I am searching technical information, from an independent source, that provides comparison data on various manufacturers' rod blanks. I am hoping that a Consumers Rod Blanks For Trout, Redfish and Bass
Report type document exists. My personal ability to visually determine the "quality" of a blank leaves much to be desired. The sales and marketing information provided by the manufacturers does not provide the information that I need to justify the cost difference of a custom rod when compared to an "off the shelf" production rod when dealing with a potential client.

I think I made a mistake, when starting building, by using only one manufacturer's blanks for all of my rods. The particular line of blanks I used is no longer available and the transition to other blanks is much more painful than I imagined. I now realize that there will be a penalty to pay, for my lack of knowledge about blanks, in general. Some of the questions that I would like either answers to or explanation of degree of importance are listed in the following.

1. Is all graphite prepeg, "cloth", material, of equal modulus, equal? Is all the cloth, on a worldwide basis, close to being the same or is there good stuff and bad stuff. Is there a "blem" cloth that is sold or used? Is there a "grading" or quality connotation that is used to sell this cloth. Do any manufacturers label their blanks with quality level of cloth noted. Has the cloth from different manufacturers been rated for strength, consistency and rating. Do manufacturers specify a specific cloth and grade when they deal with foreign job shops and are procedures in place that test the rods to insure that the proper prepeg was used.

2. Is there a difference in type and application of scrim is it important to me? Is this included in the "specs" for the blank or can anything be used by contract plants.

3. Do the mandrels play a part, other than action and rating, in blank quality? Are mandrels inspected and cleaned prior to reuse? The taper and other physical details are not the purpose of these questions and it is assumed that most of these items are
proprietary to most manufacturers and for good reason.

4. What type of rolling machine, temp and pressure is used for blank formation? Does one method provide for a better blanks and which one if this is so?

5. Quality and type of resins used? Generally how many different types of systems are used? Are there any ratings that define a quality resin and do manufacturers specify which one to use.

6. Which factors of prepeg and resin contribute to weight in rod blanks of similar action and rating?

7. Are all rods sold as "blanks" stress tested prior to shipment?

8. Are "seconds" or "blems" sold or destroyed?

I am a builder who expects to pay a price for quality. I am not interested in a $ 10 blank. There is one major hurdle that I cannot seem to get by. I cannot tell the difference visually in the good and bad. I guess the sales training that drove my life for several decades is coming back to haunt me - I AM SKEPTICAL BUYER - AND - I AM LOOKING FOR A PROOF SOURCE THAT IS ACCEPTABLE TO MY CUSTOMERS.

Some of the larger dealers in rod blanks must have some sort of policy in effect that deals in Quality Assurance and Quality Control when dealing with fishing rods and blanks. If you would share some of the things that you use to evaluate blanks from different sources I certain that many custom builders would like to know the answer to this type of question.

Right now I am so low on blanks broomsticks and mop handles are candidates to get the Purple and Gold thread wrapping for a "Coachless Football Team".

Gon Fishn

Add my name to Bill's wish list. What a pain having to switch blanks is!!! As ole Bill Clinton said, "I feel your pain", Bill.

I, too, would like to know a source where the quality of a blank could possibly be determined...besides this wonderful board's mass of Q & A's.

Putter

Bill,
If you go back to RodMaker Volume 6 #6 and Volume 7 #1 and go over that two part article that I wrote I think that it will answer most of the questions that you have. The article is titled Rod Blanks-Characteristics, Properties and Terms. If you then still have some questions and post them I am sure that you will get them answered but I think that to try to answer them all here may be a little beyond the scope of what makes sense to try to answer here.

Bill,
I went back over your post again and that article will only answer some of your questions, probably less that 50%, but it is a start.

As far as a "Consumer Report" for blanks is concerned I do not think that anything like that is available and I doubt that it will be available. Many blank manufacturers do not think that it is in their interest to let some of this information out. The closest that you are probably going to come is the information that you get right here.

Emory is correct. There are many factors that go in to building a blank
not all blanks are rated the same. What one manufacture calls fast another may call medium. These would be blanks with basically the same demention and was built using the same type of material. This where blank knowledge comes in so you can design a rod the way you want it to work.
Good Wraps Bob

I'm very new to this hobby, so a lot of this will probably be pure speculation. However I do have a good knowledge of composites and have a working knowledge of their basic design principles.

First off there are several different types and grades of graphite, carbon fiber, etc. It all boils down to the pitch material that was originally used to be converted into carbon and how well the process was carried out. For the most part the different qualities will get washed out by their modulus ratings for instance several different types and suppliers of 40M graphite will all produce a graphite fairly close to 40M modulus. There will still be some deviation and another factor that can greatly effect the quality of the finished cloth is the size of the tow used to make the cloth. (Tow of course being the name for the raw graphite thread.) I can't recall right now the system for measuring this and I don't have my references handy but it's not disimilar to thread count in a pair of bed sheets.

Another important thing to note is that the composites industry is very rapidly evolving. That may result in even the most consistant rod makers having to use a different product to make their blanks every so often, usually for the better though as the price and availability of better composites keeps going down and up respectively.

Sadly, I don't think you will be able to find some independent rating of the different manufacturers blanks. There are just too many out there and the information is too difficult to attain from the manufacturer.

I would suggest that your best bet is to find a manufacturer who has been around for a long time, and has a proven track record of consitancy and reliability. For example if I were in your shoes and building higher end rods I would probably either use Sage or Winston blanks. Both manufacturers have an excellent reputation for their finished rods, have been around quite a while and are big enough companies that they will probably be around for quite some time to come. Not to mention that they both spend huge amounts of money each year on R&D and quality controll. Their blanks are expensive more because of the R&D that goes into them than the final cost of the raw materials.

To put simpler answers to all of your questions in order:
1. No, different samples of graphite cloth of the same modulus rating are not equal. However they will be fairly close, and the higher you climb the ladder of modulus the closer they will be and the more similar the process to produce them will be. Price too will be very similar between different manufacturers.

2. The quality of scrim is going to follow the same lines as that of the rest of the graphite in the rod. If a manufacturer is buying one roll of prepreg at a time from different vendors to produce low cost blanks, they will probably use the cheapest scrim material they can find. However you can bet that a rod blank from two different batches from Sage or Winston or many of the other good makes will be far more consistant.

3 Manrels... same as everything else... the better companies will pay much closer attention to keeping their mandrels in prefect condition for the same reasons as you wouldn't want to build a rod with the components and quality found on a $700 rod on a $10 blank.

4. I can't really comment here, except that most of the information I've found indicates that this part of the process is probably fairly similar accross the market (at least with hand made blanks.) The quality control however is what separates them.

5. Resin gets back to the graphite. Companies like sage have paid just as much attention the resin as they have to the graphite.

6. From an engineering standpoint the resin is there only to hold the fibers in place and protect them. The fibers do all the work. Factors that will affect the final weight of the blank will be mostly the type and amount of the graphite, followed by the amount of resin used to wet out the cloth. In an ideal situation you want the very least amount of resin you can possibly use to completely saturate the fibers. However to completly wet out a roll of graphite and remove all the excess resin is a lot more expensive and time consuming than wetting out the graphite and just removing the majority of the excess resin.

As for weight of the finished blank if you built two blanks on the same mandrel using different prepregs of the same modulus the one of the higher quality and lower resin amount would turn out lighter, and possibly noticably so. If you used the same mandrel again and this time used two different modulus prepregs of the same quality the higher modulus would require much less material, and leave you with a thinner lighter blank.

7. This is one that I can't accurately answer. My guess is that with most manufactured goods, the production run is sampled and tested. However being hand made, each article might be tested. Boils down to the same point though, better manufacturer, better testing.

8. I think you'll find that after all the work that goes into making a rod blank, very few manufactureres will want to simply throw away a blank that has a blemish. However they sure don't want their reputation damaged by the lower quality, so many of them sell them as identified blem blanks with no waranty.

I know thats a lot of writing, I hope you find some of it helpful.

Mark