Just saw this and wonder if it could be used as a wrap to stiffen up or reinforce the butt sections of fly rods...


Anyone have any experience with this (or Kevlar) wraps on top of existing factory blanks?

Scott Kinney
The Longest Cast Fly Rods
[www.thelongestcast.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2005 05:01PM by Tom Kirkman.

Please don't send people to @#$%& per the site rules. Thanks.

Probably not - spiral wound material won't really add lateral stiffness. You might increase hoop strength, but that's all.

To add stiffness you'd have to add a layer of prepeg with linear fibers running along the rod axis. And, this would be difficult if not downright impossible to do once the blank has already been fabricated.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2005 05:03PM by Tom Kirkman.

Oops, sorry about the link!

The stuff was 12K CARBON FIBER TOW......5MM WIDE X APPROX .25 MM THICH(THIN) THIS CARBON FIBER TOW CAN BE USED IN LAYOUT OF FOAM WINGS, TO MAKE CARBON FIBER ELECTRIC BLADES OR TO REINFORCE RIBS IN PLANES, CAN BE USE ON FISHING POLES/LURES.

I remember talking to the AmTak rep about the stuff in the AmTak Matrix series...although that was a woven twill...made me think of doing a helix wrap with this stuff...

But I guess it's not worth the time :)

Scott Kinney
The Longest Cast Fly Rods
[www.thelongestcast.com]

Scott I have used a material called carbon fiber mat to stiffen wings it weighs 2/10 oz per square yard and the stuff when applied properly seems to make structures indestructable and very stiff. I think this material would work well on a butt section as long as you can get a really tight epoxy bond. You could also try fiberglass cloth... Bob...

I just don't see how you can do it. If you wind it around the blank, you certainly won't increase the lateral stiffness. If you try to lay it up in some of linear fashion, I can't imagine how you'd do it without forming it with resin into a prepeg and even then you couldn't expect to roll it around the existing blank and "cook" it without destroying the original blank.

As far as just making a wrap up the blank, I also doubt that would add any stiffness - only extra weight the blank would then have to carry.

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A mat would indeed be better suited for this type of thing, but even so, you may run into problems with trying to attach it to an existing blank in such a way that it becomes a part of the original structure rather than a passenger of that structure. With some thought, it could probably be done, however.

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For anyone who's interested in trying it (not me, 'cause it's expensive!)...these guys have just about any variation of carbon fiber, kevlar, and glass that I could think up...

[www.shopmaninc.com]

Scott Kinney
The Longest Cast Fly Rods
[www.thelongestcast.com]