E21 Carrot Sticks. Has anyone seen any of these rods? They claim to use carrot fiber in the rod which is 20% lighter than graphite. They seem to be selling two different lines of rods. One is $150. that uses Al2O3 guides and the other Fuji Alconite at $250. I cannot find these rods as blanks or at a discount.

They claim to be using their Scandium (Sc-Element #21) technology. They have been making golf club shafts. I doubt they are putting the guides/grip etc. on these rods. I suspect they are manufacturing the blank. They claim to have two patents but I have not done a patent search yet.

One very interesting fact is they show a split grip in the Cabela's catalogue! I don't know who invented they split gip but I'll bet money it was a custom rod builder! 95% of the spining rods I build are split grip.

Ed Smith
Flat Rock, NC

Do a search here on the forum, they were covered a month or so ago.

I think they have made a grand mistake in leaving the rods orange and playing up the fact that they're made from "carrots." They've taken a "Snoopy Rod" approach and will likely miss a lot of sales from folks who might otherwise take a closer look at them. As it is, far too many fishermen will write them off as a gimmick product.

There is some new technology afoot that is poised to change the way all rod blanks are made. Instead of an intensive hand labor process such as is involved now, bio-fibers can be molded around a core to create verbatim models, one exactly like the last one and exactly like the next one. The fibers themselves are said to have about the same modulus as most of the higher modulus carbon fibers used in fishing rods today, but they are much "tougher." In time we could have rods that perform just as well as today's best rods but which are very hard to break due to impact or rough handling. A custom rod builder's dream come true.

Back to the "Carrot Stix" concept - if the manufacturer had promoted the actual technology and benefits of the bio-fiber and molding process, rather than trying to capitalize on the novelty aspect of an orange rod and a cute name, they might already be at the top of the charts. At some point somebody will begin tinting them black and marketing them based on their actual benefits and that will be the company that puts them on the map.

To my knowledge, they are not yet selling blanks and the cores they're molding around are carbon and are left in the rod. This is the step that needs to be refined. Come back in 5 years and all rods may be formed from these bio-fibers.


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Tom, I see what you are saying. However, personally, I like the color and don't mind the name. I think it may be a smart move in making a strong brand identity if momentum builds for that line of rods. I'm not sure if they patented their process - does anyone know?

In the past, Ken has toyed with providing blanks but never actually did it.

Mo

Mo, I guess they do but don't know exactly. At the inventors website are some more details and the conctact information too.

[www.cellucomp.com]

I'm not sure how much Ken has to do with this other than from a marketing aspect. I believe the product and the technology are licensed from a Scotish firm. This may be incorrect, however, as I haven't kept up with them since last fall.

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The contact page of Cellucomp website does show an address and phone number
in Scotland. I sent an email and am awaiting a reply. Will update if & when I get one.

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

Ed,

Split grips have been in use on surf rods for decades now. Rich Forhan popularized their use on freshwater bass casting rods and the commercial rod manufacturers have picked up on it in the last few years.

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The website doesn't tell you much he is another story on them [www.carrotmuseum.co.uk] . This carbon nanotechnology is going to be the next big thing in fishing rods. They are not the only ones doing it it has been out for a few years. Mitsubishi make a prepreg called Pyrofil and if you look at it under a microscope it is full of elastic molecules. I was just showing Bill Batson a mag bass baitcasting rod that is rated to 40 pounds that has a maximuim cast weight of over 7 ounces and a recommended maximuim drag of 32 pounds and feels no heavier then an MB785 . Just the last year or so there has been rods coming out that can take more drag then what they are rated for before they fail. This technology is supposed to be as cheap as well carrots. Here is some more info
[www.rodsbyairrus.com]
[www.nanowerk.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/04/2008 05:08PM by Simon Oakley.

I am looking forward to what they may be able to do with the new technology. I am new to rodbuilding, but I have been an engineer / designer for a long time. It pained me when I got into it and saw how crude the blank manufacturing process was. I am sure that the people who work in the better blank manufacturing plants are very skilled at what they do, but there is no way that any process with that much hand labor can equal a properly designed and validated automated process. Turbochargers, the field that I work in has had to completely reevaluate our quality and manufacturing processes with the advent of emissions controlled diesel engines. Turbos that we built for companies like Caterpillar and John Deer for decades and everyone was happy with would be laughed at in today’s market. Imagine a blank that you didn’t worry about where the spine was, or what was the straightest axis, because it was actually straight to begin with. Imagine not having to worry if solvents would lift the finish off of the blank, since the color was molded in. Reel seats and threads molded directly into the blanks should be possible, you should be able to make the inside as slick as you want it to be so interline rods would be more viable. I am sure that lots more ideas will come up as we go along.

On the other hand current blank companies that have tremendous knowledge and experience won’t necessarily be the ones that prosper if the blank building world does convert to molded nanofiber technology. The manufacturing skills wouldn’t necessarily cross over at all; the design skills of rod function and ergonomics would still be valuable. I see the leaders of any new world of molded blanks being someone either with or access to very deep pockets. The capitalization costs will be huge and very little of the assets that blank manufacturers have now will be any help, or of much value if it is considered old technology.

I am sure that blanks as we know them will continue for some time at some volumes, heck you can still get bamboo rods if you really want them.

Mike,

You bring up some interesting points, particularly the last one. Many of today's companies will indeed go by the wayside once the new technology takes hold. This exact same thing happened in the late 60's and early 70's when graphite rods came on the scene. How many of the old glass rod companies successfully made the adaptation? Less than half if my count is correct.

Go back even further to the days of bamboo rods and the companies that fell out when glass was introduced. The same thing is going to happen in the next 5 years with regard to the graphite rod makers today. We're going to see new companies popping up and when the dust settles we'll be left with the best rods built to date. A few stumbles will be made early on, but the best is yet to come.

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We've got a couple of the carrot sticks here in regional rod building shops to try out and play with.

Nothing exceptional at a glance ...

... But very interesting potential for the long haul.

Like most major composite tube manufacturers <> "fishing poles" are not the priority in their big picture ... But something fun to dabble in.

This is an infant technology to watch in the future with huge potential applications, and it's going to be the mavericks willing to step of the box that will present it as a viable product for the fishing community.

This could be some fun stuff.

Bob Meiser

One of the biggest puzzles will be how to determine the innovator from the huckster! They are both present in the "vegetable nano blanks" market at present!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/05/2008 05:47PM by Bill Stevens.

Bob,

Can you tell us what the CCS, or should I say URRS values for these sticks are? At least we now have a tool for measuring their properties and we can objectively compare them to their competitors' and see where, how, and why they are better, if they are.

If they are planning on making a line of fly rods, I believe they had better have deep pockets.

On 1/2/06 Rob Ketley wrote a note on "mixing and matching" rod sections which caused me to look more closely at a series of blanks I was examining for one manufacturer.
These consisted of two series of four piece fly rods having the ratings of 5, 6, 7, and 8. That is 32 different sections.

My results indicated that only four different mandrels were used- one for each of the four sections. The only differences were in the amount of material wound around each mandrel to get the desired strength and consequently the final outside diameter.

Now, if one plans to mold a rod, it seems to me that one will have to fix the outside diameter. In that case, it would seem one would need 32 different molds to duplicate the fly rods. Then, one must consider the cost of developing and "fine tuning" new products. It will no longer be a simple matter of winding on a bit more fabric, but to create a whole new mold.

As has been said before, "It's all a matter of economics." Time will tell and it will be interesting to watch.

Bill,

Agreed 100% <> It appears to be a very finite process ...

... Not anywhere near as "open range" as present (and nearly infinite) conventional pre-peg process.

Why it may linitially have limited applications for recreational composite tubes as it may not pencil <> We'll see.

Steve Godshall maps all of our proposed tapers as benchmark scedules (and keeps our incoming tube consistency "honest") using your flex rate system.

It has proved to be invaulable for these applications in our shop.

Thanks very much for your work in this <> It is greatly appreciated, and used often here in taper development.

Steve has already mapped the Carrot stick <> I or Steve will post factors.

Bob Meiser

The molds will be expensive, and other costs to insure high quality production will be even higher. One of the upsides is if they are working with a consistent, homogenous product the manufacturers should be able to use analytical tools to simulate performance. I work with FEA every day and have thought about trying to do analysis on a blank, but the variables and unknowns in the current blanks would make it worthless.

Deep pockets will be critical, but like Bill said expect some nonsense along the way.

WEll, any rod which has a healthy snack buil tin will be an instant hit with the women looking to buy their unhealthy husbands a birthday gift. This will be teh start, by Xmas she'll have him a Jack LaLaine gym membership. Jenny Craig will be put right out of business. Only problem will be when their husbands eyesight improves tehy'll be able to see just how badly out of shape their wives are.

What Tom said about this being marketted as a high end Snoopy rod, is dead on. These rods were introduced at the ICAST sho, so there are a lot of fishermen who read teh reviews, and laughed at the carrot rods.

Molds are expensive, but they are mostly a one time expense. So even if you required 100 molds to get all the various models you need, at some point the cost would be more than offset by the savings in traditional hand labor that you have now. Not to mention that you'd have fewer culls to eat, less breakage (assuming they are in fact, "tougher").

The company actually started out with fly rods, and only fly rods, but the line has been expanded and licensed to the folks here in the U.S. now. I have two of the fly rods. They're quite nice but nothing out of the ordinary. Assuming the performance is coming from the Curran and the design, and not the carbon core, and assuming the rods are tougher than similar graphite models, then they are already ahead of anything else currently. The designs and tapers will no doubt improve as more companies get into the game and begin employing knowledgeable fly fishermen to help them with their actions and powers.

Just wait - 5 years from now the type graphite rods we're all using at this point will be old news. Very old news.

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Tom, if that's true, we better hope that they will sell the blanks or we will be out of the loop and unable to offer rods with the latest technology. Not being a pessimist but if the market switches to bio-fiber, there won't be as much graphite available and if companies decide to not offer blanks for sale, we'll be trying to sell outdate material in high end rods. What's your take on this??

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

Within 5 years, many companies will be offering bio-fiber rods and some of them will indeed sell rod blanks. Anywhere you have a viable market for a product, somebody will evetually fill it.

This happened when the switch to graphite came along. Look at all those companies that jumped in, but couldn't stay the course. Some will employ knowledeable fishermen to help them get the tapers and powers right and they'll make it. Others, perhaps many of the more popular graphite blank and rod manufacturers of today, will go away. But somebody will make and offer rod blanks to custom builders.

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