Emory,

For the benefit of new readers, let me reprint your earlier remarks.

“You made the following statement in an earlier post and I think this is at the heart of our disagreement. "Essentially, what I am saying is that rod characterization has now independently progressed far beyond the concepts and capabilities of traditional mechanical engineers. I believe the future lies in “Feel” and PPF."

“... with this statement I think that you are profoundly wrong.
First: Engineering and physics will continue to advance and the characterization of rods will get better and better as it does.
Second: I do not see "Feel" and "Personal Preferred Frequency" as characteristics of a fishing rod at all. It seems to me that they are characteristics of the fisherman.”

Now, let’s see if I can convince you of my opinion.

Today, fly rod blanks are commonly characterized in terms of Length, Weight (avoir), Number of Sections, Power, Action, Natural Frequency, MOI (Swing Weight), Color and the BIG (Bending Index Graph). Aside from Power, Action, and the BIG, all these properties can be described in terms common to engineers. Personally, I can not think of any other measurement one might make which would be useful or worth the effort for rod builders. Therefore, regardless of how much engineering or physics advances, there is no reason to believe it will ever matter one whit to rod builders. Characterizing Power (ERN) and Action (AA) and the BIG have already been transferred to the realm of the CCS.

Now, in the realm of finished rods, additional characterizations are being made, namely, ERN (power), TP (Tip Power), PR (Power Reservoir), and X (reciprocal of MOIST). All of these are what I call “beyond the concepts and capabilities of traditional engineers.” This is because they are expressed in units which which engineers refuse to acknowledge and are loath to use.

Finally, and most importantly in the eyes of anglers, one must consider the entire “fishing outfit”. This includes the rod plus the line or weights, and brings us to the subjective concept of “feel”. To characterize feel, the concepts of CCF, Delta, and PPF have been invoked.

I recognize you do not see "Feel" and "Personal Preferred Frequency" as characteristics of a fishing rod at all, but rather characteristics of the fisherman. That is fine, I would not argue the point, because it makes no difference whatsoever. The fact remains it is a subject which must be considered in the overall scheme of fishing with a rod. It is for that reason, I believe the future lies in Feel and PPF.

Now, where do you think the future lies?

There is a reason why traditional engineers refuse to accept measurements based on number of pennies and a Rosetta Stone chart, that is because it is stupid to use and very counterproductive to getting useful results. Reasons why pennies are a bad unit of measure, 1. 80% of the words population has no access to them, 2. at some time in the future the penny as we know it will either disappear or change so that it will not be possible to use what is available to repeat measurements made earlier. What are you going to do then, hoard old pennies to be able to make comparative measurements, or weigh the new pennies and apply a correction factor? If you have to weigh things why not just use that as your unit of measure, ounces or grams will never change. No one can make an honest argument to say that using pennies has improved the CCS, if you had presented it as weight to achieve 1/3 deflection, and action angle everyone could have immediately started measuring everything from ice rods to offshore trolling rods. Very quickly the relative power database would have built up until we would have a very good idea of exactly how different rods and blanks compared to each other. If you then wanted to present ERN as an addition to CCS, to get a number that compares to a fly line number that would have been seen as a great addition.

Natural frequencies are very important in the design of anything. I design turbochargers which in some ways is about as different to designing rod blanks as possible, my parts may weigh up to 100lbs and be made from cast iron, but it is critical that those parts be the highest performance 100lb cast iron parts possible. Natural frequency has become a critical measurement of our parts, it is so important that we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year analyzing frequency using Finite Element Analysis. When we start a new project one of the key parameters negotiated with the customer is the minimum frequency the part must achieve, and every new generation of engines the numbers get higher and more difficult to achieve. Designing almost every part for a minimum natural frequency is a big part of why modern cars and trucks are so much smoother, quieter, and more reliable than they used to be.

Once you start designing parts knowing that you have to achieve a number you very quickly learn that of all things that may affect the frequency the key thing is the stiffness to weight ratio. It is important for the parts I design that every bit of added weight be added in a way to maximize the stiffness of the part while minimizing weight. In the context of turbos it is important to design the lightest parts possible that can survive the thermal and vibration stresses they will be subjected to, in the rod blank context it is important to design the lightest possible blank that will survive the load and abuse that users put them through. What Emory is doing with frequency is to measure the stiffness to weight efficiency of blanks and finished rods. If you measured the relative power at 1/3 deflection in some standard unit of measure, and the weight of the blank or finished rod in the same units by dividing those numbers you would have a stiffness to weight ratio and get basically the same results. What it would tell you is that every time you are able to improve the stiffness to weight ratio you will raise the frequency, and the rod with the higher frequency and stiffness to weight ratio will perform better in every way, except of course durability and the ability to withstand abuse.

The vast majority of fishermen and rod builders are not engineers - thus such language and traditional measurements are of no use to the intended audience. This is the point that Dr. Hanneman is making. He is not trying to get engineers to accept his terms - he is taking traditional engineering language and measurements and creating something that the intended audience will understand and find useful.

The man who stands in front of an audience that speaks only Russian, and presents his information in Greek, is going to be wasting everyones' time. If he wants his Russian speaking audience to understand him, he's either going to have to speak in their language or invent simple terms that allow them to understand his presentation.

The use of standard U.S. Cent coins prevents folks from having to weigh anything. Otherwise folks would have to obtain quality scales with fine resolution. Something most will not do.

The acceptance of the Common Cents System by thousands and thousands of rod builders is testimony to its practicality.



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I find counting pennies to be cumbersome, BUT the CCS/Rosetta Stone chart does make it possible for someone (who has access to pennies) to determine ERN for a rod, without requiring a digital scale and/or a set of weights. The chart that North Fork Composites released a couple of months ago does list grams, as well as pennies. I still use pennies, simply as weights. Once I have the desired deflection, I weigh the bag on a digital scale, and check the NFC chart for ERN, based on weight. Using pennies may not have "improved" the CCS, but it did make it possible for many folks to arrive at some meaningful numbers for describing a rod, without needing a scale and a set of weights.

MOST custom rod builders are located here in America I would think. So using pennies makes sense at least to me. They are readily available and like George I would not have bothered buying a good scale to do any of this with. With pennies I did not have to. They present a good unit of measurement for Dr. Bill's system because all you have to do is count them. No weighing of anything is involved.

If I am not mistaken, Dr. Bill published the weight of a single penny in his original article so anyone that wanted to use something other than pennies had the weight information already at their fingertips. And since the new chart became available that argument is pretty much a mute point now anyway.

That may have been true 10 years ago, but today accurate inexpensive scales are very easy to obtain. Anyone with $10 could have obtained a set at the expo, I paid $5 for mine which reads to .01g which is a lot better resolution than a penny. Besides any semi serious rod builder should have a set of scales, how else are they going to know if the parts they are putting on a rod are the lightest parts possible? If the manufacturers know that everyone will be weighing everything they put on a rod maybe it will make them more responsive and get us some better parts.

I still contend that if the ERN nonsense had been left out of the CCS many more thousands of people would be using it.

But they, we, do not have such scales. And how much resolution do you need?

The old saying, Make It Simple, Make It Work is what the CCS is all about. It succeeds in that way and is why more use it now than if we had been tossed a bunch of engineering terms and told to buy a set of scales. Others have done that in the past. Where are their systems now?

Mike,

Now we're back attempting to understand who the "average" rod builder is. I suspect that many semi-serious rod builders do either own some type of scale or would be willing to buy one if they felt it would better their rod building activities. But now we're reducing those 300,000 rod builders to just a few thousand, maybe. The vast majority of builders only build a couple or three rods per year. And the average guy only stays in the hobby/craft for perhaps 1 or 2 years.

I personally know a lot of rod builders in this immediate area. I'd call folks like Sammy Mickel, Larry Tysinger, Buddy Owens, Mike Bolt, Bill Poe and many others close by as at least semi-serious builders since all have built rods for sale for many, many years now. I'd also wager that outside of Buddy, none of these fine builders has ever weighed a rod component. I doubt most have. But I could be wrong.

Dr. Hanneman originally intended the CCS as a tool for fishermen. Nearly all here in North America already possess pennies. Comparatively few might own scales. If the intended audience is the average fisherman or rod builder, the more simple you can make something and the less knowledge or equipment needed to implement it, the greater number of folks you'll have using it.

At any rate, the corresponding weights are now published so anyone that prefers to dispense with using U.S. Cents and weigh things instead, can easily do so.


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The weight of the penny used in the CCS system was printed. It does not take a rocket scientist to convert to ounces or grams and do your own thing. The quantity of pennies for each given deflection is supposed to be constant in the first place....using all the same weight pennies. I purchased and use a small pocket scale from Harbor Freight for $12 and it will weigh in ounces or grams. Just like picking a rod, pick your own system that you want to use. No big deal. I love the ccs system. If you do not like it, do not use it. You control the radio "frequency" knob. Pun intended.
JIm

I do not think that the issue is really engineering terms or units of measure. The problem that I now have with the Common Sense System is first Common Sense Frequency that as a result of doing many, many measurements of rod frequency with weight added I believe to be of very limited use. Second and even more importantly I think that Bill Hanneman has gone off the deep end with his "Feel" and Personal Preferred Frequency". I certainly do not feel qualified to make serious judgments about human physiology and frankly I do not think he is qualified to make those judgments either.
Unfortunately, I also do not think that with Bill Hanneman's silly attitude about having reached the limits of engineering and physics that he is likely to make any additional improvements to the CCS.

One of the rules on this site, which everyone agreed to abide by when they registered, requires us to refrain from personal insults.

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Tom,
I see what I posted more as an observation than as an insult. Are you advising me to go elsewhere?

I'm asking you to refrain from personal insults. I realize that you don't pay any bills here so any damage you (or others) do to the forum's reputation is of no concern to you. However, having sponsors become upset over such insults and bickering falls on my plate, not yours. Please be a little more considerate. Thanks.

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If people would act like guests here...which is what we all are, then these little jabs and jousts would go away. Still the nicest rod building forum around but it only takes a few people to reverse that in short order.

Gentlemen,

I went to a custom golf shop last night and there are gadgets that makes frequency reading much fine tuned. It can be read in CPM or in finer resolution in HertZ. They also have MOI machine that measures moment of inertia. I invite you to visit your local custom golf shop and bring your rod with you and ask for a demo.

Ben

Ben will they let you measure a few? If so do you have any heavy rods like what one would troll with in the salt water? I'm very curious what they measure at compare to light fresh water rods.

Russ in Hollywood, FL.

I don’t know if the equipment at a golf shop would be sturdy enough to measure a powerful trolling rod. Besides frequency measurements would only be of use in comparing similar purpose rods, if you have 2 similar rods and one has a higher frequency that rod has a better stiffness to weight ratio, you have to determine why and how to replicate it on future rods. Another good use is to measure the frequency of a bare blank and then a finished rod, a finished rod will always be lower but knowing the actual number can help you to determine how this build compares to others and then try to find ways to improve the performance of your rods. That is kind of the point, without data you don’t know where you are, but once you start measuring things you quickly learn what works and what doesn’t work.

Russell,

No I don't have any trolling rod.

Ben

MIke, does a higher resonant frequency really mean one rod has a higher stiffness to weight ratio than another with a lower resonant frequency number? Like you said they would have to be similar in all other areas to put the frequency difference on higher stiffness to weight ratio. You could have a slower action high modulus rod that shows a lower frequency number than a faster action lower modulus rod with a higher frequency number. So many things affect frequency that it would be hard to peg any difference in the frequency numbers on any one thing.

Like any other measurement frequency or stiffness to weight ratio is only part of the picture, length, power, and action angle are still critical in determining a rods performance. What we are trying to do is put a number on efficiency, until you can measure something how do you know if you are making improvements?