I have just completed my first rod build project. A z-axis 590-4 kit from steelhead56.
I enjoyed the process I have always been a tackle tart but i am no mug i am sure some of the other blanks batson usa and harrison blanks uk are just as good.
As I have built this one and if i do say so myself i have to pat myself on the back. i am hungry to make a few more.
I would like opinions on which blanks compair to the z-axis action. And I will go from there.
My uk based web page www.graylinghunter.co.uk is run on a boot string so i would like to make a few graylinghunter rods 5wt on 9-10 foot blanks four section. With good quality fittings to help pay for the site running costs.
I have used a few brand rods hardy sage xp - z-axis i like fast action my self but i know its not everyones cup of tea.
I have used a few cheap fly rods from the far east utter crap not because of the name but they had no back bone.
any thoughts welcome
Philip Price

Can't really say which blanks compare to the Z Axis' action,but I have a couple of recommendations for you.

Check out the Rainshadow RX8+,Dan Craft SIG V,FT,and FTL,and CTS blanks to name a few.

All of these blanks offer performance equal to or greater than most of the big name company's top blanks,yet cost considerably less.Do a search here on this website for feedback on these blanks and you will find nothing but rave reviews.

I have built on several of the mentioned Dan Craft blanks and while I don't know how they stack up against the new Sage Z Axis,I can say for certainty that they certainly hold their own against the Sage XP or SLT models,even though the Dan Craft blanks are around 1/3 the price.

Thanks for the advice. I love the sage xp 5100-4 I have used it for many years. I will check out some of the above as you advise.
the batson rainshadow blanks rx8 get a good write up but the price i notice is also beginning to go sage side
Its difficult here in the UK to get blanks at a good price everything here is double the price of the USA. So i tend to buy in from you guys.
although to be fair I have Harrison blanks on my door step so I will have to take a look at those as well I have not tried one to compare.
thanks
z-axis picture [images.yuku.com]
Phil

I beleive Mark Crouse uses Harrison blanks, he post here and is a sponsor to the left. (The Rod Shop) maybe he can help you there.
Another good rod blank is the Sevier Manufacturing Co. They carry the Tiger Eye blank,,, very nice for the money.

The Batson RX8+ 905-4 are pretty close power/action to the Z -Axis. Got to use one of the Sages in Alaska for rainbows, char, and grayling this summer, just a bit off the TCR in the tip.
Others can probably be found on the CC Data site to the left, maybe a 902-4 or 903-4 Dan Craft FT.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2007 05:24PM by Spencer Phipps.

I haven't had a chance to cast the Z-axis but the Dan Craft FT series blanks are very fast action with a lot of reserve power. Look at the CCS data site for specs. The FT 902-4 that Spencer mentions makes a great rod for my needs. I use it with a three or five weight line depending on fishing sites and conditions. It is one of my favorites. I also have a Rainshadow RX8+ in five weight that performs well. I couldn't help but notice the excellent fit and finish on the ferrules when I built it. That indicated real attention to detail and my CCS test indicates that the rod is a fast action five weight, just as described.

Stan Grace
Helena, MT
"Our best is none too good"

Looking into this gets a little heavy i have just found this post from a UK rod builder S Parton I found it on the sexy loops site. just doing a bit of a google search on some of the products suggested so far
I know one of the guys who i fish with knows Steve here in the UK he said its pretty much what he has been told by Steve direct

Steve Parton: Graphite Rods - the true costs



Cards on the table - I make specialist flyrods and I have done for around 30 years and for the last 20 as a professional. And I have been UK Shakespeare's Game Fishing consultant for the last 20 years as well - so I know all about Oriental Manufacturing as well as Developed Economy operations. And I have but 2 Degrees in assorted aspects of Manufacturing plus an awful lot of experience. In other words rods and fly fishing is my way of life and I understand it from most angles - I started as a fly fisherman at the age of 7 and I'm 56 next.

It is fairly obvious that most fly fishermen have less than a clue when it comes to an understanding of what is actually involved in making a flyrod. I see too many gormless comments on bulletin boards around the sites for it to be otherwise. It is beginning to annoy me. And I don't mind sharing what I know with everybody - I have done for years, the sad bit for me is that most of them either didn't listen or chose not to believe.

The important part of any fly rod is the blank - everything that hangs on it is secondary or straight cosmetic or house style in the case of most bigger makers.

In the UK you need around £150,000 to buy the basic plant to roll blanks. And then you need time and money to make the experiments and the mistakes. A year and £20,000 and you should be pretty adequate. It took Harrison and Norwich around those costs and time frames to get going in the last decade. But they are both pretty smart and it might take you rather longer but it is no big deal - maybe 2 years and £40,000 will see you well away.

I don't make blanks; I just commission them from specialist manufacturers. It has never taken any of them more than 3 stabs to get the blanks I wanted. And that includes most of the work I've done with Shakespeare's using Far Eastern sources at very long ranges indeed. But I do know almost exactly how to vary actions and therefore fairly precisely how to alter specifications with composites, flag cuts and varied mandrels - that's why I am a professional consultant - and there aren't that many of us around. After that it is down to costs because when you have finished the development every flyrod blank I ever saw took less than an hour to make and less than £5 in the most advanced composites currently available.

In the UK any manufacturer can knock out excellent 2 piece 10' blanks for £15:00p at base cost. And if you understand Production you will not be surprised to realise that to make a sensible profit and pay for the plant, capital and expertise the base price gets tripled so that blank will get sold on at around £45:00p. Any more than that and somebody is pulling somebody else's leg rather - or costs are catastrophically out of control - which can and does happen and then they wonder why they went bankrupt! You can cut the cost of blanks in two ways - if you buy a lot or make a lot the same then there are some production economies and the more you buy the cheaper they will get.

The other way of cutting the costs is to proceed to the Far East where the poor sods work for a lot less and when I tell you that I can buy perfectly adequate 10' AFTM 7/8, 2 and 3 piece fully finished flyrods for just less than £5:00p each from China you will understand just how deadly is cheap labour competition these days. Take a 1,000 set and the blanks I can buy for less than £2:50p - and if I specify the finishes in a corrupt forger's manner and spend an extra £1:00p per unit I will willingly bet you couldn't tell the things from most American or European Manufacturing Sources - which is why most of what you think is American or European Made isn't at all.

When you have the blank in your hands it takes well under an hour and a half to fully build and varnish it. And if you are working bulks - the hang on componentry will cost less than £15:00p per rod including handle, reelseat , and rings. Unsurprisingly Snake rings cost a fair bit less than ceramic centred ones - you can save a couple of quid a rod fitting these substandard items at all times - as most Americans do!

And yes you do have to use a multiplier of factor three to stay in business.

At my level of painfully slow hand operation this whole lot basically puts a fully finished rod in my rack for around £90. And I sell it on for £150 but have to manufacture a rodbag and a Cordura tube inside those costs and I can and do do it. It may seem a lot of markup but let me assure you that if you don't mark up 43% you are going to go bankrupt - and if you are paying London or other Inner City costs for your retail premises it'd better be nearer 80%!

Were I selling into the Retail Trade the rod would get marked up a further 50% to £225 before it reached a customer. And if I sold it to a Wholesaler who sold it to a Retailer then you could add yet another 50% and take the price up to £337:50p. And of course if I sold it into the USA then there'd be yet another level of distribution and that's yet another 50% plus the costs of Transportation and maybe even Import Duty which'd take the price up to around £500.

If you can do sums and think a bit you should by now be fully aware exactly what you are paying for a flyrod, bag and tube and why. Given that less than 3 hours of actual direct labour and probably less than £25:00p in input materials have been used in overall manufacturing it may seem an awful lot - especially if that labour has been employed somewhere where they pay around £1:25p per 10 hour day.

Being very simplistic about things I think I would DEFINITELY HAVE BEEN STUFFED if I paid more than £25 for a Sage/ Hardy Build Quality of 10' flyrod from the Far East.

Most of the cost you have paid has been about levels of distribution / importation / marketing / transportation. Very little has been about Manufacturing/ Research / Expert Input.

Frankly there are very few actual fly fishermen involved in manufacturing, development and design these days. Most manufacturers routinely buy the best rods they can find by recommendation and it doesn't exactly take them a @#$%& of a long time to drop a couple of different mandrels down the insides which coupled with using a micrometer on the outsides teaches them precisely what somebody else did - I'd guess at less than half an hour with a specialist. And it takes very much less of a specialist to copy the hang on componentry precisely. This is why you can wander into a (say) Korean Rod Maker with whatever you want copied and have an actual sample in your hands within a day!

Me, I don't worry any more, I can't get more efficient than by selling direct off the factory bench with middlemen out of the equation altogether.

But I do get nettled when I know that my customers are being bullshitted into parting with £500 for a Far Easterner that has been transhipped into another country and then into the UK and then moved on down the line with the user price inflating like an automatic lifejacket being fired off.

Little better are the Home Grown bullshitters who overcharge for Far Eastern. But it has to be said that the established professionals at bringing in direct from the Far East do offer far the best value for money because they are in vicious competition with each other.

The writing is probably on the wall for the few of us left who still make in the UK - I expect to be the last man standing fairly soon - just the same as Vince Green at Sprite - the one and only hookmaker left in this pathetic country of ours!

Now you know exactly what is involved - you can make your own mind up about what you are going to buy. A word of warning though - there isn't much loyalty left anywhere in any walk of life these days and brand loyalty is one of the strange anachronisms. It does seem to take forever for a punter who bought a rod from a Company that he liked - say 30 years ago – to realise that the game has changed in the interim and that he is no longer a valued customer, as it were!

Best wishes and a Happy New Year

Steve P

Thanks for reading Phil

Thank you for your sobering account of the realities of the fly rod mfg business. I am very grateful for your frankness. Nothing is as refreshing as the truth.

Dave

Dave Gilberg Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thank you for your sobering account of the
> realities of the fly rod mfg business. I am very
> grateful for your frankness. Nothing is as
> refreshing as the truth.
>
> Dave

Hi these are not my words but steve partons but once i had posted on here I did a little research as i tend to over read before i go into anything.
it just turns out my of my current fishing buddies (Barry) knows Steve and suggested i contacted him. I googled looking for a contact address and this came up in the search results!
Ouch! how does anyone put a toe into rod building game after reading that other than for pleasure?
As my first post suggests i was looking at a small scale graylinghunter concept rod based on my interest in grayling fishing and web page www.graylinghunter.co.uk.
these are sobering words posted by Steve Parton (sparton rods uk).
Still I did enjoyed my first rod and DIY rod wrapper build and iam looking forward to building one with my son as he gets a little older and daughter if she want one too.
My fishing buddy Danny wants me to re condition his old float trotting rod he is not so well at the moment so it some thing we can work on until he back up and out again on the river.
tight lines
Phil