Of all the rod builders we have here, how many roll THEIR OWN rod blanks? Are there any?

DR

I don' think there will be many Duane. The heating and rolling machinery, graphite cloth, storage media, baking oven, mandrels, etc. add up to a motorscooter of an investment.

A question back to you. What did you use for the black pearl split grip rod on the board? Love the split area and the "butt wrap".

I probably designed and made somewhere around 50 for myself during the 1990's, but not on my own equipment. It's just a very expensive thing to own and operate the necessary equipment involved in making rod blanks.

More than a few used to contract to have proprietary blanks made, but these days there are so many models available it's hardly necessary.

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I've built a few usable blanks but I had access to an unlimited amount of materials to play with. I also had access to the largest autoclave on the east coast so oven space was not a problem. The mandels are the biggest investment you would have to make. I've seen them for sell in the thousands of dollars apiece. The ones I was using were only good for a couple of runs before they began to warp. Unless you have worked with unidirectional carbon fiber tape or boron tape before you better have some very deep pockets just to learn how to handle the materials. Another example of the cost involved the surface of the table you would do your cutting of prepreg on costs 10,000 dollars and up. Carbon fiber prepreg has to be stored in a freezer at 0 degrees or below and storing it in the freezer were you keep food is out of the question. The way the aircraft industry uses up materials I doubt you will find someone to sell advanced composites to you and if they did OHSA would like to come by and inspect your place of business.

I asked NOT because I was interested in making a blank, but because I had heard of a rod builder that claimed to be "using his own blanks" and from what little I knew of the system and process it seems an outlandish claim to me. I just wanted to verify what I already knew with all the experts we have here on the RB.


Ted,

The Handle is black pearl acrylic, the blank is a EBT784 CTS Tourney Elite in charcoal mica color, the split and forgrip are marblized with PearlX dry pigment. Turned out nice I thought.

DR

Its cost prohibitive to even think about doing it yourself, unless your going into Business and then unless your rich the bank would be a not so silent partner in effect. The only builder on this site who have built their own blanks with their own machinery / fixtures would be the guys who build Bamboo rods and for purposes of your question are not strictly rolled, they are assembled.

So because of this ubiquidous phenominon I always use a mfg label to give credit where credit is due and for warranty purposes, lots of builders here will omit it on thier works of art as their additions are self-precieved to be artful and in many cases are, they raise the rod building process above that of proficiently assembling off-the shelf parts, so to that end I try to modify as much as possible and still note the origins of the main component.

I think Pac Bay would have their overseas rod maker produce blanks to your specification, given you use one of their existing mandrels. They have many many to chosse from so one would be close. I once asked and they gave me a rough estimate at $1000 min. for 40 rods. But I was talking longer 10 ft fly blanks and seeing as graphite is sold by the pound not the shape (like alu, the more you use the more it costs) we might not have been on the same page, (they might have been thinking 7' spin rod) Using their existing mandrels only leaves the modules of graphite to be used and the blank color, natural grey being the cheapest and who knows how those variables would effect the price, but as it was it came to about $25 a blank, and Pac Bays 43 mil mod graphite fly rod series only retails for $45-55 bucks, so with a profit by the retailer and Pac bay and then the overseas MFG what do these balnks cost to produce over their? like $8-12 a blank?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2007 06:58PM by Chris Karp.

Duane...

I'm in the incipient stage of working with a major blank builder to build a float rod that is to my specs. A lot has to be ironed out yet, however, like the gents have mentioned, it would be big$$$

Paul

I think Steffen bros make their own blanks...fibreglass though....if you like that old school kind thing.