I have fallen in love with the RainShadow 1562F 13' 2PC Steelhead float rod blank in olive green after building a few for clients.

After reading Steven K's post about what J. Nagy was recommending as a steelhead blank...it got me thinking. What if this blank was converted?

How would this rod feel as a fly rod? I haven't done the numbers on this blank. It sure would be great if someone had one laying around and could fill me in.

Any CC info on this rod and then the corresponding line weight on the fly? If I had to guess, this rod would be a moderate action mid flex?


Thanks!
Domenic Federico
Infinity Rod Creations

Domenic,

I wish I could help you but have no experience with that blank. If you have any of that model in your shop, it would be a simple matter to mock it up with fly components and test cast it. And you do know, I hope, that Tom generously made the CCS articles available to the public above? Maybe you can get one of your customers to lend you the rod for a day so you can test it and find out the ERN and AA. It only takes a few minutes after you read the directions in the article.

Hopefully, now that the articles are so freely available, the CCS database will expand dramatically with new entries. With the number of builders out there and the number of rods being built, there really is no excuse for not having at least one entry for every blank model available. I wish the blank manufacturers or one of the big blank retailers would do it, but they haven't. Andy Dear, Dan Craft, and John Launstein are really the only vendors who have shown much interest. What could be more helpful and good for business than giving customers some very useful information that costs you nothing but a small amount of time?

Steve

Moderate Action - Mid Flex are the same thing.

You can run the CCS numbers to get a really good idea of how it would convert. Or.. in a pinch you can take the casting lure weight range numbers and making denominator 16, convert the numerator to the proper figure and that should give you a general idea of the line weight that would match. However, since you have a range to work with it's not going to get you nearly as close as the CCS numbers.

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Tom-

I stated moderate action - mid flex intentionally as a redundant. Depending on who is selling what and how, they take on the same meaning and sometimes are written as if they aren't. It was a way of covering all the bases in one sentence.

I'll have to mock this bad boy up. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it falls in the 5-7Wt. Range.

Domenic Federico
Infinity Rod Creations
Wickliffe, Ohio

What is the current lure weight rating?

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Tom-

IST1562F Olv.Grn. / M. Clr. 13'0" 2 6-10lb. 1/4-1/2oz. 0.490 4.5 Mod-Fast Lt 3.94oz. $89.47

That is the specifications grabbed off the Batson Enterprise website.

Domenic

It will probably work out to about a 7 or 8 weight rod, but go ahead and mock it up and run the CCS numbers just to make sure.

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