break my 1st blank performing an static test before building it

[Cor]

@ 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.

[jurelometer]

@ 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.

[Cor]

@ 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.  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.

[oc1]

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

[jurelometer]

[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

[steelfish]

wow, what a surprise I wasnt expecting thing kind of responses and participation just because I broke a blank  

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  

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?

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.  

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.    

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
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.

.......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  

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

...... 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 !!

[oc1]

Do lawyers guarantee their work?  Maybe if you break the other one with guides on it, Dominick will pay for it all. 

[steelfish]

..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

[Newell Nut]

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

[steelfish]

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.

[MarkT]

Look on the bright side... you broke the blank before investing hours wrapping it!

[Newell Nut]

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.

Dwight

[steelfish]

Good Luck to Alex, you are doing great work so just move past this lesson learned. Just use biceps for weight lifting.
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.

[jurelometer]

Good Luck to Alex, you are doing great work so just move past this lesson learned. Just use biceps for weight lifting.
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

[Jeri]

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.