When a blank manufaturer, such as G-Loomis, makes blanks for other companies -- such as they did for Cabela's in the past -- who typically owns the mandrels if the two companies sever ties?

In other words, would Cabela's (just a "for instance" here) be able to carry the same mandrels to another company and continue production having the exact same tapers, or would they need to go "back to the drawing board" with any new blank manufacturer they procure for the job.

I'm prompted to ask this by finding noticeable differences in blanks when new companies step in to make them. Is it much more to all this than simply the mandrels involved?

Thanks for any education on the matter,
Scott

Hi Scott-

Yeah, there's more than just mandrels involved. The mandrel is only the form that the glass or graphite cloth is wrapped around. The other factors could be: the material used, the skill of the person who does the measuring and cutting of the material into "flags", rolling of the flags onto the mandrel, shrink wrapping them, curing them, centerless grinding them, etc.

Even if all the manufacturers had the same equipment, they won't have the same people doing the work.... and people make ALL the difference when it comes to making quality goods!!! Put another way- a good rodbuilder could take the same pile of components that a large rod producer uses and make a better rod out of it in many cases. It's all about skill and technique that only a human can acquire.

In terms of your "who-gets-the-mandrel" question, I think it probably goes to whomever purchased it in the first place. For example- If I brought a set of mandrels to a manufacturer with the intent of contract work, I would want my tooling back at the end of the run or contract. On the other hand- if the manufacturer had a mandrel on hand already, and my specs for material and/or flag pattern were my only input, I would not expect to get any tooling returned.

Hope this helps some...

Tom

In some cases the mandrels are owned by the blank manufacturer. In others they are owned and supplied by the recipient of the blanks.

I seem to recall that in their early years, Scott made a big deal of the fact that Fisher built the Scott blanks on mandrels that were owned by Scott and could not be used to produce anyone else's blanks. No reason not to believe this. Fisher likely supplied the mandrels and charged Scott for them and agreed they would not be used on any other company's blanks.

As Tom pointed out above, the mandrel is only part of the equation. many different blanks can be built on a single mandrel depending upon the .

Todd Vivian works with this sort of thing all the time and I am sure he will weigh in on this. Maybe Jason from St. Croix could enlighten us as well.

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

I really can't speak for all other manufacturers, but I would think they take the same approach we do. If someone wants us to make a series of blanks for them, chances are we have the tooling capabilities on hand due to our large line of rods. Therefore, we choose to keep everything in house. A manufacturer that does not have a large mandrel inventory may suggest that the buyer invest in the tooling, and would have rights to it at anytime. However, just because the buyer has rights to the tooling, doesn't mean he has the rights to the pattern designs and the type of materials that are applied to them. This is where you can run into different actions if the buyer changes manufacturers.

Thanks to all for the kind advice.

Scott