I was talking to a 3M rep at a fishing show last weekend and he got to explaining why the company's new Sharkskin lines cast better and shot easier than their older lines. The old lines were smooth, the Sharkskin lines are pebbled or textured. He claimed that a smooth line even a slick one created more friction than a pebbled line. If you cast one of these lines you would have trouble doubting his reasoning. Plus I am sure they have done the tests to prove it.

This got me to thinking, which makes the better wood or carbon grip...........a smooth slick surface or a textured surface? Which is actually easier to hold onto especially when wet? Going by the 3M rep's reasoning, the textured surface would be slipperier than the smooth one. Has anyone tried both and can offer an opinion? Thanks. This has gotten me thinking about several things related to custom rods.

No question about it. A textured or rough surface is much much easier to hold than a smooth surface. This is true even when the surfaces are dry.

Roger

What the rep told you was 100% correct. Assuming both grips in question have the same size and shape, if you make a carbon skinned grip and finish it out smoothly, it will be "grippier" than one that is left with some texture to it. In other words, you'd be able to securely hold onto the smooth surfaced grip with less effort than is required with the textured grip. While that may sound contradictory to what you'd expect, it's a fact. And, it becomes even more true as the grip gets wet.

If you've ever fallen on a smooth, varnished hardwood floor, and burned your skin as you skidded across it, you'll have some idea what I'm talking about. "Smooth" does not necessarily equate to "slick." Two entirely different things. There is a reason that wooden hammer handles are smooth, not textured.

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Tom Kirkman Wrote:
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> There is a reason that wooden hammer handles are
> smooth, not textured.


Duh! Did not think about that. I guess the 3M guy knew his stuff. Their textured lines do have less friction than their smooth lines and you want the reverse in a grip. This gives me some things to think on. Thanks.

And there's a better reason why there are hammers made with a rubber textured handle....I believe 3m did a very good test on the coeficients of friction on both types of lines and cocluded with the sharkskin.

Howevre, I have to respectfully agree and disagree with Tom. I think the type and what the surface is made of will better determine the "grippyness".

The more total surface you have to hold onto the better. A textured grip offers you less overall surface to hold. A smooth surface offers more surface to grip. This is why the Shark skin lines shoot so well. They are textured and therefore there is less overall surface in contact with the guides. For a rod grip you want just the opposite. Where hard grips like wood or carbon fiber are concerned, smooth provides the better grip. For a foam or any soft material type grip it would not matter.

I didn't say that the shape and material isn't important - in fact I spent 6 pages saying that it was indeed extremely important. Check Volume 10 #3 in the article on handle ergonomics. But a textured surface will never provide as positive a grip for the human hand as a smooth grip will, and there are myriad ergonomics and bio-mechanic studies to prove it. Force for force or effort for effort, with the same shape and material involved you'll expend more on a textured handle than a smooth one.

Typically when you find a hammer with a rubber cover over the handle, it's a glass handle. The rubber isn't there to provide a better grip, it's there to help deaden the vibration transmitted by the glass handle to the hand. It's also ergonomically inferior to a rigid wood handle in terms of efficiency. A hammer handle with a rubber grip is more tiring to use than one without.

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Come to think of it, I have never seen a wood hammer handle with a rubber grip on it. ALL the fiberglass ones I have seen have some sort of rubber or foam grip on them. So the stuff about it being there to dampen vibration is my guess as well. But I did not expect to get an education on hammer handles this evening!

Thinking more and more about the pebbled surface fly lines................ and if the texture reduces friction and a smooth line increases friction, then a textured rod handle would be harder to hold onto than a smooth one would be. But I will make up a couple in both styles and play around just to satisfy myself. Thanks for the responses. I will go to sleep with all this on my mind tonight. What a terrible thing rod building is!

A smooth surface offers more contact area than a textured one does, that's a fact. Take a look at race car tires they are as slick as they possibly can be. If road surfaces always stayed dry you would not need a grooved tread on your tires. The groves are not there to provide more tractions but to pump away the moisture when it rains. This allows the smooth surface of the tire to come in contact with the surface of the road. Water is a lubricate a very poor lubricate but none the less a lubricate. Tom said that a wet smooth surface is better than a wet textured surfaces, that's not what he exactly said but I do believe that's what was implied. I have a hard time getting my teeny weeny little brain around that one. I have no empirical evidence to refute that and I would bet he has something to back up that conclusion, it's just hard for me to logically accept that. If I take a hard wood handle and between it and my hand I put water, it would seem to me that would become very slick. Where as if I had a textured or grooved handle that I would have a little more contact area. I haven't study this or done any experiment to determine one way or the other which is right. But would you rather have a smooth handle on a tennis racket or would you rather have a handle with a wrap that will absorbed the moisture. Again let me be clear I'm not questioning whether a smooth area offers more traction than a textured one does, there's no argument. the smooth one wins, it's when moisture is added to the equation that I start having doubts.
But like I like to say I could be wrong.
Bob



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2011 08:22AM by Bob Pratt.

Bill:

The RodMaker Volume 10 #3 article covered the topic of grips extremely well. I highly recommend subscribing to RM if you have already done so.

The 3M Sharkskin fly line is my favorite. In addition to reducing friction and floating higher I like the way they drape so limply.

I don't think I will ever go back to regular lines. The only negatives I find is the noise they create during casting and the premium price.

I recently finished the rear grip of a spey rod with marine spar varnish because I had seen one done that way and I think it looks nice. It is not at all slippery even when wet.

Another example of smooth vs textured is the golf ball. Golf balls have the dimples for a reason and it's because it makes them fly through the air better due to the lower surface friction.

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

Here is something to make you think. The gecko, a lizard that can walk upside down on glass etc doesn't have smooth feet it has textured feet. In fact, its gripping ability is due to the microscopic hairs, giving it such a large surface area to grip on. The threads above are on the right track, the larger the surface area to contact the better the grip. This can be achieved by a textured surface as is the case with a gecko. It is not about texture or smoothness, but about maximising the surface area of the item that, in this case, will be held in the hand. Regards Adam



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2011 02:02AM by Adam Edwards.

You get far more surface tension with smooth. That equals friction. With the textured surface you don't get the surface tension and it can actually reduce friction. It all depends on your application.

I put a gloss finish on my carbon handles and they are definitely not slippery. Everybody that sees them says they are going to be, so i usually dunk it in the drink and put it in their hand. Argument solved. And above and beyond everything already mentioned, the carbon grips just look cool. If you want to sell more rods, just throw a couple carbon handled units up on the deck of the boat while at the dock. Ive constantly got people asking me where they can get one.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2011 05:58AM by Phil Brenner.

Gents, this has all been great! I never really doubted the 3M rep. It just seems that where rod grips are concerned it is easy to assume that having a textured or non finished surface would make for a better grip than a smooth one. The opposite appears true and after talking to him and reading these replies I can see why. Thanks to all that replied.

I have to agree with Tom on this one. When I built our last house I wanted 'textured" shower floors so they wouldn't be slippery. The guy I talked to told me that research revealed that a smooth, water break free surface was safer.

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"Angling is extremely time consuming.
That's sort of the whole point." - Thomas McGuane

Golf balls spin. Are we saying asmooth surface fly line offers more resistance as it flies through the air than a textured or dimpled fly line? Just asking. Thanks.

This is interesting.
I wonder why folks slip on the surface of a wet bathtub, which is dead smooth and has a slick of water on it?
But, those same folks do not slip on a textured bath mat that is placed on top of the slick smooth surface of the bathtub which still have water on the mat?
Go figure, if slick surfaces have more grip than textured??

Roger

You're not comparing apples to apples. The bath mat is softer than the hard ceramic tub surface so it's no longer a matter of the surface texture, but of the durometer hardness of the materials involved.

You can obtain a great grip with soft EVA, but it will work you to death at the same time.

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