but now distributed at multiple anchor points on the rod (tip, midpoint, and butt). Now, as you add more guides (let's ignore that friction thing again) you multiply this effect; basically distributing the same force over multiple points (however the vectors will change, always perpendicular to the anchor points (guides) on each side of a given guide). I have probably totally butchered this explanation but then again, I only graduated high school physics because the teacher was also the Golf Team coach... - john
I had a kilwell live fibre blank do that to me ones, it was when they first came out, took it back to the shop and they replace it.
Kim
Damn. I've broken GetBit rods but never toward the middle like that. At that diameter, it would be difficult to break the rod over your knee on purpose.
Here is an interesting article by Gary Loomis about rod breakage.
https://kistlerrods.com/blogs/kistler-news/gary-loomis-talks-about-rod-breakage (https://kistlerrods.com/blogs/kistler-news/gary-loomis-talks-about-rod-breakage)
The way I look at GetBit, you can break half of them and still come out cheaper than buying a high quality big-name blank.
Maybe St. Croix or Lamiglass will have a factory outlet store at their new production facilities in Mexico. :) They are probably way north and east of you though
-s
Quote from: Cor on October 16, 2020, 02:44:38 AM
I have tested many rods by dead lifting 10 lbs from the floor which has always been my benchmark. Sometimes I had to stand on a higher level to achieve it without high sticking
There have been times when I notice the rod is going to bend too much to lift the weight and is therefore not strong enough or does not have enough backbone.
I have always regarded this test as dangerous.
@ jurelometer
My brain does not want to understand your point 2. ??? Why is the stress on the rod different if I hang a weight tied to the tip only or if the line is threaded through say 10 guides? Please be so kind as to explain that. Thanks
Those innocent questions are always killers :)
I have struggled a bit with this question, and don't think that I have a 100% handle on it to be honest with you. It goes beyond the most rudimentary aspects of physics where I am more comfortable.
I think it works something like this:
A blank has progressive elasticity. The tip bends more easily, and it takes less force to exceed the elasticity toward the tip. If the rod is angled relative to the load in such a way that that the tip section is pointing toward the load, the tip is no longer under load (if the top 12 inches of the rod is not being bent, then it is not experiencing any load) . The load did not disappear, it moved toward the stronger butt section.
If I bend the rod well past 90 degrees (let's say a full 180 degrees), the bottom half of the rod will now be experiencing very little load, with the load concentrated near the tip with a huge difference between the inner and outer radius of the curves on the blank on each side of the bend. Bang pow crash.
Getting to the trickier version of Cor's question: Would a rod with only a tip guide concentrate more of the load toward the tip vs. a theoretical set of guides selected and placed to perfectly match the natural bend at a given load? Not sure to be honest, but from a practical standpoint, the load on the guides will never exactly match the natural load shape, both of which will diverge different amounts at various load force and angles. So the guides will always be varying the load distribution, hopefully in a useful way (more load toward the butt as load increases). I think this is also what John was referring to, but I am not a golfer :)
Quote from: steelfish on October 16, 2020, 02:08:27 AM
@Jeff, you have some good points on your comments thanks, specially on the parts of longer, ligther and faster taped graphite rods are more prone to break when reaching their limits, but a composite rod "should have" the best of both worlds, sensitive, light but still some glass on the blank to make them more user-friendly for hard users or beginners, I try to recommend composite blanks to my friends anytime I can they want to get a 100% graphite rod because I know how hard they are on the rods.
I am not Jeff- I am Jurelometer :)
The term composite in material science just means something made of two fundamentally different materials (like ruuber and steel, or glue and paper). So any fishing rod blank ( fibers and resin) can be called a composite. Fishing tackle manufactures, being the scoundrels that they are use this term to mean whatever they want at the time. While in some cases it might mean a combination of fiberglass and carbon cloth/fibers, in other cases it can be a combination of pre-preg (they buy the cloth with the resin already added) and dry fibers. Or it could mean nothing at at all other than cloth and resin.
If you want to get a glass carbon fiber combo- you probably want to look for this to be documented explicitly (e-glass or s-glass plus carbon fiber or graphite) and not rely just on the term "composite"
I took a quick look at the Rainshadow Revelation blanks, and they did not include their marketing buzzword for glass/carbon combo ( VERSATILE DURABLE BLEND -VDB) , so think your blank is just the carbon fiber. If you decide to go for a blend next time and you want something similar from Rainshadow look at the RCLB79L (20 % heavier than the Revelation ), or SWT70H ( 3 piece, much lighter, but only 7 foot- I have two of these, but I think that a SWT70MH might be a better match for Sea of Cortez shore casting.)
Quote
I might have to start with less weight on the "before building it" tests, maybe 1/6 of the line rating or something and see how the rod it feels as Im applying force.
Not sure how you can tell if a blank is going to blow up before it happens.
A rod that is bent at 90 degrees is doing all for you that it can, Beyond this, you are not getting any mechanical advantage, and you are dramatically increasing the chance of damage. Using a fixed bend to determine a load is tells you more and does so with less risk than using a fixed load and hoping for the best. No reason to turn a constant (maximum useful bend) into a variable. If you do not reach your desired load at 90 degrees, then you need to stop anyways. There are two aspects to this measurement- Pulling the tip at a 90 degree angle from the butt, and pulling until the tip section is pointing in the direction you are pulling.
This is not an method that I can take credit for. I got it from a two-handed fly rod builder - Bob Meiser, but I use this in all of my rods.
-J (urelometer)
I don't put any serious weight on until I have the guides wrapped. With the guides on the load is distributed across each guide all the way back to the reel itself. The stripper guide does most of the heavy lifting. With weight tied to the tip top, all the weight is hanging from the weakest part of the rod.
I do a very light test to find my guide positions by tying the tip top to something and put a light bend in the rod from that, then I run a second line from a reel, through the guides/tip top and tie just enough weight to that line to keep tension on it and then I position the guides. After that I tie the guides on with rubber bands like the second method shown here and static load test/make any adjustments and then wrap and retest/confirm everything looks right: https://youtu.be/MuuCzPJ0ijU
Quote from: The Fishing Hobby on October 16, 2020, 12:52:26 PM
I don't put any serious weight on until I have the guides wrapped.
thanks for your input, as I said, I still learning from the pros, let me ask you this, how much it would be "serious weight" for a 30# blank?
actually "serious weight for a 30# blank" was the million dollar question.
Quote from: foakes on October 16, 2020, 01:31:25 AM
In reality, Get Bit Outdoors will come out ahead by refunding your money or giving you full credit towards another brand blank.
Best, Fred
hello Fred thanks for your input, I posted that question abut how to test a brand new blank and Im happy to read this many good comments, so, Im more interested to learn how some other guys are doing it or maybe they DONT check a brand new blank until is time to install the guides, this is not a just a RANT post about getbitoutdoors, I recall reading in the offer add something like "no warranty because of the extreme discount but you wont be disappointed, this blank came from one of the big reputable blank manufacturers but they didnt allow us to tell". (props to tell this was one atractive add), they just sell rainshadow blanks, United composite, black hole, century and their house brand GB blanks, so, if those blanks were not house brand blanks then you suppose they should be from one of the other brands they sell, right? answer is not, it wasnt, it was just a Non branded blank with no warranties, they said so, the "extreme discount" was just a gimmick sale in my books.
they promote themselves as the biggest distributer of Rainshadow blanks, they also sell their own "brand" of blanks "GB" and many others good reputable blank brands, so, why dont just put those blanks under their GB brand and stand behind them, but anyway, you know what they said, if its too good to be true, then....
by the way, they sent me another email telling me that, sorry but since it was listed as no warranty, then it not warranty at all and also they said they sold a pile (??) of those blanks and this its the 1st one they know it got broke.
also told me they contacted a "reputable manufacturer" (looks like they contacted the manufacturer of those blanks) to ask how they test their blanks and the answer was, for a 30# blanks they only use 32oz weight or 48oz max!!.
Good to know how a blank is tested in the factory, they use an average 10% of the proposed line rate of the blank to check the natural curve of the blank, but still didnt said which manufacturer they contacted, if its a valid method it would be nice to know that Batson or seeker or whatever check the blank you are buying on their QC control area that way and that will give you some confidence when buying from them.
Quote from: jurelometer on October 16, 2020, 10:01:10 AM
I am not Jeff- I am Jurelometer :)
The term composite in material science just means something made of two fundamentally different materials (like ruuber and steel, or glue and paper). So any fishing rod blank ( fibers and resin) can be called a composite. Fishing tackle manufactures, being the scoundrels that they are use this term to mean whatever they want at the time. While in some cases it might mean a combination of fiberglass and carbon cloth/fibers, in other cases it can be a combination of pre-preg (they buy the cloth with the resin already added) and dry fibers. Or it could mean nothing at at all other than cloth and resin.
If you want to get a glass carbon fiber combo- you probably want to look for this to be documented explicitly (e-glass or s-glass plus carbon fiber or graphite) and not rely just on the term "composite"
-- opps sorry about that one, Dave.
I will pay more attention on the "composite" materials on the blanks the next time, you are right, I read composite and automatically thought on glass+graphite as materials for the blank just as my super seeker or graphiter rods, I have a short experience on the rainshadow blanks, they are good for the money, I have built some on the REAL composite line (rx6 graphite+ glass) as the RCLB70XL and RCJB84xh.
https://alantani.com/index.php?topic=31453.0
Quote from: jurelometer on October 16, 2020, 10:01:10 AM
A rod that is bent at 90 degrees is doing all for you that it can, Beyond this, you are not getting any mechanical advantage, and you are dramatically increasing the chance of damage. Using a fixed bend to determine a load is tells you more and does so with less risk than using a fixed load and hoping for the best. No reason to turn a constant (maximum useful bend) into a variable. If you do not reach your desired load at 90 degrees, then you need to stop anyways. There are two aspects to this measurement- Pulling the tip at a 90 degree angle from the butt, and pulling until the tip section is pointing in the direction you are pulling.
This is not an method that I can take credit for. I got it from a two-handed fly rod builder - Bob Meiser, but I use this in all of my rods.
-J (urelometer)
-- thats an interesting comment, but it surely it could be different readings on different blanks materials glass and graphite, fast or medium, etc , as you already said in a previous post " It would be interesting to compare several different brands with the same rating and usage to see how close they are at 90 degrees. I don't think that a 7 foot muskie rod rated to 50 lb line will have the same lifting capacity as a 7 foot saltwater jig stick with the same rating."
but as a referring method to check the curve of the blank and install the guides its good to know that I was doing it correctly, when I adjust the guides for the final position I dont search for the max lifting weight but for a nice 90* bent and look for the line avoiding touching the blank
normally I just do "destructive" lifting tests on "old rods" MH or H that friends want me to rebuild with nice guides and lots of thread work, so before spending money and time on it, we need to check it wont break on a nice 30# YT or grouper with the drag at 20#, many of those rods already have many nicks and hits and deep scratches all over the blank.
Quote from: jurelometer on October 16, 2020, 10:01:10 AM
I took a quick look at the Rainshadow Revelation blanks, and they did not include their marketing buzzword for glass/carbon combo ( VERSATILE DURABLE BLEND -VDB) , so think your blank is just the carbon fiber. If you decide to go for a blend next time and you want something similar from Rainshadow look at the RCLB79L (20 % heavier than the Revelation ), or SWT70H ( 3 piece, much lighter, but only 7 foot- I have two of these, but I think that a SWT70MH might be a better match for Sea of Cortez shore casting.)
-J (urelometer)
thanks for the blank recommendation, Dave.
Quote from: jurelometer on October 16, 2020, 10:01:10 AM
If I bend the rod well past 90 degrees (let's say a full 180 degrees), the bottom half of the rod will now be experiencing very little load, with the load concentrated near the tip with a huge difference between the inner and outer radius of the curves on the blank on each side of the bend. Bang pow crash.
That is called high-sticking.
I have a lot of respect for Gary Loomis. You can read about his life and times online. In his demonstration (referenced above) he is holding the rod at the tip while someone holding the butt tries to break it at a 90 degree angle, but cannot.
Early hardwood rods had only one ring and that was the tip-top. Running guides were added over time to keep the line from rubbing on the rod, not to transfer the load to the butt.
It is taper that transfers the load to the butt.Load up a rod, reel and line with a bend. Measure and sum the downward force of the line on each guide. That downward force of the line on the guide is really small. You can flick the line up and down with your fingernail. The tip-top is the only guide that is handling a lot of downward pressure.
If guides could distribute load and make a beam stronger, then a boom truck or dragline or crane would have guides. They don't.
When building heavier and heavier rods, you would start replacing the ring tip-top with a roller tip. Only when moving up the ladder would it be worthwhile to put on roller striper and roller running guides.
Prove it to yourself. Take two cheap dowels with uniform diameter (no taper). Put a line with guides on one dowel. Tie a line to the tip on the other dowel. Now break them by pulling on the line at a 90 degree angle. The guides do not make the dowel any stronger.
-steve
Quote from: oc1 on October 16, 2020, 07:39:21 PM
Quote from: jurelometer on October 16, 2020, 10:01:10 AM
If I bend the rod well past 90 degrees (let's say a full 180 degrees), the bottom half of the rod will now be experiencing very little load, with the load concentrated near the tip with a huge difference between the inner and outer radius of the curves on the blank on each side of the bend. Bang pow crash.
That is called high-sticking.
I have a lot of respect for Gary Loomis. You can read about his life and times online. In his demonstration (referenced above) he is holding the rod at the tip while someone holding the butt tries to break it at a 90 degree angle, but cannot.
Early hardwood rods had only one ring and that was the tip-top. Running guides were added over time to keep the line from rubbing on the rod, not to transfer the load to the butt. It is taper that transfers the load to the butt.
Load up a rod, reel and line with a bend. Measure and sum the downward force of the line on each guide. That downward force of the line on the guide is really small. You can flick the line up and down with your fingernail. The tip-top is the only guide that is handling a lot of downward pressure.
If guides could distribute load and make a beam stronger, then a boom truck or dragline or crane would have guides. They don't.
When building heavier and heavier rods, you would start replacing the ring tip-top with a roller tip. Only when moving up the ladder would it be worthwhile to put on roller striper and roller running guides.
Prove it to yourself. Take two cheap dowels with uniform diameter (no taper). Put a line with guides on one dowel. Tie a line to the tip on the other dowel. Now break them by pulling on the line at a 90 degree angle. The guides do not make the dowel any stronger.
-steve
As I noted in my my long, boring, infrequently read to completion post :), high sticking is the case where extreme rod angle concentrates load toward the tip (where the rod is weakest). Which sort of proves that we have some control over which section of the rod gets loaded, and that it does makes a difference. In the really boring part, I noted that it was the progressive elasticity of a rod blank that makes this important, and if the rod was more like a dowel, it would matter much less.
The angle of the load determines which part of the rod is being flexed. As long as there are enough guides in the right spot to push on the blank.
Now as to why they only put a tip on some vintage hardwood rods, perhaps it was good enough to get the job done, and they were not asking the rod to do much more than a combination lever and shock absorber. But if you look at vintage split cane fly rods, you will see the same sort of progressive guide placement as modern rods.
Here is one article on the goals and a method for guide location on split-cane rods. While they are using a 1/3 rule, it ends up being very close to my 90 degree method.
https://splitcaneinfo.com/?page_id=1227 (https://splitcaneinfo.com/?page_id=1227)
This is essentially a method for static guide placement optimized for full useful bend.
So while I think the dowel analogy is not the best example, I think that Steve might also be getting at the interesting and difficult question from Cor (although a bit hypothetical in the end IMHO) about whether having just a top guide or a bunch of guides would change the load distribution if the rod bend was exactly the same. I keep wanting to say yes based on intuition, but intuition has a way of biting you in the a** when it comes to physics. And I can't think of a reason to back up my intuition. My analytical side tells me If the bend is the identical, shouldn't the load distribution be identical? Here is where Cor (and Steve?) may have a point that I would tend to agree with.
Under this line of reasoning, what guide placement and rod angle do is give us the ability to change the shape of the bend, but the shape of the bend is what determines the load distribution. We can choose a bend shape that is optimized for casting light lures, or a bend shape that concentrates load toward the stronger butt section of the rod, etc.. Some of this choice is baked in by guide placement, but some of it is variable based on the fish fighting or casting angle.
-J
Great series of posts; I'm not a scientist, so some of the technical discussion shot by me, but I'll take a chance and add my two cents worth anyway (and, maybe that's all it will be worth.)
I liked point 2 of jurelometer's first reply/post. I took it as meaning you get a truer test of the strength of a blank by testing it with the guides in place vs. just applying a weight to a tiptop. In that same vein, I like TFH's method of applying "serious weight" later in the build process after the guides are in place (even if only in temporary positions).
After all, the vast majority of blanks must be manufactured to end up as rods with a tiptop and multiple guides; they aren't meant to be made into rods with only a tiptop and fished that way (with a respectful tip of my cap to the old timers who used rods with only a tiptop). If that is the case, then why bother testing a blank in an artificial circumstance (weight tied to a tiptop) that does not come close to duplicating what you expect the blank to do when the finished rod is fished? I know it would be a bummer to build a rod only to find out, after all that work, that the blank had a defect. Temporarily attaching guides is perhaps an acceptable compromise, along with a close inspection of the blank first.
Two thoughts that I add in closing:
1) What is the "magic" of a 90 degree bend in testing? Or, is it only some sort of "tradition?
2) I have always been under the impression that the stress on a blank is at the locations BETWEEN the guides, not AT the guides. Am I wrong thinking this? Does it enter into the discussion in any way if it is true?
Oops, one more thing: I look with a bit of a questioning eye on the terms under which this blank was vended. No warranty? But, you won't be disappointed? Can't tell you the manufacturer's name?
Frank
Not telling you the manufacturer on a deeply discounted item is not unheard of. I'm kind of a cheapskate when it comes to work clothes, I do a lot of my shopping on the clearance rack and at outlet type stores that sell off overstock items. You see stuff with the brand tag removed all the time. Because the fancy clothing company doesnt wanna admit they'll allow their stuff to be sold for so low. Some of my favorite work slacks are made by a brand I'll never get to know.
Quote from: happyhooker on October 17, 2020, 01:13:08 AM
1) What is the "magic" of a 90 degree bend in testing? Or, is it only some sort of "tradition?
lots of reasons from physics, no magic.
a. When you bend a blank past 90 degrees (tip perpendicular to the butt), you are bending the rod into itself- this will concentrate the load toward the tip where the rod is the more likely to break.
b.when casting, you want the direction of force on the spring load on the blank to be aligned with the direction you are intending to cast. This means a that the tip should be in a straight line toward the lure (or in the case of a fly rod, the tip section and the fly line collinear). A 90 degree bend maximizes the energy loading into the rod while still keeping the direction intact. If you go past 90 degrees, the rod will try to fling the lure more upward rather than outward. you will also not be able to load the butt of the rod as much. The resistance is strongest toward the butt, so this is where the greatest amount of energy is stored.
c. when fighting a big fish, you will need to pump and wind to bring the fish in. A 90 degree bend is about as high as you can go before the benefit from the the line gained from lifting is outweighed by the mechanical advantage the fish gets from leverage on you.
d. As the blank bends, the distance rod becomes longer on the outside curve of the blank (side with the guides on a conventional rod) and shorter on the inside. The fibers don't stretch much, the resin is handling this. so the fibers on the outside of the rod curve are being pulled apart and the inside are being crammed together, forcing the sides to swell outward. Ounce you get past 90 degrees the rod is bending on itself and concentrating the deformation at a single point. Bang pow crash.
It is still useful for a rod to have the ability to bend well past 90 degrees without blowing up to provide some margin of error. But you are usually giving up some stiffness/backbone. No free lunch.
Or to put it more succinctly, there are use cases for bending the rod up to 90 degrees, but not really after 90, and bending the rod into itself generates a lot of stress. Nothing good happens after 90 degrees.
Quote
2) I have always been under the impression that the stress on a blank is at the locations BETWEEN the guides, not AT the guides. Am I wrong thinking this? Does it enter into the discussion in any way if it is true?
Agreed. This is what I have been pointing out on several threads on this subject. More specifically at the apex of the inside curve caused by the guides being drawn toward each other by the load. My apologies if I screwed up the explanation somewhere.
-J.
Great point Steve!. I respect your experience and insight on this; it's what makes the forum great and I thank you. Now not to confound things (or even my own misshapen theories regarding rod guides) how will this all play out with one of the "through rod" setups discussed in another related thread? And unlike my previous post that is one where I will not say "ignore friction" since I think it might be significant. As a matter f fact, under load a "through rod" design is actually going to add friction (drag) ...wow..it is fun trying to wrap my head around this...-john
A 12-30 rated blank is not a 30# rod! It's a 20#rod at best. For some no-name blank 20# is probably pushing it... just sayin', ya know what I mean?
I know nothing about rod building,,,,, :-[ but I have had 1fly rod and 3 spin rods,,,, same line rating as yours break in about the same place.
Quote from: MarkT on October 17, 2020, 03:27:43 AM
A 12-30 rated blank is not a 30# rod! It's a 20#rod at best. For some no-name blank 20# is probably pushing it... just sayin', ya know what I mean?
Good point.
If the blank maker does an honest dead lift at 20% of 20 lbs (48 oz), that is plenty to expect from a light pure carbon fiber swimbait rod.
As a side point, you can dead lift 30 lbs with a trout rod if you do not bend it much.
Alex: I still think that if you stick a scale on the built rod when you do a 90 degree bend, you will have some useful information to share with your customers about safe drag settings.
-J
All the Fenwick, Sabre, Seeker, Calstar, and other 270, 12-30# rated rods I've seen are 20# rods that can go up or down (mostly down) a line class or so. I wouldn't use 10# of drag on my classic Seeker 270 pulling at 90+ degrees and certainly not on some unnamed blank of unknown pedigree. Rods are rated at the middle of their rating, not at the high end. Keep that in mind going forward. A 270 (12-30) is a 20# rod, an 870 (15-40) is a 25# rod, a 670 (20-50) is a 30# rod, a 665h (30-80) is a 40# rod, a 6465h (30-80) is a 50# rod... and so on.
A good rod cannot be broken by a human being if the butt is held not more than 90 degrees to the pull of the line. That is part of the design process.... make the butt substantial enough that it cannot be broken and then give it a smooth even taper from there, ending in a tip that has some spunk and will not be overloaded by the swing weight of the bait or lure or fly line. Rod design is an art but it's not witchcraft.
I think that Alex's stress test that pulls the tip without guides is valid and that a rod that fails his test would still fail if guides had already been installed. I also think that if Alex had bought a high quality blank (like those listed by Mark as well as others) he would not have broken it. I also think that the GetBit rod did not fail because of a design flaw, but because there was a flaw in materials or workmanship.
Rod design is an art, but so is the construction process. One slip in cutting, tacking to the mandrel, rolling, or sanding will mess up that smooth taper so the load is not transferred smoothly making the rod vulnerable to failure. An incongruity in the woven fiber (broken fibers, lint) will also mess it up. Little globs of lint will make a bulge and that bulge will have to be sanded off in finishing. In sanding that bulge, you are as likely to sand away intact fibers as you are to sand away useless lint.
I have talked myself into believing that the guides have nothing to do with how the rod bends and how the load is transferred. I base this mainly on the lack of significant downward pressure where the line presses on the guide and the guide presses on the blank. Yeah, that is controversial so I may have to find a way to prove or disprove it. The only caveat here is that the wrapping thread, epoxy and lack of flex in guides will stiffen the area around each guide. This stiffening may throw off the bend and load transfer a little. That is also why a rod might break between guides rather than under the guide.
-s
I once took a 11 ft rod, made locally by Purglas, a strong rod, by the tip and lifted it that way to see how it would bend. It did not bend, it snapped right next to my hand, cleanly off. Perhaps it's obvious that that would happen, but at the time it was not to me. I then went home and tried to break some tip pieces in my "scrap box" and found that I could break them like a twig in my hand.
This obviously has nothing to do with guides, but just a characteristic of graphite. You hold it with two hands and snap it with little effort because you force it to bend more than 90 degrees at that spot.
One day a friend asked me to shorten a rod for him. It must have been about 11'6" as it would not fit in my van. I had already worked out that I would need to shorten it on both sides, so to fit it in my vehicle i proceeded to snap 4 inches from the tip in front of the guy. I will never forget the look on his face. It became a successful rod!
Something about guides. When I make a rod I nearly always stick guides on to it with duct tape. I then adjust the guides by fixing the rear section horizontally and then hanging a weight on it.
This will determine how many guides are required and the spacing to keep the line away from the blank under load. When I started making my own rods, a rod had 7 guides, simple. ;D I must say that most blanks we used were from the same manufacturer and very similar. Only much later did this change.
I also go and cast with it like that and play around with the guides again if needed, slightly adjusting them. Sometimes I have cast a rod with only a reel and a tip guide, it can be done but does not resemble the same characteristics as a rod with a full set of guides, you can feel the weight or then lack thereof. It also tends to feel like a soft slack bad blank! (Steve describes it as squishy, a good word choice) So in that case the extra guides seem to give the whole thing more body or stiffness. I don't think that is because of the effect of the bindings and actual stiffening effect of the guides on the rod or perhaps it is.
The attached photo I think I have uploaded before. It was a way to see what a blank does under maximum pendulum casting load.
It is rated 2 to 5 oz = 155 gram. I think the rod is tilted slightly to my right perhaps distorting the curve but to me it is clearly over loaded.
This rod has never casted nicely and I now limit my casting weight with it to 125 gram which feels better. Perhaps it should have broken as it looks like the curve is more than 90 degrees from the but.
Quote from: Cor on October 17, 2020, 03:26:25 PM
I have cast a rod with only a reel and a tip guide, it can be done but does not resemble the same characteristics as a rod with a full set of guides. If tends to feel like a soft slack bad blank! So in that case the extra guides seem to give the whole thing more body or stiffness. I don't think that is because of the effect of the bindings and actual stiffening effect of the guides on the rod?
I never tried that but can imagine it. As the rod bends on the cast the straight line distance from the tip to the reel would become shorter and the distance from the tip to the lure becomes longer. It would feel squishy like you are letting some line off the spool in the middle of loading the rod on the cast.
-steve
I hate to join in in this discussion as I am new to rod building. I just use the Mudhole guide for the weight of the rod. On the other hand I learned to not high stick. I only lift the rod to a 45 degree angle and in most cases the tip is not quite at 90 degrees. So to sum up (with all due respect for his rod building acumen) I believe Alex overloaded that blank and it failed. My feeling is that if he had built it with the guides in place it would not have failed. My opinion only. Dominick
Quote from: steelfish on October 16, 2020, 07:21:16 PM
Quote from: The Fishing Hobby on October 16, 2020, 12:52:26 PM
I don't put any serious weight on until I have the guides wrapped.
thanks for your input, as I said, I still learning from the pros, let me ask you this, how much it would be "serious weight" for a 30# blank?
actually "serious weight for a 30# blank" was the million dollar question.
I only use enough weight to put a slight bend in the rod with the rod held at a 45° angle...and I'm going to have a hard time explaining what I mean by a slight bend ;D
Quote from: oc1 on October 17, 2020, 07:50:36 AM
I have talked myself into believing that the guides have nothing to do with how the rod bends and how the load is transferred.
Who am I to argue with faith?
Quote
I base this mainly on the lack of significant downward pressure where the line presses on the guide and the guide presses on the blank. Yeah, that is controversial so I may have to find a way to prove or disprove it. The only caveat here is that the wrapping thread, epoxy and lack of flex in guides will stiffen the area around each guide. This stiffening may throw off the bend and load transfer a little. That is also why a rod might break between guides rather than under the guide.
-s
OK, I am ready to argue now :)
I think this is where things are going sideways for Steve. You are basing your theory on an incomplete data set. There is significant pressure on the bottom guides if you angle the rod appropriately, and the rod is built correctly. As mentioned in my long, boring, infrequently-read-to-completion post (in the second most boring part :) ), when using the proper big fish fighting technique with a fly rod, the tip is not bent at all, so the tip cannot be under load. So what is bending the rod if not the load on the other guides? Here is an example that I found on the web:
http://oregonflyfishingblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Caddis-Fly-Shop-Jay-Nicholas-Fly-Rod-position-2.jpg (http://oregonflyfishingblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Caddis-Fly-Shop-Jay-Nicholas-Fly-Rod-position-2.jpg)
I think the assumption that only the tip has load is incorrect. It depends on the total load and the angle of the load.
When we get tangles fighting a fish and another angler's line is wrapped around the tip of the fly rod fighting the fish, the rod can be heavily loaded, but the tip wiggles around easily when untangling the other line. The tip is not experiencing enough load to bend the rod as much as it is bent.
Lots of easy ways to test your theory if you are not still convinced.
Quote from: Cor on October 17, 2020, 03:26:25 PM
I once took a 11 ft rod, made locally by Purglas, a strong rod, by the tip and lifted it that way to see how it would bend. It did not bend, it snapped right next to my hand, cleanly off. Perhaps it's obvious that that would happen, but at the time it was not to me. I then went home and tried to break some tip pieces in my "scrap box" and found that I could break them like a twig in my hand.
This obviously has nothing to do with guides, but just a characteristic of graphite. You hold it with two hands and snap it with little effort because you force it to bend more than 90 degrees at that spot.
One day a friend asked me to shorten a rod for him. It must have been about 11'6" as it would not fit in my van. I had already worked out that I would need to shorten it on both sides, so to fit it in my vehicle i proceeded to snap 4 inches from the tip in front of the guy. I will never forget the look on his face. It became a successful rod
Which reminds me. You can also break a rod much more easily buy reaching up the past the grip. The higher up the reach, the more load is concentrated toward the tip where the rod is weaker. Cor's example is an extreme one (four inches from the tip), but very illustrative. When load testing a rod or blank, it is important not to reach past where the front grip will go. People blow up fly rods all the time reaching up the blank to get leverage on a big fish. Don't know if this contributed to the blank failure for Alex, but thought it might be worth mentioning.
-J
@ jurelometer
The past number of years I've seen a continuous move towards lighter rods being used. Guys then move one hand right forward, onto the graphite in an attempt to get more leverage when fighting a fish on an already too weak rod. I've not see one break because of that, but it sure will happen. Same thing happens on boats, guys use the rail to support a rod not designed for it, that is heading for disaster.
Not sure about your statement; ".....it is important not to reach past where the front grip will go." I think where the but section ends in a one piece rod is fairly arbitrary depending on the rod builders intent or often just coincidental depending on the material size used for this purpose or sometimes even only to hide something on the blank below. ???
Once again a very interesting thread with too many variables. This is the result of the different ways we build rods, the manner in which we use them, different styles of fishing, maintaining and service tackle and even the way we transport our tackle, which is again aggravated by many of us being in different parts of the globe. Not to be outdone by the tackle industry distributing all kinds of complex theories and products to further their own objectives.
Quote from: Cor on October 18, 2020, 06:39:35 AM
@ jurelometer
The past number of years I've seen a continuous move towards lighter rods being used. Guys then move one hand right forward, onto the graphite in an attempt to get more leverage when fighting a fish on an already too weak rod. I've not see one break because of that, but it sure will happen. Same thing happens on boats, guys use the rail to support a rod not designed for it, that is heading for disaster.
Not sure about your statement; ".....it is important not to reach past where the front grip will go." I think where the but section ends in a one piece rod is fairly arbitrary depending on the rod builders intent or often just coincidental depending on the material size used for this purpose or sometimes even only to hide something on the blank below. ???
Once again a very interesting thread with too many variables. This is the result of the different ways we build rods, the manner in which we use them, different styles of fishing, maintaining and service tackle and even the way we transport our tackle, which is again aggravated by many of us being in different parts of the globe. Not to be outdone by the tackle industry distributing all kinds of complex theories and products to further their own objectives.
You make a good point Cor.
There are lots of different styles and lengths of rod blanks, and different styles of building rods. So generalizations are risky. ....But to make a generalization :) the blank manufacturers have an expectation of where the reel seat and grips will go and build the blanks accordingly. Blanks with a long butt section and a fast taper ( like fly rods) are the most prone to breakage by pushing the sort-of-fulcrum up the blank. I was thinking that when static load testing a blank, it would be easy to slide the hand too far up the blank in order to get some leverage.
Speaking of rod building styles. I was always curious about those short rear grip shore rods from your part of the world. There is a disadvantage to trying to wind against a big fish with the reel so close to the butt, and the first guide would have to be much lower on the rod which means the line can get the in the way of the front hand. I am curious as to what the advantages are.
-J.
Quote from: jurelometer on October 18, 2020, 07:43:55 AM
Quote from: Cor on October 18, 2020, 06:39:35 AM
@ jurelometer
The past number of years I've seen a continuous move towards lighter rods being used. Guys then move one hand right forward, onto the graphite in an attempt to get more leverage when fighting a fish on an already too weak rod. I've not see one break because of that, but it sure will happen. Same thing happens on boats, guys use the rail to support a rod not designed for it, that is heading for disaster.
Not sure about your statement; ".....it is important not to reach past where the front grip will go." I think where the but section ends in a one piece rod is fairly arbitrary depending on the rod builders intent or often just coincidental depending on the material size used for this purpose or sometimes even only to hide something on the blank below. ???
Once again a very interesting thread with too many variables. This is the result of the different ways we build rods, the manner in which we use them, different styles of fishing, maintaining and service tackle and even the way we transport our tackle, which is again aggravated by many of us being in different parts of the globe. Not to be outdone by the tackle industry distributing all kinds of complex theories and products to further their own objectives.
You make a good point Cor.
There are lots of different styles and lengths of rod blanks, and different styles of building rods. So generalizations are risky. ....But to make a generalization :) the blank manufacturers have an expectation of where the reel seat and grips will go and build the blanks accordingly. Blanks with a long butt section and a fast taper ( like fly rods) are the most prone to breakage by pushing the sort-of-fulcrum up the blank. I was thinking that when static load testing a blank, it would be easy to slide the hand too far up the blank in order to get some leverage.
Speaking of rod building styles. I was always curious about those short rear grip shore rods from your part of the world. There is a disadvantage to trying to wind against a big fish with the reel so close to the butt, and the first guide would have to be much lower on the rod which means the line can get the in the way of the front hand. I am curious as to what the advantages are.
-J.
ahhhh, I have always wondered how you manage to fish with a reel halfway up the rod. :D :D I'll start another thread in a few days time.
You seem to know about fly rods, I think they have the reel at the back as well, probably for similar reasons.
Thank you Dave for pulling me back from the edge of an abyss. There's no telling what might have happened but I'm better now.
The guides do indeed carry a load. What confused me was that they don't all carry a load at the same time. As you say, the tip stops carrying a load once it straightens out and is pointing at the fish. The striper guide doesn't start carrying much of a load until there is enough pull to bend the rod more deeply and it continues to carry a load until the explosion. So, you are only using a portion of the guides at any one time.
Dominick's comments were an eye-opener for me as well, especially when he mentioned holding the rod at a 45 degree angle. I've been thinking of the bend being at 90 degrees to the butt and using 90 degrees to do stress tests and for guide placement. But, when the chips are down and the fish is about to eat your lunch it is difficult or impossible to hold and work the rod at 90 degrees (ergonomics, I guess) and 45 degrees feels much more natural and realistic. It seems then that staking out the rod at a 45 instead of 90 degree bend when determining guide placement would be more appropriate.
-steve
[quote author=oc1 link=topic=32120.msg375857#msg375857 date=160300852
Dominick's comments were an eye-opener for me as well, especially when he mentioned holding the rod at a 45 degree angle. I've been thinking of the bend being at 90 degrees to the butt and using 90 degrees to do stress tests and for guide placement. But, when the chips are down and the fish is about to eat your lunch it is difficult or impossible to hold and work the rod at 90 degrees (ergonomics, I guess) and 45 degrees feels much more natural and realistic. It seems then that staking out the rod at a 45 instead of 90 degree bend when determining guide placement would be more appropriat
[/quote]
Don't want to speak for Dominic, but I think he was referring to 45 degrees from the horizon, which is a well known adage for boat fishing. This usually ends up in the 90 degree range because the fish is usuall not directly under the boat.
When I am describing a 90 degree load, I am referring to pulling the tip at a 90 degree angle from the butt, until the tip is pointing at a 90 degree angle.
Try this: tie a pulley between two palm trees. Run your line through the pulley, and tie a heavy weight on the end. Stand about 30 feet away and see how much effort it takes to lift the weight at different angles. As you have observed, it takes much more effort at 90 degrees than at 45. While folks feel they are putting the brakes on the fish with a larger angle, they are actually just using leverage against themselves.
You could also test how rod bend shape is affected by guide placement and lifting angle by repeating the exercise with the line not threaded through the bottom guides (maybe turn the rod upside down, so that the guides are on the underside and the line does not rub on the blank).
Most static load guide placement instructions that I have seen agree with you, and state that the placement should be tuned for the typical bend in the rod when used. The way I see it, the less the rod is bending, the less placement matters, and I need the rod to perform the best when it is under the most useful load.
My guess is that if you optimize placement for typical load or a full 90 degree bend, there probably isn't much difference, but I have never tried both on the same blank.
-J
wow, what a surprise I wasnt expecting thing kind of responses and participation just because I broke a blank ::) ::) :P
Quote from: JasonGotaPenn on October 17, 2020, 01:35:03 AM
Not telling you the manufacturer on a deeply discounted item is not unheard of. I'm kind of a cheapskate when it comes to work clothes, I do a lot of my shopping on the clearance rack and at outlet type stores that sell off overstock items. You see stuff with the brand tag removed all the time. Because the fancy clothing company doesnt wanna admit they'll allow their stuff to be sold for so low. Some of my favorite work slacks are made by a brand I'll never get to know.
some how I was hoping this was the case, I think I said it before, it would be cool to have a slight curved or shorter rod that didnt meet CQ to be able to be sold for $135 dlls so, they just sold a truck load of them for $3,000 and each ending up cost just $15 dlls, this is real, I bought some cool factory rods for $15 and $25 dls on the Fred Hall Shows for some rods that werent unknown by me at that time, I just bought 3 of them, once in home I checked the normal selling price and found out that they were from a Germany company named "Balzer rods" and average $100 to $125 Euros each, they are some of my favorites light rods since few years, 9ft and 3/4oz lure, etc.
so, I do believe on this kinds of good oportunities, but of course not all of them are that good, but you know, I still have another chance to find out is those blanks were garbage or really made by a good company... I bought two so, I still have one more to go ;D 8)
Quote from: MarkT on October 17, 2020, 03:27:43 AM
A 12-30 rated blank is not a 30# rod! It's a 20#rod at best. For some no-name blank 20# is probably pushing it... just sayin', ya know what I mean?
Quote from: MarkT on October 17, 2020, 04:41:02 AM
All the Fenwick, Sabre, Seeker, Calstar, and other 270, 12-30# rated rods I've seen are 20# rods that can go up or down (mostly down) a line class or so. I wouldn't use 10# of drag on my classic Seeker 270 pulling at 90+ degrees and certainly not on some unnamed blank of unknown pedigree. Rods are rated at the middle of their rating, not at the high end. Keep that in mind going forward. A 270 (12-30) is a 20# rod, an 870 (15-40) is a 25# rod, a 670 (20-50) is a 30# rod, a 665h (30-80) is a 40# rod, a 6465h (30-80) is a 50# rod... and so on.
thanks Mark, thats really important facts that I already knew, but somehow I still wanted to test the rods I got from friends for a complete restoring,
I try to always learn something and seems that what I will get this time is to just test new blanks with few oz weigth always checking the formula that I just got of "10% of the max line rate" (just like the Big manufacturer that Getbit contacted) before building them, this could be a joke on rods rated 50-130 as my Calstar GF760H, I deadlifted maybe 25# or more with the guides temporaly on the rod to adjust them, but we all know, there are thousands of variables on this topic that we can go on this on and on, depending blank materials, size, type of fishing, etc, etc.
my shimano trevala 58XXH line rate is 120-200lb ::) ::), but I wouldnt try to lift or test it with anything above 15# or even less. ;D
But I will still perform a "destructive" test on old rods (mostly glass rods) before re-building them to search for hidden hits or flaws with the normal use on the many years of abuse on pangas, some of my friends when they give an old rod to be restored with better guides ask me:
my friend: - How can we know if the rod once builded with wont break on 20# of drag
Me: -- Hold my beer. ;D ;D
Quote from: oc1 on October 18, 2020, 08:08:41 AM
The guides do indeed carry a load. What confused me was that they don't all carry a load at the same time. As you say, the tip stops carrying a load once it straightens out and is pointing at the fish. The striper guide doesn't start carrying much of a load until there is enough pull to bend the rod more deeply and it continues to carry a load until the explosion. So, you are only using a portion of the guides at any one time.
-steve
thats why I like your comments Steve, right or not we kind of think the same way ;D :P
that was my main reason to test new blanks just for the tip, I know they will perform different once they have grips, reelseat and guides, but that new "action" depends on the builder not by the factory, as Steve said, the blank will be as stronger as was before the guides, this could be debatable in many ways but a rod builder could install the guides way off from the natural bend of the rod and the finished rod will feel different that a rod with less guides, of course there are some blanks that are more prone to lose the sensivity or action that others if you install the wrong components on it.
Quote from: jurelometer on October 18, 2020, 06:52:55 PM
.......Most static load guide placement instructions that I have seen agree with you, and state that the placement should be tuned for the typical bend in the rod when used. The way I see it, the less the rod is bending, the less placement matters, and I need the rod to perform the best when it is under the most useful load.
-J
I have had many rods with the foregrip full of line marks from the line rubbing it because many anglers use their rods "passing the useful load" or recommended line rating on them, so I told them, 1st is that you need a stronger rod for fishing this big YT or groupers, but when the 70% or 80% of the fish arent that big you dont want to carry a broom stick, so you use a rod that will perform its best with 10-15# fish but once in a while you could catch a 30# YT that will make your line touch the blank on different parts and foregrips, so, you have to look for the "useful load " of the blank and maybe a bit more just to avoid this happening in the future, just a bit, how much is a bit? I dont know, thats why we are all here arguing how much is "just a little bit more" of load of the blank ;D ;D
possible solutions on the same rod of this case, is to install a taller striper line and closer to the foregrip and if needed install another guide on the current running guides not always possible.
we can stop arguing now, we have a veredict from the AT counselor
Quote from: Dominick on October 17, 2020, 08:01:05 PM
...... So to sum up, I believe Alex overloaded that blank and it failed. My feeling is that if he had built it with the guides in place it would not have failed. Dominick
I to prove his veredic and I will build the 2nd blank I have, its an identical blank than the one just broke on me and once the guides are installed (with masking tape) I will try to deadlift 7# of weight again, with safety glasses, gloves and a catcher uniform in few weeks .
I will do it for the Science !!
Do lawyers guarantee their work? Maybe if you break the other one with guides on it, Dominick will pay for it all. :) :)
Quote from: oc1 on October 19, 2020, 06:40:12 PM
..Maybe if you break the other one with guides on it Dominick will pay for it all. :) :)
yes, of course, plus the 3 Barney Band-aid for my finger
Alex ole buddy,
I have never done what you did with a blank. Looking at where it broke the load was hitting the wrong place. If the guides were on it the outcome may have been different. I test all of mine by pressing them very hard against my exercise mat putting pressure on the area that should carry the load. Broke one seeker 20-40 and they replaced it and that is the only failure that I have had. Lifting the weight off the ground does not duplicate a fishing load. If you put the weight on the ground in the grass and stepped a few paces back and then pull at an angle to resemble fishing it will be a good test and a more natural bend. I will see Kevin this week and see if I can help you but blanks are not made to lift weights.
Dwight
Quote from: Newell Nut on October 19, 2020, 09:51:31 PM
Alex ole buddy,
Lifting the weight off the ground does not duplicate a fishing load.
..................I will see Kevin this week and see if I can help you but blanks are not made to lift weights.
Dwight
wazuuup compadre Dwight, nice to see you coming into this land of confusion.
I know Rods were not made to lift weight but there is a time during the fishing fight were you have a big heavy and angry fish just below you and you cannot give any line to the fish because it will rock you, fishing from a Panga where you are too close to the water a big fish below you looking for rocks might put a big bend on your rod, so its not that different when you have a fish pulling your 20# or 30# of drag just bellow you than lifting a dead weight, this is not an scenario than happens everytime but you never know what it might bite your lure.
when fighting a big fish that is 50ft or more away from you is not the problem, the problem is when the fish is really close to you and give its last and stronger pull for its life, here is Baja 80% of the fish swim to the bottom looking for rock structure and your job is to stop them, no time to think if your rod is 35* or 45* or even 90* on the safe zone, well, in reality you have plenty of time to think if your rod is in the safe zone, but its better to have a rod that already give you confidence to use it on its limits and only worry about your fish not on your equipment.
so, sometimes you best option is just a quality Glass rod and be done, you know how all fishermen are, they (we) want the newest graphite tech rod that just got showed on the last ICAST, I think I had put a new tiptops to all the terez rods that are in my town LOL, because all the guys had broken the last 4-6" from the tip from highsticking, I told them to look for a composite rod or even a glass rod if they dont pay attention to hight sticking.
talking about extreme bends when the fish is bellow you.
note to myself: no more lifting dead weigths with light all-graphite blanks any more until they have the guides and just for adjusting them on the static test.
Look on the bright side... you broke the blank before investing hours wrapping it!
Quote from: steelfish on October 20, 2020, 12:06:53 AM
Quote from: Newell Nut on October 19, 2020, 09:51:31 PM
Alex ole buddy,
Lifting the weight off the ground does not duplicate a fishing load.
..................I will see Kevin this week and see if I can help you but blanks are not made to lift weights.
Dwight
wazuuup compadre Dwight, nice to see you coming into this land of confusion.
I know Rods were not made to lift weight but there is a time during the fishing fight were you have a big heavy and angry fish just below you and you cannot give any line to the fish because it will rock you, fishing from a Panga where you are too close to the water a big fish below you looking for rocks might put a big bend on your rod, so its not that different when you have a fish pulling your 20# or 30# of drag just bellow you than lifting a dead weight, this is not an scenario than happens everytime but you never know what it might bite your lure.
when fighting a big fish that is 50ft or more away from you is not the problem, the problem is when the fish is really close to you and give its last and stronger pull for its life, here is Baja 80% of the fish swim to the bottom looking for rock structure and your job is to stop them, no time to think if your rod is 35* or 45* or even 90* on the safe zone, well, in reality you have plenty of time to think if your rod is in the safe zone, but its better to have a rod that already give you confidence to use it on its limits and only worry about your fish not on your equipment.
so, sometimes you best option is just a quality Glass rod and be done, you know how all fishermen are, they (we) want the newest graphite tech rod that just got showed on the last ICAST, I think I had put a new tiptops to all the terez rods that are in my town LOL, because all the guys had broken the last 4-6" from the tip from highsticking, I told them to look for a composite rod or even a glass rod if they dont pay attention to hight sticking.
talking about extreme bends when the fish is bellow you.
note to myself: no more lifting dead weigths with light all-graphite blanks any more until they have the guides and just for adjusting them on the static test.
Alex,
Just think of it like this. A line sliding through guides spaced properly and connected to a reel is nothing like tying a dead weight to a tip. Some bright engineer could calculate it for you. I reef fish all the time and I don't break rods. On my heavy fish my foregrip is on the rail and the fish don't break my rods. Larry has been killing big cudas and red snappers with his 15-30 Rainshadow I built for him with a 220 on it. Not my first choice but he is having fun with it and it looks scary to me sometimes. Those rods in a couple of your pics are designed to overbend jigging blanks. Kevin is catching 500 lb gators with the Rainshadow jigging blank 30-60 that I built for his big Slammer III reel. I personally do not like that blank for my fishing due to the feel of it. I have played with a 20-50 but rather fish my Hercules rods.
Another thing to think about in the design area is how the blank gets wrapped in manufacturing. A trolling rod is is designed to take heavy shock. A heavy stand up rod may have a soft tip to lessen work on the fisherman but loads of power near the part that will hit the rail. Think of the purpose built rod and what it should face on the water and then you may understand why tying a weight to the tip of every rod is not too cool. No problem for some rods but bad idea on others. An overloaded built rod should break a couple inches from the fore grip. Anywhere else and high sticking comes to mind and a fish running under the boat you can't stop. This is the same as high sticking bend where the top part gets overloaded.
Good Luck to Alex, you are doing great work so just move past this lesson learned. Just use biceps for weight lifting. ;D ;D
Dwight
Quote from: Newell Nut on October 20, 2020, 09:40:48 AM
Good Luck to Alex, you are doing great work so just move past this lesson learned. Just use biceps for weight lifting. ;D ;D
Dwight
thanks buddy, lesson learned, also learned when I was searching for those highsticking or extreme bent rods pictures that most of them are from high-dollar brands, "maybe" thats why they were up to the task without breaking, with better quality glass, graphite and resins on the manufacturing.
my plans for the 2nd blank of the same "unknown maker" I will build it without any bling-bling or shiny colors, not spending much on the components, I already a decent reelseat, guides and will put some shrink wrap with a cord under and buttcap as the St croix legend surf rod and put it on use the Baja Style, it might break on a nice Spanish mack or leopard grouper or it might pass the real world test.
Quote from: steelfish on October 20, 2020, 04:51:58 PM
Quote from: Newell Nut on October 20, 2020, 09:40:48 AM
Good Luck to Alex, you are doing great work so just move past this lesson learned. Just use biceps for weight lifting. ;D ;D
Dwight
thanks buddy, lesson learned, also learned when I was searching for those highsticking or extreme bent rods pictures that most of them are from high-dollar brands, "maybe" thats why they were up to the task without breaking, with better quality glass, graphite and resins on the manufacturing.
The action (slow curve = large radius) is the big difference. The standard rod in your photo set is jut a bit past 90 degrees. The jigging rods with a a slower action that bend all the way to the butt cap are the ones with the big U shape. (Of course the big U is actually making the fight more difficult)
I mentioned this before, but please permit me to indulge in the science in a bit more detail with my usual caveat that I am just a science fan and not trained in physics or material science.
When you bend a rod, it is forming a curve. Since the side of the rod on the inside of the curve is closer to the center point of the curve (i.e., a shorter radius), the length from the butt to the tip of the rod is shorter on the inside of the bend than on the outside of the bend (i.e., a shorter radius means a shorter circumference for a circle). The shorter the bend radius, the greater the difference in lengths. Here is an example:
If you took a 3 foot long section of a rod that was 1/2 inch thick and bent it in a moderate radius of 36 inch, the rod at the outside of the bend would about an inch longer than at the inside (assuming that I did the rudimentary math correctly :) ). Take the same rod and bend it on a 12 inch radius and now the difference in length goes to about 2.75 inches!
The glass or carbon fibers do not stretch or compress much at all, so it is the resin that provides the elasticity. This allows the fibers to get pulled apart on the outside of the curve, and crammed together on the inside of the curve, as the resin elasticity to allow the rod to bend without breaking and then return to the original shape.
For reasons that I do not understand yet, we get more extension than compression for the same amount of force on the materials and shape used to make a fishing rod blank. The rod at the inside of the bend does not shorten (compress) at the required ratio, causing the two curves to move closer together. If you could see a cross section of a bent rod, you would see that it turns from a circle to an oval as the bend increases. The sides swell out and some of the force is no longer along the length of the rod, but pushing out to the sides. With enough load, the rod fractures at the sides from the swelling. This is how a rod breaks from over-bending.
Putting this all together: the tighter the bend, the greater the force compressing the cross section. The thinner the walls, the less resistance there is to the compression and lateral force (sides swelling out). Also, a rod with more or stiffer fibers will take more force to bend, which means more load transferred to the sidewalls for the same amount of bend.
A rod that bends more evenly along its full length (new style jigging sticks) will have a longer bend radius than a classic fast action rod. It is also less stiff. Therefore it will bend more without blowing up. Better materials, construction and quality control all contribute to decreasing the odds of breaking as we get closer to the design limits, but the fundamental difference is the design and to a lesser extent whether the blank is "high end" or not IMHO, especially when the same type of materials are used.
-J
Quote from: jurelometer on October 20, 2020, 09:12:39 PM
The action (slow curve = large radius) is the big difference. The standard rod in your photo set is jut a bit past 90 degrees. The jigging rods with a a slower action that bend all the way to the butt cap are the ones with the big U shape. (Of course the big U is actually making the fight more difficult)
I mentioned this before, but please permit me to indulge in the science in a bit more detail with my usual caveat that I am just a science fan and not trained in physics or material science.
When you bend a rod, it is forming a curve. Since the side of the rod on the inside of the curve is closer to the center point of the curve (i.e., a shorter radius), the length from the butt to the tip of the rod is shorter on the inside of the bend than on the outside of the bend (i.e., a shorter radius means a shorter circumference for a circle). The shorter the bend radius, the greater the difference in lengths. Here is an example:
If you took a 3 foot long section of a rod that was 1/2 inch thick and bent it in a moderate radius of 36 inch, the rod at the outside of the bend would about an inch longer than at the inside (assuming that I did the rudimentary math correctly :) ). Take the same rod and bend it on a 12 inch radius and now the difference in length goes to about 2.75 inches!
The glass or carbon fibers do not stretch or compress much at all, so it is the resin that provides the elasticity. This allows the fibers to get pulled apart on the outside of the curve, and crammed together on the inside of the curve, as the resin elasticity to allow the rod to bend without breaking and then return to the original shape.
For reasons that I do not understand yet, we get more extension than compression for the same amount of force on the materials and shape used to make a fishing rod blank. The rod at the inside of the bend does not shorten (compress) at the required ratio, causing the two curves to move closer together. If you could see a cross section of a bent rod, you would see that it turns from a circle to an oval as the bend increases. The sides swell out and some of the force is no longer along the length of the rod, but pushing out to the sides. With enough load, the rod fractures at the sides from the swelling. This is how a rod breaks from over-bending.
Putting this all together: the tighter the bend, the greater the force compressing the cross section. The thinner the walls, the less resistance there is to the compression and lateral force (sides swelling out). Also, a rod with more or stiffer fibers will take more force to bend, which means more load transferred to the sidewalls for the same amount of bend.
A rod that bends more evenly along its full length (new style jigging sticks) will have a longer bend radius than a classic fast action rod. It is also less stiff. Therefore it will bend more without blowing up. Better materials, construction and quality control all contribute to decreasing the odds of breaking as we get closer to the design limits, but the fundamental difference is the design and to a lesser extent whether the blank is "high end" or not IMHO, especially when the same type of materials are used.
-J
Basically you are describing a 'hoop strength' failure. Traditionally, this element of strength in a blank was cured with first layers of multi-directional glass scrim, followed by layers of uni-directional carbon. However, more recently blank manufacturers have sought out the use of multi-directional carbon to act as the scrim element to increase hoop strength, but not have the penalty of the weight of the glass element. However, not all manufacturers have fully embraced the limitations of 'carbon scrim', and are expecting too much from the material in respect to just how much bending can be induced with this material.
What we have found in the surf fishing scene, and the use of this product and its limitations, the ability to bend to more extreme angles is best accomplished with blanks built with two or more strengths of carbon, not just a single high strength carbon. Lower strength carbons mixed with high strength carbons offer more flexibility and less prone to hoop strength failures.
The issue at the end of the day, is that few blank manufacturers will publicise the exact carbon contents of their blanks, for obvious commercial reason. Additionally, the general angling public like to see lots of big numbers in advertising material, thinking they are getting 'better' products.
Quote from: jurelometer on October 20, 2020, 09:12:39 PM
The glass or carbon fibers do not stretch or compress much at all, so it is the resin that provides the elasticity. This allows the fibers to get pulled apart on the outside of the curve, and crammed together on the inside of the curve, as the resin elasticity to allow the rod to bend without breaking and then return to the original shape.
Fiberglass has some elasticity. Carbon fiber has very little elasticity.
Before the fibers can break, they have to pull free of the bond between fiber and resin. It's irreversible so once that bond is broken the rod will be softer (have less stiffness/rigidity/modulus). Old fiberglass rods were notorious for getting softer with age due to failure of the fiber-resin bond. Carbon fiber rods tend to just break instead of becoming softer. The difference is the elasticity of the fibers.
-steve
Quote from: Jeri on October 21, 2020, 08:49:00 AM
Lower strength carbons mixed with high strength carbons offer more flexibility and less prone to hoop strength failures.
The issue at the end of the day, is that few blank manufacturers will publicise the exact carbon contents of their blanks, for obvious commercial reason. Additionally, the general angling public like to see lots of big numbers in advertising material, thinking they are getting 'better' products.
It's not really strength Jeri, they use carbon fiber materials with different stiffness or modulus.
When rod manufacturers talk about IM6 or IM8 they somewhat describe the type of carbon fiber being used. The IM number is a shorthand way expressing stiffness/modulus. Strength is expressed using the number of individual fibers in the bundle.
-steve
Quote from: oc1 on October 21, 2020, 09:31:24 AM
It's not really strength Jeri, they use carbon fiber materials with different stiffness or modulus.
When rod manufacturers talk about IM6 or IM8 they somewhat describe the type of carbon fiber being used. The IM number is a shorthand way expressing stiffness/modulus. Strength is expressed using the number of individual fibers in the bundle.
-steve
In the surf world where I do a lot of my work, most blank manufacturers work in strengths, like T24, T30, T36, etc, rather than IM numbers. We also have worked with certain blank manufacturers as to the resin load per particular strengths to get other variables in performance from the end product.
A difference is also noted between European blank manufacturers and those down here, where the Europeans will add more E and S glass in to the mix of their designs to achieve softer tips for some designs, while others opt for full carbon construction. The whole aspect of trying to generalise what, how and why with blanks is a minefield, because there are just too many variables to be considered for any generalisation to hold water.
wow, nice, lets continue guys, lets get more pages than Benni's Luck thread ;D
nice to see you over here Jeri, our in-house surf fishing master rod builder.
so, let me ask you, on your long surf rods, whats your method for the static test to find the locations for the guides and how much drag, force or weight do you use?
Quote from: oc1 on October 21, 2020, 09:18:05 AM
Quote from: jurelometer on October 20, 2020, 09:12:39 PM
The glass or carbon fibers do not stretch or compress much at all, so it is the resin that provides the elasticity. This allows the fibers to get pulled apart on the outside of the curve, and crammed together on the inside of the curve, as the resin elasticity to allow the rod to bend without breaking and then return to the original shape.
Fiberglass has some elasticity. Carbon fiber has very little elasticity.
Before the fibers can break, they have to pull free of the bond between fiber and resin. It's irreversible so once that bond is broken the rod will be softer (have less stiffness/rigidity/modulus). Old fiberglass rods were notorious for getting softer with age due to failure of the fiber-resin bond. Carbon fiber rods tend to just break instead of becoming softer. The difference is the elasticity of the fibers.
-steve
Oops. You are right. Somehow I forgot that glass fibers are made of glass :). Glass is an amorphous solid, which means that the atoms don't bond in any repeating pattern. This means that there is no directional difference in stiffness or elasticity for glass fibers. It stretches the same as it bends. I don't think that it affects my description of how rods fail, but it does help explain why fiberglass rods are often able to bend more without breaking.
In terms of wearing out, if the fibers had similar adhesive bonding properties, the more stretchy fiber should stay bonded longer. Fibers are just half of the equation. Although the same resins can often be used with the different fibers, cheaper versions of polyester resin tends to be used with pure fiberglass rods, while carbon fiber tends to be matched with fancier epoxies, often with some additives that promote adhesion.
-J
When the fibers stretch their diameter shrinks, helping them to pull away from the resin. When cured, polyester has less elasticity than epoxy.
-steve
Quote from: steelfish on October 21, 2020, 03:59:20 PM
wow, nice, lets continue guys, lets get more pages than Benni's Luck thread ;D
nice to see you over here Jeri, our in-house surf fishing master rod builder.
so, let me ask you, on your long surf rods, whats your method for the static test to find the locations for the guides and how much drag, force or weight do you use?
The quick answer is that we don't!
We get a lot of information from the blank manufacturer about the blanks they produce, and that normally includes the 'test curve' of the blank, a rating load in kilograms, to pull the blank round to full 90 degrees of curvature. They have the rig to test the progressive loading of the blank design, holding the blank horizontally, and progressively loading the tip.
This not only gives a loading at the tip, but a defined curve of the upper portions of the blank, which is recorded, and used for comparisons to other designs.
This sounds at odds with the majority, but as nearly all the rods are being developed of casting to distance, the loading is more representative to the actual final rating of the rod, or the power needed to motivate the rod in a cast. A lot of this comes from the fact that the majority of blanks have a stiff to very stiff bottom end, and the design and length of that near parallel section is more determinate of performance. A rod that bends/flexes between the hands during the cast, is usually as effective as wet spaghetti for pure distance. In some extreme cases, that parallel or very inflexible section might be as much as half the total length, which basically changes the blank design to a combination of lever and spring, rather than just a spring.
Testing to determine the guide position is a little more towards an educated first guess, then trial and error to make small changes to overcome any problems that might be encountered during new rod test casting. Though this is not as random as it might sound, as we have found that guides on the first half of a rod for spinning reels are basically redundant, so concentrate from mid-point upwards. Taping guides in place and then test casting, chalking the line side of the blank to find any spots where line is hitting the blank during casting. Typically for a current 14' design we would be using 9 guides + a tip, though we are using a scheme which is a hybrid between Low Riders and KR. With multipliers (conventional) reels, again the stiff butt section negates the need for many guides close to the reel, as again distance achieved is more the focus than some form of static test. Pulling a curve with line threaded through taped guides only serves to avoid points where the line might be touching the blank, but doesn't necessarily point towards casting performance. Though again with our older designs of multiplier surf rods, a 14' rod might well have either 8 or 9 guides + tip.
Personally, we have found that the distance between reel and the first guide for spinning reel rods is critical, and usually at odds with the guidelines published by Fuji, but then our blanks with stiff lower sections are the main factor there, we don't have to accommodate the flexible lower half of the blank. Typically, Fuji suggest 120cm between the reel and the first guide, where we operate at somewhere between 180cms and 210cms, with experiments currently being done with a couple of rods set at 235cms, all set on rods that are 430cms long. This kind of tallies with the test curves of the blanks, where 8kgs would be typical of a medium strength level blank, were anything up to 18kgs would be the test curve for a very high skill powerful casting blank. The old adage of surf cast, that 'if you can't bend it, you can't send it', is still very applicable.
Not perhaps what you were hoping to hear Steelfish ............... ;)
Quote from: Jeri on October 22, 2020, 01:01:56 AM
chalking the line side of the blank to find any spots where line is hitting the blank during casting.
Thank you Jeri. Good stuff there. And thank you for the tip about chalking the rod.
-steve
I think that one of the elements that make surf rods different in behaviour to say normal spinning rods, is the element of line speed. A few years back looking at the spool speeds of multipliers, we determined that line leaving a reel on a reasonably powerful surf rod, is at times approaching 100 mph, or 180km per hour. Pretty fast, and this makes some problems go away, but uncovers others, that might not normally be present in a shorter spinning rod situation.
|This again is where I feel generalisations are not a fruitful source of guidance.
Quote from: Jeri on October 22, 2020, 01:01:56 AM
Not perhaps what you were hoping to hear Steelfish ............... ;)
actually thats what I wanted to hear, what the real pro on rod building are doing when building a quality rod, so, now I have your input and its pretty interesting if I ever build a long surf rod.
before getting into rod building I bought a used 13' custom surf rod, its a rainshadow SUR1505, material is graphite rx7 (their code I think) and its as you said, pretty stiff on the lower half and all the 7 guides on the top half.
Im not using it pretty much because in this zone of the Sea of Cortez you will catch the same small fish if you cast 130yds with a great surf rod or 60yds with a light 7ft surf rod or heavy salmon rod.
in the lower part of the Baja Peninsula (la paz, Cabos, etc) is where the good quality long surf rods shine catching big roosterfish, dorados and big Pargos from the surf.
Alex buddy I can relate to your tears and kapows! I broke one jig rod that was 30-50 rated and was supprised test it in the yard. I remember the sound and feeling that followed. It toowas a bargain compared to the hi end compared ones that I,d love to have. Building my own rod is more satisfying and that's what we do. Butt....
After reading this article several times my feelings are the rod blank even with the line taped to the tip should have not broken until the butt to tip angle exceeded 90 degrees. A bargain maybe?
Probably a defect in the blank that showed up. But you are much better off with your bend test first ...
I always test my blanks and sometimes adjust the guides before finishing. Best of luck. 💫
if you position rod/blank horizontally & suspend weight from tip (line or no line)
YOU CAN NEVER EXCEDE 90 DEGREES -- that's just how gravity works
I thought you start w/ an empty bucket;
gradually add weight 'til you get to 90*;
AND STOP -- that's your TC rating
Im reading thia thread wondering if I'm doing something wrong. I see my fast taper rods clear 120 degrees or more on a regular basis. Knock on wood really hard, but I've never had any trouble.
Alex, this year I was a witness to 3 rod explosions, and okuma, a penn, and a China no name.
This saying, why did it happen .? We will never know. This is an interesting place and I,m learning as we go. Alex you are a very talented man, I envy your patience and work. Gst
I think that it is often overlooked, just how potentially fragile carbon composites can be, sure immense strengths for such thin wall construction and light weight. However, even the slightest knock of the wrong sort can compromise a blank, and then cause a catastrophic failure when loaded.
We often get folks coming into the shop with rods that have broken and tales of "I was only jerking to pull for a break" or some such similar occurrence, but on close inspection often it is a clean break symptomatic of a knock to the side of the blank, and then the subsequent failure. In the case of brand new blanks, we just don't know how it has been treated prior to arrival on our work bench, or in the case of factory built rods, how was it handled during all the stages until it arrived in your hands.
All that without it having been a manufacturing fault.
Quote from: gstours on October 26, 2020, 12:52:27 AM
... I broke one jig rod that was 30-50 rated and was supprised test it in the yard. I remember the sound and feeling that followed.
Haha, I can relate that!! I can just imagine your face, maybe it was similar to my face when that happened to me haha.
Quote from: gstours on October 26, 2020, 12:52:27 AM
...... Probably a defect in the blank that showed up. But you are much better off with your bend test first ...
I always test my blanks and sometimes adjust the guides before finishing. Best of luck. 💫
thanks Gary, nice you know that you also test your blanks too; when we look the "small" halibutts you normally get, its better to know you can trust on your weapons before taking them to the battle.
Quote from: gstours on October 26, 2020, 12:52:27 AM
........ Building my own rod is more satisfying and that's what we do. ...
Yep, amigo, thats what we do and this part of unexpected situations are just experiences that make us do a better work.
Quote from: gstours on October 26, 2020, 02:31:54 AM
...This is an interesting place and I,m learning as we go. Alex you are a very talented man, I envy your patience and work. Gst
100% agree with you, this is an interesting place where we came to learn and share, thanks for you kind words compadre but still I considering myself still a Grasshopper on rodbuilding thats why I can here to ask, by the way I envy your work too and the place where you live even more.
Quote from: philaroman on October 26, 2020, 01:13:54 AM
if you position rod/blank horizontally & suspend weight from tip (line or no line)
YOU CAN NEVER EXCEDE 90 DEGREES -- that's just how gravity works
I thought you start w/ an empty bucket; gradually add weight 'til you get to 90*; AND STOP -- that's your TC rating
thanks for you valid input, I totally agree and understand the natural 90* bend on rods from an horizontal platform or blank holder as some factory or blank manufacturers test their rods and WE HOPE that our friends or customers use their finished rods always that way, never passing 90* while figthing a fish but we all know that normally never happens, we can always blame the fishemen for not taking care of the highsticking or the famous 90* max bend, so its better for us to know that our blank might not break the 1st time that pass 91* from a bend, any way, there are few blank manufacturers that Add their blanks with an extreme bend passing the 90* of recommended bend and of course there are other rod brands that also add the power of their rods lifting weights from the ground where the blank also pass the 90*.
Pacbay
(https://alantani.com/gallery/33/3592_26_10_20_1_13_54_33567432.jpeg)
Gary Looking NorthFork Composites, they advertize their blanks saying that each blank is tested before getting into the shipping box.
(https://alantani.com/gallery/33/3592_26_10_20_1_13_55_335682023.jpeg)
(https://alantani.com/gallery/33/3592_26_10_20_1_35_27_33581403.jpeg)
Blackhole
(https://alantani.com/gallery/33/3592_26_10_20_1_13_58_33574136.jpeg)
brands advertizing their fishing rods power lifting weights at 45*
(https://alantani.com/gallery/33/3592_26_10_20_1_17_35_33578127.jpeg)
(https://alantani.com/gallery/33/3592_26_10_20_1_17_36_335791884.jpeg)
some of those pics might Not apply with my original question on the opening post on how to test a blank from a manufacturing fault and also to find the natural curve on because of the quality material used on the blanks versus the $50 blank materials, but Still in my mind is better to have a cheap rod blank breaking on a "lab light test" than building it with some expensive components and breaking on a customer's face under a good power cast with a lure a on the max weight of recommended specs.
as I said, from now on my lab test will be less agressive on new blanks before building them, then the normal static test to find the correct places for the guides.
I had tested some rods and drag force on a reel with the spring scale on my house fence attached to the line of the reel mounted on the rod, then I walk 10 steps away and make some pulls like figting a fish away from the boat, then check the pounds mark on the scale, that way let me control and avoid any highsticking on the rod.
That picture of the young lady testing the blank is spooky. At least she's looking away and wearing gloves.
-steve
Alex things only start to get complicated in rod building when you are doing it for others either for gift or sale. You can endure a lot because your talented and hopefully business savy. That said, I had a rod builder friend get 2 identical g loomis rods back from a customer that broke the first foot off down from the tip and claimed it to be on a fish and wanted them replaced for free. I shudder at the thoughts that went thru my mind of the possible scenarios of fish fighting possibilities, and then found out that the replacement was honored ...
I have never in fifty years broked the top foot off on a fish, butt once in a drift boat hit a rock, everything got rearranged and the rod got damaged and later failed, another time rods were slammed in a van door. even banginging into a piling once with rods in the rodholders while loss of power contributed to a broken tip..... You can only control what you do with your rods and of coarse hope others will be as carefull as you are ......
I always transport my rods in fabric rod covers, and reel covers. Its the right thing to do. knicks and scratches will kill a composite or worse yet high end graphite rods, the failure is hard to prove. Ive broke my share, Best of luck to your endeaver. gst
Quote from: gstours on October 28, 2020, 12:41:20 AM
I have never in fifty years broked the top foot off on a fish,
They say that more rods are broken by doors (home and car) than fish.
I use very thin tips, like 1/16 inch or so, and brake them all the time when they slap on the gunwale. That and getting tip wraps from the wind. The braid wraps around the guides so that when you pull on it (from the reel or from the water) the tip is bends back on itself toward one of the guides. It's a sinking feeling when line is tangled on the guides, The tip is abut to break, the jig is snagged on the bottom and the boat is being blown along by the wind. I once threw the rod and reel overboard before the tip broke and went back to retrieve it. Then I learned to disconnect the tip section at the ferrule and let it go so line could play off the reel.
-s
Quote from: steelfish on October 19, 2020, 05:39:26 PM
I to prove his veredic and I will build the 2nd blank I have, its an identical blank than the one just broke on me and once the guides are installed (with masking tape) I will try to deadlift 7# of weight again, with safety glasses, gloves and a catcher uniform in few weeks .
I will do it for the Science !!
Quote from: steelfish on October 20, 2020, 04:51:58 PM
my plans for the 2nd blank of the same "unknown maker" I will build it without any bling-bling or shiny colors, not spending much on the components, I already a decent reelseat, guides and will put some shrink wrap with a cord under and buttcap as the St croix legend surf rod and put it on use the Baja Style, it might break on a nice Spanish mack or leopard grouper or it might pass the real world test.
ok, this follow up took me more than "few weeks" and also I didnt built the blank with just cord / shrink tube as I said, mostly because since it was a not 100% trustful blank I took it to experiment with paints and grips sanding, so if it breaks it has served its purpose.
check here for more information and see pics. https://alantani.com/index.php?topic=33808.0
any way, but I did the dead lift test as promised, well "kind of" deadlift, before building that rod, I put the grips in the blank without glue, as well as the reelseat, all guides were attached with masking tape on their final position and this time I used a 4 step ladder to avoid High sticking the blank, put the reel and passed the line through all the guides, this time I used a scale to measure the pulling drag, attached the end line to a 30# toolbox (it wasnt my plan to lift it but to have something heavy) and pulled slowly until having the tip down at 90*, after that I pulled bit stronger few times and checked the drag used, I need to say most of the pulled drag was with the rod at 0* (rod was horizontal to the floor but tip as 90* down) and made some strong pulls with the rod blank at 35* to 45* (check the attached image) and stopped when the scale read 11# drag, that was drag was reached taking care to the rod and with no highsticking it as the last time, I will have to remember that while fishing with it, I was actually in using it as the SlowPitch guys use their rods, most of the time pointing at the fish with the rod and some pulls to bring the fish to the boat.
1st pic is the method I followed to test drag on a light rod (not my picture) btw, it was on a rainshadow RCBL70XL with 10# lift
2nd and 3rd pic is my rod with the drag scale readings
4th image high sticking zones for a fishing rod
what that Lab test done, I this rod its now ready for some real world test, stay tune for next follow up in 10 months ;D ;D (j/k hopefully sooner)
Who resurrected this old, complicated but extremely interesting thread?? ;D
Will take me a week to read and understand it all again, but I will.
Thanks for the follow-up Alex. You are now our resident expert on the "hold my beer" school of scientific experimentation. :D
Quote from: philaroman on October 26, 2020, 01:13:54 AM
if you position rod/blank horizontally & suspend weight from tip (line or no line)
YOU CAN NEVER EXCEDE 90 DEGREES -- that's just how gravity works
I thought you start w/ an empty bucket;
gradually add weight 'til you get to 90*;
AND STOP -- that's your TC rating
Ooh- good point. Missed this post before. I think that my "90 degree" spiel was too simplified.
The first part about not being able to exceed 90 degrees if you are pulling from 90 degrees is important.
I disagree a bit with the second part.
A blank may only be lightly loaded when it first reaches 90 degrees. Also: any blank can be overloaded to the point of failure at 90 degrees. The key is how deeply the rod is bending.
For fly rods, the rule of thumb is that two blanks that take the same load to pull the tip down at 90 degrees for a distance equal to 1/3 of the unloaded blank length will have the same casting "power" and will probably cast best with the same size fly line. The blanks will still bend a bit more deeply on a distance cast, and a stiffer butt blank can handle a heavier line better, but this still gives you a way to a get comparative rating for casting load without having to build the rod first. You can also make a very good guess as to what size line an unlabeled blank was designed for. I haven't tried this on conventional/spinning rods, but I bet that something similar would work for estimating optimal casting weight for an unbuilt blank.
For max lifting load on all rod types, the concept is the same, but we need to take that 90 degree bend farther down the blank. There is a point where the blank feels like it has "bottomed out". I think this is because it takes progressively more load to bend the rod more deeply (at that same 90 degree angle) but at some point that progression starts to taper off. This is where I think the blank has reached its load limit. I suspect that it may be difficult to accurately find this limit by simply observing the bend while increasing 90 degree load.
There is nothing specific about exactly 90 degrees. The blank will take even more load before bottoming out at 60 degrees, or 45, which is a common fish fighting technique when a lighter rod (like a fly rod, or bendy jigging rod) is "overmatched" by a big fish.
While nothing good happens while fishing a rod bent past 90 degrees, I agree with Alex that it makes sense for custom builders to know a bit about a blank's resilience to overbending. This is an important aspect of durability for real world usage.
-J
Here is a picture of a Cabelas Downrigger rod that didn't break but worse for the wear after landing a 36# king salmon on the Sacramento River. If I remember right the drag was set to about 7#.....BTW it is a 2 piece rod......Bill
How "worse for wear" Bill? Does anybody know if a high modulus graphite rods can get "softer" from heavy usage?
Fibergalss rods will do that.
Quote from: oc1 on September 03, 2021, 05:29:21 AM
How "worse for wear" Bill? Does anybody know if a high modulus graphite rods can get "softer" from heavy usage?
Fibergalss rods will do that.
Seen it a lot with carbon surf rods, with age and heavy usage they do soften. And, if stored wrong for time, can take a set.
This whole 'home testing' of blanks and possibly rods seems to have too many variables in play to get reliable or accurate results.
A company I used to work with did a lot of testing of prototype surf blanks, and others; to compare actual loads and the form of the curve to design various options within their range. The first thing they did was to take the 'human element' out of the equation by mounting the rod horizontally in simple clamps – at the very butt end and 1 meter up the blank (so basically where the blank/rod was being held in usage). This was all against a white board, so they could record what was achieved. On the floor was a ratchet track, where they could lock a simple pulley. Line went from the tip ring of the blank, down to the pulley and then via a strain gauge to a small motor and spool.
Now by just simply adjusting the position of the pulley on the ratchet track, they could measure very accurately the load achieve to bend the blank perfectly to 90 degrees, or in a few cases even more than 90 degrees – to try and simulate what was happening with any 'high stick' situations. On one very powerful 14', 2 piece blank – it tested out at 17.5kgs (38.5lbs), and pretty much only bent in the top half.
These types of evaluations helped them design better blanks, where comparisons between fully tapered butt sections against parallel butt sections could be accurately assessed, and also the placement of different strengths of carbon pre-preg in the flag layout. They also record the loads at different progressive angles to get a more meaningful impression of how the blank loads during casting and obviously fighting.
These mechanisms for blank testing have been in place for a very long time, and in certain circles are shared with the customers to actually define the blank/rod, like in Carp fishing, most will shop according to a desired 'test curve'.
As a slight by-product of their testing at the blank manufacturers, they found that guide types, placement and numbers also had a significant effect in the measured performance loadings.
Quote from: oc1 on September 03, 2021, 05:29:21 AM
How "worse for wear" Bill? Does anybody know if a high modulus graphite rods can get "softer" from heavy usage?
Fibergalss rods will do that.
Steve, it definitely softened up. The rod is a medium action to start with. I used it like a jigging stick and the rod no longer had enough stiffness to pop the 2 oz jig like before. Still usable, but lost some of its backbone. Bill
Quote from: Jeri on September 03, 2021, 05:41:06 AM
This whole 'home testing' of blanks and possibly rods seems to have too many variables in play to get reliable or accurate results.
A company I used to work with did a lot of testing of prototype surf blanks, and others; to compare actual loads and the form of the curve to design various options within their range. The first thing they did was to take the 'human element' out of the equation by mounting the rod horizontally in simple clamps – at the very butt end and 1 meter up the blank (so basically where the blank/rod was being held in usage). This was all against a white board, so they could record what was achieved. On the floor was a ratchet track, where they could lock a simple pulley. Line went from the tip ring of the blank, down to the pulley and then via a strain gauge to a small motor and spool.
Now by just simply adjusting the position of the pulley on the ratchet track, they could measure very accurately the load achieve to bend the blank perfectly to 90 degrees, or in a few cases even more than 90 degrees – to try and simulate what was happening with any 'high stick' situations. On one very powerful 14', 2 piece blank – it tested out at 17.5kgs (38.5lbs), and pretty much only bent in the top half.
These types of evaluations helped them design better blanks, where comparisons between fully tapered butt sections against parallel butt sections could be accurately assessed, and also the placement of different strengths of carbon pre-preg in the flag layout. They also record the loads at different progressive angles to get a more meaningful impression of how the blank loads during casting and obviously fighting.
These mechanisms for blank testing have been in place for a very long time, and in certain circles are shared with the customers to actually define the blank/rod, like in Carp fishing, most will shop according to a desired 'test curve'.
As a slight by-product of their testing at the blank manufacturers, they found that guide types, placement and numbers also had a significant effect in the measured performance loadings.
Have to respectfully disagree a bit here on "home testing". This is not rocket surgery. It doesn't take much in equipment, just a c-clamp, tape measure, pull scale, and a slow-mo camera if you want to get into resonant frequency.
What is a bit harder to find is a rod builder with a working knowledge of the scientific process and an understanding of what needs to be measured.
The fundamental problem is that it may simply not be worth the efffort for the average custom builder acting alone. They are not getting much value by just measuring a blank or two. You have to invest in a set of comparable blanks from different suppliers.
But this type of effort has been attempted with modest success. I recommend looking at the Common Cents system used by custom fly rod builders:
https://common-cents.info (https://common-cents.info)
It works well for accurately predicting the fly line size best suited for a blank. The companies have different market based strategies for rating the blanks, so one model's 6 weight blank might be equivalent to another models's 8 weight, even from the same brand! If a two blanks have similar action, power, and (to a lesser extent) frequency, they will not perform identically, but will both be similar and suitable for the same usage.
The basic premise of Common Cents is that the main dynamic characteristics of the blank to measure are the action (shape of the bend: fast, moderate, etc.), the amount of energy the blank can store when loading the cast (power), and how fast the energy can be released as the blank unbends (resonant frequency).
The process could be extended to measure at different load angles and depths of bend to better cover fish fighting and durability characteristics that were historically of less interest to fly fishers. The was some work there, but it was not widely adopted.
I have discussed the Common Cents method for (casting) power measurement a bit earlier in is thread:
Clamp the rod horizontally in the manner described by Jeri, apply 90 degree downward vertical load to the tip unit the vertical distance travelled is 1/3 of the unbent blank length. You get an exact vertical load by adding pennies to a baggie hung from the tip. Count or weigh them pennies. Easy Peasy. Similar idea for the other charecteristics. BTW, if somebody wanted to, they could take this measurement occasionally and capture the exact softening of a rod over time.
I am wary of anything a tackle manufacturer says about the attributes, benefits or functional behavior of anything that they are selling. They are in the business of catching fishermen, not fish. And it seems that they believe in applying lots of "fertilizer" to help grow the business.
Just my contrarian position...
-J
Quote from: jurelometer on September 03, 2021, 08:50:47 PM
Have to respectfully disagree a bit here on "home testing". This is not rocket surgery. It doesn't take much in equipment, just a c-clamp, tape measure, pull scale, and a slow-mo camera if you want to get into resonant frequency.
What is a bit harder to find is a rod builder with a working knowledge of the scientific process and an understanding of what needs to be measured.
The fundamental problem is that it may simply not be worth the efffort for the average custom builder acting alone. They are not getting much value by just measuring a blank or two. You have to invest in a set of comparable blanks from different suppliers.
But this type of effort has been attempted with modest success. I recommend looking at the Common Cents system used by custom fly rod builders:
https://common-cents.info (https://common-cents.info)
It works well for accurately predicting the fly line size best suited for a blank. The companies have different market based strategies for rating the blanks, so one model's 6 weight blank might be equivalent to another models's 8 weight, even from the same brand! If a two blanks have similar action, power, and (to a lesser extent) frequency, they will not perform identically, but will both be similar and suitable for the same usage.
The basic premise of Common Cents is that the main dynamic characteristics of the blank to measure are the action (shape of the bend: fast, moderate, etc.), the amount of energy the blank can store when loading the cast (power), and how fast the energy can be released as the blank unbends (resonant frequency).
The process could be extended to measure at different load angles and depths of bend to better cover fish fighting and durability characteristics that were historically of less interest to fly fishers. The was some work there, but it was not widely adopted.
I have discussed the Common Cents method for (casting) power measurement a bit earlier in is thread:
Clamp the rod horizontally in the manner described by Jeri, apply 90 degree downward vertical load to the tip unit the vertical distance travelled is 1/3 of the unbent blank length. You get an exact vertical load by adding pennies to a baggie hung from the tip. Count or weigh them pennies. Easy Peasy. Similar idea for the other charecteristics. BTW, if somebody wanted to, they could take this measurement occasionally and capture the exact softening of a rod over time.
I am wary of anything a tackle manufacturer says about the attributes, benefits or functional behavior of anything that they are selling. They are in the business of catching fishermen, not fish. And it seems that they believe in applying lots of "fertilizer" to help grow the business.
Just my contrarian position...
-J
O think we are at cross purposes here, the point that I was trying to make - and obviously didn't; is that all the photographed tests shown are with people holding the rod at all sorts of angles under load and hoping to get an accurate assessment of 90 degrees loading.
The mentioned Carp blank system has been around for decades, and while never formally accepted or regulated by all the various blank manufacturers, it did manage to offer some standard. As did the line weight system for fly rods, but throughout the industry there is no reliable and empirical measure of the power of a rod blank, only arbitrary assessments that may or may not be skewed by manufacturers commercial interests.
When you got to do what you gotta do. Keep lifting, keep living.🎣🐙
Quote from: gstours on September 06, 2021, 06:09:45 AM
When you got to do what you gotta do. Keep lifting, keep living.🎣🐙
Gary,
on your last pic your rod must be pretty badly twisted!
the line looks like going at the side of the blank but the reel looks perfectly straight !
thats where the acid wrap benefits apply
Mmm tends to happen when a conventional rod setup tries to "turn inside out" aka put the guides underneath to reduce the size of the arc. Often shortly before the rod becomes a 6-or-more-piece model, in the case of graphite rods.
that beaver-tail grip ain't doin' much to protect the line, in THAT scenario ;D