Could be. I just don't have a clue as to what these "suggested parameters" are and what the builders in question are trying to do with the CCS numbers or why they think the 2 don't match (or do). If someone could provide one of these parameters or a specific scenario it would help me better understand what the supposed problem is.

The deflection distance was not intended to mimic that of the rod in use, nor at any particular stage of use. It's just a constant from which all the measurements are taken so they will be relative in nature. ERN and AA figures are for comparative purposes, not to tell you what a blank does or is doing at any stage of deflection in use.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2009 04:15PM by Tom Kirkman.

I’ve been thinking about the two ratings, Power and Action and their interrelationship. I’m wondering how many guys consider that when changing one or the other, how it affects the dynamics of a rod.
When you look at the typical diagram illustrating the “fast, “moderate” or “slow” (or subdivisions), it does give a general idea of the classification of the blank’s Action. What could be misleading is that it only shows the bend of the tip (since that’s what’s being “defined”), which is a bit deceptive since the bend is actually progressive along the entire length of the blank. The progression of course, being modified by the tip Action.
I think it needs to be understood that the two ratings are not independent.
I guess I’m like most rod builders (or fisherman) and don’t use the CCS to the degree as Tom and Bill C. suggests. I use it only to the extent of measuring the weight (in pennies) at 1/3 of the length from the reel seat to the tip and the A/A. The readings give me a relative Power and Action for all my rods. I realize that any two rods from a different manufacturer may have the same Power and Action, but may not perform or load identically. I never saw the point in going beyond the weight in pennies and getting into ERN, CCF, etc. I guess, like Bobby, I assumed it applied more to fly rods. I’ll have to re-read the article.
Can’t help but seeing the humor in the correlation of the remarks made by Tom in his “objective”, “subjective” explanation, “You have to decide for yourself if you need shorts or a jacket.” and what Bill S. said “A guy would come in, tell me what he was going to be doing and using on the rod, and then I selected the blank that would do the best job for him.”
Btw Bill, you alluded to me being “outside the box” (ref my crankbait rod). Some would say I’m out of my mind. Ha!

The weight in pennies doesn't really tell you much - frankly I can't imagine that part being very useful (but if it's helpful to you, great) . The weight of those pennies is not supposed to be indicative of the amount of weight a rod will cast or handle. Not at all. I know early on many people thought the weight in pennies was supposed to correspond to the amount of weight the rod was capable of casting. No way - you'd snap any rod in an instant if you tried to cast that much weight. Those pennies are only there to achieve a desired deflection so other more important measurements can be made.

Just like the interface on a computer operating system, the nuts and bolts are hidden within the CCS. Dr. Hanneman did the work so none of us have to (but it's all in the articles, if you want to do that much reading). The interface of the CCS is the ERN, AA and CCF. Once you have these you have a basis for comparison. For instance, you look in a catalog and see 2 rods both listed as having a "Fast Action." Okay, but that's a pretty broad range - it can be applied to any rod or blank that initially flexes in the upper 1/3rd of its length. So which one of the two labeled as being "Fast Action" is faster? And how fast is fast? Hard to tell with a system featuring such poor resolution.

Now with an AA figure, you will know at a glance which rod has the faster action, and by how much. The resolution is tremendous. And it's guaranteed - any rod with an AA of say, 80, will indeed be faster actioned than any rod with an AA of 70. You might still call both of them Fast, but now you know how fast and which is the faster of the two. In time you drop the term "Fast" altogether as it's no longer needed.

And the CCS can't tell a fly rod from a flipping stick any more than a tape measure knows whether the thing it's measuring is wood or steel. The CCS measures power, action and speed and will do so equally well on any blank of any type. It doesn't really care what you stick into it.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2009 06:08PM by Tom Kirkman.

By the way, if you do get involved with AA and ERN, you'll have a nice surprise in store. Just as Dr. Hanneman mentioned in the articles, the DBI (Defined Bending Index) is really much more helpful than the AA or ERN by themselves. For instance, you give me the ERN of a blank and I have some idea of the power. Give me the AA and I have some idea of the action. Give me the CCF and I can make a decent guess as to what the blanks weighs or what material it might be made of. And any of these can be used comparatively to other blanks and their numbers.

But... give me the DBI (all three) and I can visualize what the blank looks like while it's bending, where it bends under different loads, how it would feel and what I can do with it. As you work with more and more blanks and record the numbers for them, the DBI becomes almost like somebody handing you the blank itself.

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Tom,
I found the RM (Vol 10- 4) that I think has the means to establish ERN for casting rods and I will read it. When I first became aware of the System several years ago, the chart giving the conversion from cents to ERN stopped well short of the cents amount I needed to convert. I’m still not sure that having an ERN will benefit me any more than just using pennies as a relative Power rating. Considering that I use 1/3 of the length between the reel seat and tip (I want to eliminate grip lengths variations), I’m not going to get a correlation to other blanks (other than my own) anyway. I don’t build rods to sell (not much demand for 5 ½’ flipping rods - snicker), so when building my own rods, I use my existing rods “ratings” as a “base line”.

I read the article again…I’m waaaaay past the point of diminishing return. Still don’t find a conversion from cents to ERN (130 to 309 cents). When you said “the nuts and bolts are hidden within the CCS”, that was an understatement. Guess I’ll stick with my foreshortened version.

No, it's in volume 6. Use the link provided on the sponsor page for all the CCS articles. The ERN is the same for all rods, casting, spinning, fly, etc., this is what makes the system relative across the board. It's the same for all rods.

If space aliens came down and asked you about our system of measurement, you could tell them about inches and say that the higher the number, the greater the length. Immediately they'd know that an item 12 inches long was longer than one 10 inches long. But what they wouldn't know, is about how long 12 inches is. It would take some time using the numbers and viewing those lengths to get that second aspect of the system.

Same with the CCS. Right off the bat you can use the ERN and AA for comparative purposes. The higher the number for each, the greater the power, higher the action and higher the frequency. But, over time you can do even more. As you record rods you have in house, you'll begin to understand about how much power each unit of ERN represents, or how fast each unit of AA is. Speed, via the CCF, also begins to relate.



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Been there, done that. The conversion charts shown there only go to up to 173 cents. Unless there’s another chart that I’m overlooking, it won’t do me much good. My rods measure 114 to 184 cents (spinning) and 130 to 309 (casting).
It still seems to me that I’m already using what I’ve got for comparative purposes. What more does ERN get me?

OK now that I've gotten some fresh air, taken off my red shirt and the fact that this thread is now on the second page (which helps take the spotlight off of us 'contraries’ [I am sensitive you know]); let me try again.

Tom, the 'parameters' are the box that builders (and others) get locked into because "that's what they rationalize and thus believe", or "that's what someone told them and they believe". Example: "XYZ rods should have a 'parabolic' action, therefore; if it's fast, it won't make a good XYZ rod. Did they try it? NO! They just stayed in their box and believed it. Opportunity lost.

I believe your productions are one of the best avenues available to eliminate this type of thinking and currently i believe you are not doing an adequate job of this. A publisher should not be as biased as you are. IMHO.

I am convinced that about 99% of the people who read this forum and read Rodmaker Mag are totally turned off by the complexity of Dr. Hanneman's CCS narratives especially when there has to be subsequent follow up articles to explain the exceptions.

Even though I have read every article of it thoroughly about 8 times (twice last night and again this morning) I am convinced that I understand it. Cold hard fact. It just is not user friendly for the masses. Apparently this can’t be seen by you.

This is not intended to be critical of Dr. Hanneman because I truly believe that his work is genuine, accurate and factual. He did a great job and should certainly be commended for it. It's just not applicable to the majority of people that use and enjoy rodbuilding.org or Rodmaker Magazine.

My whole point originally last night was (although poorly presented), was to bring up the point that we, the masses, need something that is simply to understand, easy to grasp and has relevance to our needs. And above all should be something that the ‘hype’ from manufacturers can be circumvented with.

After all, who in their right mind would have the tenacity to spend hours of energy just to generate enough data to plot a graph to compare to someone's else's graph that probably will never exist?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/02/2009 09:33PM by Bobby Feazel.

Bobby,

Let me address some of your points.

The first paragraph, about the "parameters" has nothing to do with the CCS. It contains vague terms that the CCS doesn't use like "XYZ rods should have a parabolic action." So I'm not really sure how that has anything at all to do with the CCS in any way. The CCS only measures power, action and speed, it does not set parameters and does not deal in vague subjective terms. In the CCS, there is no Fast, Medium, Slow or Parabolic. It dispenses with such terms entirely. I would agree that such parameters are very limiting and should be seen by the builders that way. One of the reasons that the CCS was invented was to circumvent such "hype" from the manufacturers. They can call a rod by any subjective term they want - "Extra Modulus Refined Action" or whatever else their ad people can come up with, but the CCS cuts right through kind of stuff by putting quantifiable numbers on the inherent properties of any rod (action, power and speed). If having a number for length is good, then so too is having numbers for action, power and speed. Numbers are specific and don't lie.

I'm still not entirely sure what the CCS has to do with somebody else's parameters or someone else's ill conceived conclusions. In fact, the article on Rod Expertise by the Numbers was tongue-in-cheek satire against such parameters and the work of the rod company marketing men and the builders who worship them. If you haven't read that, you should. It's quite funny, but sadly quite true.

The CCS isn't any more complex than a thermometer or a tape measure. Few people know the complexities behind those but this doesn't stop them from using the relative numbers they provide to gain important information. I could have simply presented the "skin" of the CCS - how to read the measurements and left it at that. But I knew we'd get all the questions about how various parts were arrived at. Thus I printed all the background information as well. In nutshell, to be able to use the CCS, a person needs to read only one or perhaps two pages at the end of the first article. I do agree that all the behind the scenes stuff is a "turn off" to many people, but I felt compelled to print it for those who wanted to get under the hood and see how all this was arrived at. Most of us never question where the length of an inch came from or was based on, we just use it. But others look deeper and want to know why that particular length was chosen. So too, with the CCS.

Dr. Hanneman and I have had a good many talks about the CCS. I am forever telling him to leave it alone; not to keep adding to it. There are many component parts, but you'll notice that I mainly stay focused on the simple ERN, AA and CCF because I believe these are the main components and are easy enough that anyone can use them. That's why I keep mentioning the thermometer as it's exactly the same type system. If you can use one, you can use the other. They are almost identical in nature and ease of use and both are purely objective and relative.

With all due respect, even though you say you understand it, I don't think you really have a grasp of the CCS, yet. Because once you do, it becomes so amazingly simple that it's almost child's play. This is not an insult or put down in any way and I hope you don't take it like that. It's just that I've heard similar comments from other people and then was able to spend a few minutes in person with them showing them how to relate to the CCS and what they can do with it and I see light bulbs come on. I don't go into the origins of the system - I just show them how to take the measurements and let them handle the different blanks. From then on, they begin using it and often remark how simple and useful it really is. They were just put off at the outset, as you say, by the lengthy explanations. Once I presented it to them in the way their dads' once showed them how to use a tape measure, they got it. Hopefully you and I can get together next year if we do another Expo and talk about it some.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2009 08:59AM by Tom Kirkman.

I am late to this party but will still add a comment. Please know it is not intended to offend anyone. I use the system and find a great deal of value in it.

IMO the ONLY mistake made by you and Dr. Hanneman was that you indeed DID publish all the research that went into the Common Cents System. You should not have done that. It made a simple system look complex. If you had ONLY published the four paragraphs or so on how to take the measurements and then published the Rosetta Stone chart next to it people WOULD have viewed and used it like the thermometer you mention.

The reason that many have not gotten involved with it is because they were intimidated by all the lengthy text, graphs and charts. I agree it is very simple and even painfully obvious. It is just a shame it was not presented in a simple fashion. My suggestion is that you reprint the article, but leave out all the unnecessary stuff. Rewrite and present it like you do the other articles in the magazine in just one or two pages and show how to take the measurements and what they mean. That is all you need to do. Your other articles are so simple and easy to follow. Why not revisit the Common Cents System in THAT type of format?

You didn't offend me. In fact, I agree with you. If people thought they had to study the origins of Daniel Fahrenheit's scale and how he determined his standards in order to use it, they probably wouldn't bother with temperature readings either.

I'm going to consider doing such an article. Even with the full page Rosetta Stone chart, I think I can do it in 3 pages, including photos.

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I think there is a very real possibility that there is a risk of “throwing the baby out with the dishwater”.
I agree with Bobby when he says, “simple to understand, easy to grasp and has relevance to our needs”. The CCS in its entirety goes waaaaaay beyond that. While a few elitists (or purists) may wish to indulge in the entirety of its scope, most of us just want a straightforward system that gives us comparative ratings of Power and Action.
The Common Cents System does that in its basic form. By “basic”, I mean by simply measuring the amount of cents it takes to bend a blank to an amount equal to 1/3 its length and then measuring the Action Angle. This gives me the info I need at two levels. 1. As a fisherman (my priority), I have a ready reference that enables me to select a rod that meets the basic criteria for the technique or method I want to use. Further determination of a given rods attributes would be done “on the water” before I could identify that rod as appropriate.
2. As a rod builder (which I am by necessity since I can’t buy a “factory” 5 ½’ flipping stick), I have a “base line” of blank and/or rod ratings that I can use to duplicate or modify to get more of what I think is desired.
For me, to go beyond that, I quickly reach a point of diminishing return. I can’t relate to ERN…..I still have yet to find a chart that’ll convert my Cents to ERN, which presumably will make my ratings “universal”. I don’t think that’ll help me anyway because of the way that I define length (I don’t use OAL of the blank). That’s okay, because I’m more interested in a comparative rating for my rods.
As far as the “CCF” (speed/frequency), although I was skeptical when I first read the article, I figured I’d give it a go. After setting up a rod in my fixture for measuring the “basic” criteria, I activated the tip so that I could count the number of oscillations in 20 seconds. My first reaction was laughter at the notion that you could discern such a count visually.
Perhaps if the “simplified version” of the CCS was emphasized, more people (rod builders AND fishermen) would be more inclined to take advantage of it.

I just read Richard’s post and I guess we’re thinking along the same lines.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2009 10:23AM by jim spooner.

Jim,

That's all it is, relative numbers assigned to power and action just like we have for length. It goes no further unless you want it to. This is another case of not really relating the CCS to what it really is, just a simple scale like that on a thermometer or tape measure. It's just that simple and is exactly what folks are asking for and then saying the CCS doesn't deliver. But it does.

Understanding the numbers is where I think most fall short of grasping it. Just like I mentioned earlier, is 60 degrees hot or cold? Is 7 feet long or short? That's open for interpretation by the user. So when we say a rod has an effective power of 9.2 ERN what we're saying is that it's more powerful than a rod with a lower ERN and less powerful than a rod with a higher ERN. Same with AA, the higher the number the faster the action, but the CCS does not call anything "Fast" or "Slow," etc., that's left up to the user to decide just as he does when deciding if 60 degrees is hot or cold. Remember, all these type scales do is provide numbers that are relative to one another.

The CCF is a very interesting component part of the system because rarely do we ever seen any type of rating for rod speed. It's not hard to do and if you'll go back you may find the part in the article where Dr. Hanneman explains how to slow the count down so you can do this manually.

The Rosetta Stone chart will convert your cents to ERN. [www.common-cents.info]

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2009 11:03AM by Tom Kirkman.

The Rosetta Stone Chart Part 3 only shows conversions up to 173/16. Is there another all inclusive chart somewhere? As I said earlier, my rods measure 114 to 184 cents (spinning) and 130 to 309 (casting). Maybe the System was only intended for modern, up-to-date, popularly used rod configurations.

I did go back to the CCF article and without the ERN, I cannot determine the weight required to slow the oscillations



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2009 11:26AM by jim spooner.

Dr. Hanneman is a much better writer than I am. I still struggle with how to explain the CCS in very simple terms. I guess I see it just like a tape measure.

I think we can all agree that a blank that is 8’ feet long is longer than one with a lower number and shorter than one with a higher number. What we can’t agree on is whether or not an 8’ rod blank is a long, or a short, rod blank. Those are subjective terms and left up to the user. What we can do with the number, however, is figure out if our 8’ rod blank is longer or shorter than another rod blank.

The CCS is absolutely identical and every bit as simple. A blank with an ERN of 10 possesses more power than a blank with a lower number and less power than a blank with a higher number. A blank with an AA of 80 has a faster action than blanks with a lower number and a slower action than blanks with a higher number. Whether our blank is “powerful” or has “fast action” is left up to the end user. The CCS doesn’t make such subjective determinations. It only allows us, just as our length measurement did with length, to compare power and action from one blank to another.

In a nutshell, that's the article.


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Jim,

Let me see if I have an updated chart. I know Dr. Hanneman sent me one some time ago that was considerably expanded. It was probably in the magazine but I may not have put it up on the website.


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BINGO!!! Give that man a cigar.

If you had published THAT in the magazine the CCS would be in use by every builder and factory under the sun by now. Steps for taking the measurements would have still been needed, but THAT simple explanation would have done all that was needed to be done. It explains everything.


I count the oscillations of my CCF readings by shooting the movement for the specified time with my camcorder. Then I play it back and count them while in slow motion. I stick my finger in the frame when the time is up so when I play it back I know when to stop counting. Easy as pie.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2009 11:49AM by Richard Kuhne.

I'm still struggling to understand what Bobby’s “suggested parameters” have to do with the CCS. I’m missing something.

Only thing I can think is that somebody made a bad judgment or determination and has put it off on the CCS.

For instance, the local “parameter” says it’s comfortable to wear shorts when it’s warm. So I look at the thermometer and see that it shows 55 degrees. So I put on shorts, go outside and find that I’m uncomfortable. Who was at fault here - the Fahrenheit scale? I’d think it was either the parameter or my poor judgment at fault. The Fahrenheit scale didn’t do anything but provide me with a number.

But this may not be what Bobby is talking about. I just don't have a clue.

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You cannot find a single rod blank that can tell you what type of rod blank it is. They are all made the same way with the same equipment. For crying out loud they are all just tapered shafts! When you try to turn them into more than that you get into trouble and lose sight of the forest for the trees.

You can measure the length of any rod blank in inches and feet. The higher the number the longer the blank.

You can measure the action of any rod blank with the CCS AA. The higher the number the faster the action.

You can measure the power of any rod blank with the CCS ERN. The higher the number the greater the power.

You can measure the speed of any rod blank with the CCS CCF. The higher the number the more quickly it responds and recovers.

How's that for an article?

All of these numbers are just figures or data. It is up to the rod builder or the fisherman to use them intelligently. When they fail to do that it's common to blame the system or say it wasn't applicable. Nobody likes to be told that they didn't use their information very well or made a bad choice.

We know why the blank manufacturers don't like the CCS.............it puts a verifiable number on something they would prefer to keep a game of hype and conjecture. They have already dumped the listing of weight for most of their rods and blanks. What do you want to bet they dump length measurements before much longer?

The manufacturers do not want the builder having too much information. This is why they hate the CCS. It provides valuable information.

The manufacturers don't "hate" the CCS, but many do fear it.

I have had 3 blank manufacturers personally tell me that they will not adopt the CCS precisely because it would enable rod builders and fishermen to compare rods and blanks across the board, from one manufacturer to another. They do not want that sort of thing to be possible, for what I hope would be obivous reasons.


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