I have some rods at home but dont have anything to tell me what they are as far as spinning or casting rods. The other thing it doesnt tell me is the line weight recomendations. Is there a place or a formula used to determine line weight for a rod?

Al,
What I normally do is measure the tip diameter and the butt diameter and compare it to another rod that is complete. If the rods are graphite you need to compare it to another graphite rod. If it is a solid glass rod you would need to compare it to another glass rod. The rods would need to be of the same length. This will help put you in range of deciding pretty close what pound test line they are rated for. The rods I use are in the 4-10lb range, 6-12lb. range and 8-17lb. range. I will even get a complete rod that is ready to use and place it in one hand the other rod I am trying figure out more or less what line range it is built for and shake them up and down to make them bend pretty good and feel which one is more flexilbe than the other and then this will give me somewhat an idea of what the rod is rated at.
Marvin Engel

The line ratings for spinning and casting rods is purely subjective and based entirely upon what the manufacturer feels is the reasonable line that most would use on the rod. Line rating is probably the least valuable thing to know about a blank. You should be able to flex the blank by hand and get some idea of what you think it would be good for and then correspond a reasonable line rating to that.

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Would it be the same when it comes to the lure rating?

No, the lure rating can be determined by a number of ways. One, is just to string on up and try casting different weight lures/plugs until you hit a range that seems to work well. Or, you can run the CCS measurements on it and then take the ERN and convert to a pretty good lure weight casting range.

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