Steve Rush;
The original post by Eugene on this thread did not mention fly rods or the CC system and was directed at the logic behind a micro rod set up. There are a very few people working very hard to optimize very special casting and spinning rods for task specific bass fishing. Some of the work being done is producing highly functional unorthodox fishing rods. No one has made any claims that these build techniques are applicable to any other types of fishing rods.

The people who are effectively using these rods can pitch a 1/4 oz finesse worm under overhanging cypress limbs and under a pier to a distance of thirty feet and softly land it in in a four inch circle with a broom stick that does not bend and it really has nothing to do with stroke mechanics.

I propose the we adopt a policy of civility and staying on the original topic while responding to a thread.

Dennis;
would you email me so I can reply and send you a request



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/15/2008 10:42PM by Steve Gardner.

I'm sorry. I admitted confusion in my post and I admitt continuing confusion. The stroke mechanics was in regards to my expressed personal experience with fly rods and fly fishing and which as you point out is not relevant to this core thread. I hold any one who can cast as you describe in high regard. And, I do appreciate you including the caster as part of the System.

However, I do not appreciate you implying that my post was more than a misreading of Eugene's (quoted) examples in his 3rd and 4th post to this thread (including the example of a clamped rod's ocillation) and was somehow lacking in civilty or mean-spirited.

Sense we are talking oscillation at what point does it start and when does it end. Also dose it effect all rods the same? Back when I was in my learning curve. I made a comment about how to check sensitivity of a rod. the method I suggested was to lay the tip of the rod against your Adams Apple and speak. While speaking have someone hold the rod as if they were fishing. An see if they could feel the vibration. Of course they could, Now take a broom Handle, hold it against your throat and do the same test. Guess what the vibration you feel is my sensitive than the rod. Explain that one.
Good Wraps Bob PS please use simple English sense I am just a farm boy

In simple English, we are talking about fine tuning a fishing rod to suit both the angler and specific application. There are 3 major critical consideration.

1. The blank must either be selected or custom made to suit the application. In most situation, one is at the blank manufacturer's mercy. But if you are a split-bamboo blank maker, you can most probably select the most suitable raw bamboo material and design your own taper specification according to the material you have chosen. Most would choose a known and tested taper specification according to the customer's choice. In both senarios, a blank can only be measured for its inherent character after it is being built. Sure, one can create a virtual similation process and get the necessary data to build such a blank. Most golf clubs are produced this way and so can a fishing blank. But it will take @#$%& of a marketing plan to promote such a blank.

2. The components required to build the fishing rod can be selected or manufactured to suit the blank, the application, the hush environmental condition and the angler. So far, most are using past experiences, while some would use trial and error with components at their disposal. From the handle to the tip, from comfort to castability, maximising on the functional aspects without sacrificing form, a rod will finally be assembled to suit the application and angler. Can we simulate this process, keep all the necessary datas, so that we can in future, at the click of a mouse, produce a blue print of the rod we plan to build?

3. The angler is going to be a different animal. From Eugene to Dennis, Bob, Steve, and all here who have posted on this thread, there may be hundreds of variation required for just one application, depending on how your "sweet" differs from mine, which may be just one aspect in the ocean of "feelings".

To cut this short, I like what Tom K mentioned once, that if one is certain that his plan will work and be a success, let him put in his own money and see what happens.

Cheers,

Anthony Lee

Steve G
I appreciate your view of the tone of the discussion & the thrust of the discussion .
However I don't read Eugene's original post as a criticism of microguides.
nor are mine ( just to get that on the table). as a thrust of the discussion.
I read Eugene's comments in his original post on PMI as being general in principle............ and then having identified the significance of PMI he discusses the practical ways in which we might address reduction in PMI ..............ie reducing guide size/weight..
He then goes on to express his view of how optimisation of PMI might be better achieved.
If there is a sideways swipe at your 'championing' of microguide development or whether you are interpreting his reference in a personal context is something only you & he can really know and is peripheral to the discussion of the significance of inertia considerations in our rod constructions & I am on the otherside of the pond well away from any personality issues ( or whatever - if they exist ) and frankly don't give a damn.
I see direct side comments in posts all the time that whizzz over my head and have no idea whether the post is in jest or is barbed with intent.
I have personally not met people on this forum & few on other sites on other matters I contribute on , so I take it all with a grain of salt ,& as someone earlier in the thread said ..........try to sort the wheat from the chaff...............and keep things in context.

My own personal comments on micro guides relate to potential limits on how far they might go & why, that's all.
no doubt there will be a thread on Micro guides when the edition that Tom advises us there is an article about them by your good self hits the
mailboxes.
Lets leave the issues of Micro Guides themselves slide till then and keep the discussion on the general discussion of rod dynamics in the cast, & the things that influence that dynamic.
To be fair to Eugene this thread had its evolution in a thread a couple of days earlier about CCS in which Eugene raised PMI and "feel" and that CCS doesn't assess them in his view.
For us Aussies CCS is a pain simply because we dont have US cents over here so can't direct read & we have to play with things to back calculate everything into US cents to use the system where the cents plays a part................no big deal ..........us silly people on the underside of the earth have had to learn to adapt to harder things like living upside down..............so converting to US cents is a small task.
( I'm hope everyone can appreciate the self depreciating humor in that & its not a criticism that CCS won't work in OZ ).

BobbyF:
Lets leave that issue until we might talk about micro guides specifically a bit further down the track.
Quite obviously my posts on this matter point to benefits in down sizing guide size & weight ( within limits ) .............so I'm not anti-micro guide.

SteveS:
Your reference to Complexity Theory is on the money, as is the Principle of Suboptimisation.......................which is why in my mind it is useful to understand the dynamics in play & the compromises we all make in rod construction.


Any more contributions on what people might think is happening in a rod during the cast & what influences it.
or PMI
or the question about PMI & feel
or has that part of the discussion been exhausted.

There is an end to the discussion thread I guess when there are no more contributions................that's when most threads end.
Regards to All
DenisB

WOW...And I thought that I overthought things at times...I'm glad that I just build rods and FISH.

Whew!

Well PaulR
Harking back to an earlier thread on " Is roduilding a Craft ?? " where you are at , is maybe rodbuilding rather than interest in rod craft., no offense intended.

Lets put it another way, there are woodworkers & there are wood craftsmen.
Woodworkers don't give too much thought about lathe speeds, and only need 3 chisels , or give much thought about the grain in the material they are shaping .................just shove it in the lathe and gouge away till its roughly what you want & then worry about smoothing out the divots and the mashed timber that was cut against the grain........... but they get a job done , no two pieces might be alike but heck the job got done.

Then there's the wood craftsman, who understands the best cutting speed for the situation , selects the piece of wood for the job based on its grain & the shape he wants tp produce & puts it in the lathe the right way to cut the grain smoothly, and understands the tip angle, the relief angle on the tool , what tool is appropriate for the job at hand, and what depth of cut is appropriate. He produces 4 table legs exactly the same ..............to his brief...............he's a craftsman.

Another example directly fishing related :-
We catch fish & some of us take them home to eat them, what do we do to look after them .
A fish is a fish isn't it ................treat 'em all the same .............its just a fish.
Catch it, kill it (maybe) ,chuck it in an esky with some ice .....................Hey I've looked after my fish.

What works for a yellowtail or a weakfish or flounder , works for every fish doesn't it.
Catch a tuna ............treat it the same way ..........simple logic ......................bumping it on the head & putting it on ice quickly is the right thing to do with every fish isn't it.????
Catching a tuna & treating it the same way as other fish is the worst thing you could do ..................in many cases you would be better off leaving it lay on the deck untouched..
A fisherman craftsman who catches tuna needs to know the physiological differences between tuna & other fishes and what special treatment they need to maintain their flesh condition the best .
Lots of fishermen made big mistakes because their basic logic was wrong as it was being applied out of context...................and they produced a sub-standard product & paid for it in their pocket book & on the table.
Did you know that fish like tuna have histamine issues and that a proportion of humans are sensitive to it & that the majority of gastric cases from fish consumption that report to hospital are now being identified as histamine reactions..................& there's some simple precautions to mitigate risk of histamine problems.

1200+ hits on another site from its members about this exact subject in less than a week.
The key posts identified the issues that needed to be considered & why & if you have to make a compromise in your handling the right compromise actions for the best outcome under the circumstances.
1% said yep thats right
99% said wow, thanks for debunking the myths & I didn't know I needed to think about this, or that, or that.
Then...............posts of ..........after that, .I went fishing yesterday & did what was suggested .....................boy did it make a difference on the table.
The key posts were from a fisherman who sought the information 30 yrs ago & had the Japanese documents on tuna physiology translated to understand why certain things needed to be done & contributed to the spread of real information rather than a recipe to follow by rote & a heap of myths.................... why, because he wanted to do the best job it was sensible to do and get the best return for his product , knowing he was doing the right things and why..................a technician.................a craftsman in that aspect of what he was doing.
BTW ...........he didn't start the topic on that site just responded.
There was no university course to go to and nothing in english into the bargain ( at the time............ but there was after the translation)
There is no university course in rod dynamics either ........................but there is some technical knowledge about some aspects of some of the components in the rod craft............we are hopefully combining our communal knowledge of the subject to see where it leads us, in justifying our decisions about what we are doing and why ...................not rote or myth.

This is a forum thread .....................if you have no interest ..............don't open this thread.

If you want to consider &/or discuss the parameters in the dynamics of rod behavior in the rods we build .............read on................if you have thoughts about these matters contribute where you can.
We have raised a couple of questions about rods & rod component behavior that we are going to come back to when we have exhausted discussion on the basic dynamics identified so far....................otherwise we are going to get lost an a maze.................so we need to stay structured in our approach to this discussion.

Eugene M where are you ..................we need some feedback on the PMI stuff. so we can maybe move on to other things.
Regards to All
DenisB

Bob B
Question noted:
lets come back to some specifics about oscillation later as well.
Lets continue with some basic dynamic parameters .
Not dodging it Sir just trying to keep it a structured discussion.
DenisB

Here are some facts.
The waggle of a rod is different before and after installing components.
Prior to the hardware installation the blank is a completely different animal then after adding just the tip-top.
That insignificant weight componet added an enormous change to the nature of the blank.
Guide installation adds even more insignificant weight until the blank action is no longer even recognizable.

The typical 9 foot fly rod has historically had 10 guides at strategic locations perscribed by tables some of which are 40 years old. Before even the thought of aerospace composites.

The following are calculations of guide placement strategies
The first line is the strategy applied
The next is each of their percent of added inertia follwed by the sum of the componets and their overall change to the total system.

std 10 guide placement strategy
0.16 0.15 0.14 0.12 0.11 0.09 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.03 0.01 71570

Std 10 placement with top 3 guides titanium
0.22 0.08 0.07 0.07 0.15 0.12 0.10 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 53813 -25% inertia

9 guide placement with top 3 guides titanium
0.24 0.09 0.08 0.07 0.15 0.13 0.10 0.07 0.04 0.02 47610 -33% inertia -10% drag

8 guide placement with top 3 guides titanium
0.20 0.07 0.06 0.06 0.11 0.09 0.06 0.04 0.02 41841 -42% inertia -20% drag

8 guide placement with top 4 guides titanium
0.20 0.07 0.06 0.06 0.05 0.09 0.06 0.04 0.02 37810 -47% inertia -20% drag

7 guide placement with top 3 guides titanium
0.31 0.11 0.10 0.09 0.17 0.12 0.07 0.03 38103 -47% inertia -30% drag

I'm in need of a good titanium tip top.
This is the next major component to refine.

I spend one to two hours on every rod attempting to make my guide strategy work with the dynamics and tapers of the blank.

The target is to create a fishing rod that most accurately matches the blank action prior to our craftmanship.

Actually the blank oscillates continuously until all external forces are removed. If you wish the oscillation to stop replace it in it's rod rack. Also difficult to fish though.

What one must also consider is not every blank of the same series and model well not react the same. So this I see gives us a starting point on what to expect. This has been an interesting post and I have included some of the posts in my memory bank. one thing is for sure lighter is better, but what is compromise by going lighter, some times nothing and some times it is back to the drawing board. Remember the blank failures we had when graphite first hit the rod building community and they were heavy, now look at what we have today. Evolution is great it just takes time and the guys from the rod building community has a lot of input on how a rod should be made and designed. That what makes this site so cool. I must apologize, for my spelling an at times my lite hearted comments. No hurt intended.
Good Wraps Bob

Eugene
Where you reference "drag" in your last post
what context are you referring to ;
DenisB

Eugene, you wrote, " The target is to create a fishing rod that most accurately matches the blank action prior to our craftmanship. "

I am somewhat confused. Could you please define exactly what you mean by " blank action"? To my understanding, "Action" is where a rod or blank bends and is essentially unchanged when a rod is finished.

While we are waiting for any more feedback on the general dynamics of a rod in the cast.
lets look at the specific issue of friction & guide size raised by BobbyF.

One of the things I keep referring to in my posts in the forum is the inter-relationships between the components in a rod and that changing a particular component might not be the cause of improvement, but rather the change that the component introduces in other parameters that provides the benefit. & we need to consider the compromise of effect on the whole package that is our rod.
SteveS referred to complexity theory & the principle of sub optimisation caused by chasing optimisation of individual components in a system to the potential detriment of the benefit of the whole system in its desired role.

The issue of friction & guide size is one of those areas where change really has negligible effect.
One might think that reducing the size of a guide and therefore its contact area should reduce friction, when the line comes in contact with the guide ( we are restricting discussion here to rod dynamics in casting.)
The line is not always in contact with the guide & contact is mostly from the wave form of the line passing thru the guide & oscillation of the blank effectively bumping the guide into the line.
If we consider the case of any given contact between line and a guide and change the guide between any particular size & another of the same type that only has half the contact ( thinner.............for whatever reason ) what is the effect on friction.
ANSWER: None !!!!
The scientific bit at play here is that friction is proportional to the force (pressure) between the 2 objects.
in the system that is our rod & line that force is remaining constant ( line & rod ) so reducing the size of the contact area of a guide by reducing guide size by half...............doubles the pressure from line & rod as they have essentially remained unchanged so the friction generated remains constant.
So friction itself remains independant of the surface area of the contact .
Its the changes in other parameters in the system that will have the most effect & where Complexity theory comes into play.
What may change is:-
the frequency of contact between line & guide caused by the change in guide size.............more contact more total friction...........less contact less friction
The change to a smaller guide size will lower the weight of the rod so the force will be marginally less when the rod movement is the cause of contact.
The change to a smaller guide size should reduce the oscillation of the rod and reduce contact from that cause.
The change to a smaller guide size should improve the velocity of the lure from reduced inertia and air resistance , in the 'sweep' of the cast & reflex of the loaded blank, so it has more momentum & the momentum gain is greater than the potential total friction increase from any or all of the above so the cast is longer........................provided we did not introduce any other effects .

So the benefit achieved had nothing to do with the inherent friction of the guide by reducing its size & contact area in half................it was from other effects the reduced guide size had on other parameters in the dynamic of the rod.

Reduced inherent friction in guides can only be reduced by using a guide material with a lower coefficient of friction
ie a more slippery material.

But thats not the whole story.
the friction causes mostly heat but some sound ( thats where the energy loss caused by friction goes ).
That heat has to go somewhere...............its into the guide & the line.
We have not changed the line so the heat it inherently absorbs from the friction does not change , but a reduction in guide volume by changing guide size means that the guide will absorb the same amount of heat into a smaller volume of material so its temperature will rise
this is a cumulative increase in temperature proportional to the amount of line running over the guide.
In casting this is not significant, in bass & trout fishing this is not significant either as the runs from the fish are not typically great distances.
However if we are talking a rod for wahoo, mackerel, or tuna etc & the rod is a casting rod we need to consider whether a reduction in guide size in the guide train is going to be counterproductive to what might happen in fighting the fish that is the result of our cast.
Guides in these applications need to maintain sufficient bulk to adequately dissipate the heat during long runs at high drag settings and high friction forces compared to in our cast..
Chasing improved casting performance by optimising guide train size needs to consider the application we are going to put the rod to so we gain in casting but lose the fish from line damage from heat in the guides in the fight.
This is the principle of complexity theory & sub-optimisation risks that Steve S raised..........................very validly.
So its useful to understand the dynamics in play in our rods and understand the compromises we need to consider in technique & fishery specific situations to end up with a package that performs adequately in all areas of its use and results in an optimal package performance for that application.
What performs beautifully in one situation might be completely useless in another. The craft of rodbuilding is full of compromises and understanding that the nature of the compromise changes with the situation.
DenisB

Action is where a blank initially flexes. Speed is the rate at which it reacts and recovers (Action does play a sub role in Speed, of course.). Many rod builders and fishermen confuse these terms. The Common Cents Frequency rating is an excellent means of comparing the relative "speed" difference between different blanks.

It is standard knowledge, or should be, that adding components to the rod increases the mass. The more mass you set in motion, the more energy will be required to do so and more energy will then be required (wasted for our purposes) in bringing it to a stop.

Custom rod builders have always been strongly advised to ignore guide placement charts. Although many use them to gain a starting point for their own placement methods.

..............

Denis,
Sorry. The term drag is describing the aerodynamic frictional aspect and is only approximate.
Are the rest of the terms acceptable.
I have the equations in spreadsheet format that will not be released.
Your brilliant dissertation I felt needed some quantifiable data.

Dennis B. you made a great explination on what a lot of us were miss understanding. Sense I am just an old abused farm boy turned fisherman / rod builder.
Good Wraps Bob

Bill
Pardon my poetics but the blank prior to any of our undertakings is a work of art. Light,simple,fast,sensitive,able to slice thru the air with almost no effort. A perfect mechanism on it's own. Our goal should be to work with it to retain it's most pure form. We need to hang hardware on it to make it a fishing rod and all these components add mass like a march with a 60 lb pack. We try to distribute the load to minimize it's effect. Our ultimate would be the rod that reacts as if it were a bare blank again and still be fishable.

Denis,
You’ve referred to something (profound) that "SteveS" said several times……I believe you mean Steve Rushing.

Now to BobB's question about oscillation & sensitivity.
bobs question appears to focus on sensitivity & vibration thru the blank & grips etc.
The oscillation issue we have discussed so far focusses on casting performance.
Sensitivity in Bob's context is not the "feel" that Eugene refers to .
Eugene's context is to the sweet feel of the rod in the cast
Bob's context is to the ability to feel minute vibrations in the line thru the rod during the retrieve & whilst fishing .
The two issues are different but are not completely unrelated.
We physically feel both the nature of the blank in the hand and the vibrations from the line.

Sensitivity is more a function of the ability to transmit small vibrations thru the rod blank to the hand of the fisher.
This is primarily a function of the material the rod blank is made from with higher modulus material transmitting vibration more efficiently than lower modulus materials.
So a low modulus material like fibreglass is less sensitive than an intermediate modulus carbon fibre , which is in turn less sensitive than a high modulus carbon fibre.
a movement in the line initiates a movement in the rod tip which is transmitted down the rod blank to the butt.
The components in the rod affect the efficiency of the transmission of vibration from tip to fisher, any lower modulus material than the blank will reduce the efficiency of the transmission of vibration between blank and hand. Exposed reelseats provide direct contact between blank & hand . a normal reelseat has to transmit the vibrations from the blank thru the packing between blank & reelseat & the reelseat itself to the hand itself . Any lower modulus material in that pathway will in general reduce the sensitivity of the package .
Techniques can be employed to amplify the vibration in the handle , but whilst the amplitude of the vibration might be increased it comes at a price of reduced crispness. Most fishers prefer direct contact and sensitivity of high modulus materials .
The more weight we introduce to the blank between the tip & the hand damps the vibrations and reduces sensitivity.
The weight and material of the handle behind the hand at the reelseat has minimal effect on sensitivity because the efficiency of vibration transmission is a straight line thing .............tip- down rod- to hand.
The inter-relationship between what Eugene is talking about & Bobs issue is that the reduction in component weight to improve casting performance in the tip & the the sweet feel of the rod in the cast reduces the overall weight of the rod between tip & hand and improves the efficiency of transmission of vibration in that pathway.
Where a rod is primarily used by holding the reel & reelseat in fishing we can do without a foregrip or minimise it to reduce the weight between tip & hand to improve vibration transmission and increase sensitivity..................this comes at the compromise of a less comfortable grip on the rod when the other hand is used to improve our leverage in the fight from the absence of the foregrip.......................generally a small price to pay for the increased sensitivity achieved without the foregrip.
The difference between rod oscillation in the reflex of the tip in a cast and the transmission of vibrations from the line whilst fishing is that the oscillation of the rod in an overhand cast is a large wavelength , large amplitude vibration with a wavelength approximating twice the rod length and this is a vibration & movement of the rod as a whole, whereas the vibrations that are generated in the line during fishing into the rod are vibrations which are small wavelength & small amplitude , & which have a wavelength which is much much smaller than the length of the rod and are transmitted within the length of the rodblank itself.
DenisB

Dennis;
That is a good point about larger guides might be needed on strong salt water fish that take excessive runs were heat can build up on the guides affecting the line. But the question that comes to me is would that heat be greater enough with the Micro guides to even be a consideration?

I have stated the past that all my testing with the Micro guides has been in the field of bass fishing rods, and that others would have to take on the tasks for other types of rods.

So far the only feed back I have received form others using the micro guides. Has come from those building/using bass rods and in a few cases inshore type saltwater rods.

Apart from that all the other input has come from discussions of theories about how people think rods with Micro guides would react and fish.

I wish that some others would take the steps to building some of those rods to give us some real world statistics to work with.

I have also built one 7’6” fly rod for chasing schooling bass, using 3mm guides that seem to work fine for what I am doing.

But I by no means possess enough info about fly rods to offer and educated opinion on it. Out side of that it works for me.

I am also using a short leader so the passing of knots is not a challenge. But I could see were it would be with longer leaders.
The reason for the shorter length of the rod is because of tournament restrictions concerning the length of rods we are permitted to use.


Your comment;
“The weight and material of the handle behind the hand at the reelseat has minimal effect on sensitivity because the efficiency of vibration transmission is a straight line thing .............tip- down rod- to hand”
Is something I have brought up in several posts, but has been argued against several times, so I am glad to see some one else bring it up.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2008 10:02PM by Steve Gardner.