I am inquiring as to what the range of AAs is that all of you have experienced; from shallowest to steepest. My extremes range from 51.5* to 72.9* with the vast majority between 65*-68*.
I fabricated an AA fixture to hold my digital level in which the pivoting arm has 180* of movement; obviously, only <90* is needed. Although it worked very well, I wanted an easier way to achieve precision with the adjustment. I made an adjuster, controlled with a knob, to fine-tune the angle and it works perfectly. Now I just need to know the minimum and maximum angles to be encountered; trout to tuna blanks. Many of you have been performing CCS a lot longer and have a much broader data base than me; hopefully you will share your AA findings. Thank you for your time, concern and reply.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

59 to 78 degrees. Total number of 50 rods/blanks.

About 55 to 85 but this is across a very wide spectrum of blank types.

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57.5 to 82 fresh water and inshore fly, spin, and cast

Ed, Tom and Michael,
Thank you for your help with AAs. I will set-up my updated digital AA fixture to include angles of 45* to 85*. All of your lower-end numbers are higher than my lowest of 51.5* which makes me question what happen while measuring that particular blank; God knows I could have not have possibly made a mistake lol. It is an old Conolon blank (imagine that!) and the stoutest of the available remaining stock, I’d say 20-25lb, but still nothing like a tuna stick; I use them (extended) as live bait rods for Calico and Yellowtail. At only 6ft long, it weighs 3.8oz so there is plenty of material in addition to a tip diameter of .143in; I seem to get a decent tip flex while fishing, contrary to what the numbers may indicate.
Tom, I am very curious, and certain many others would be as well, to learn just what kind of a rod would produce an AA of 85*?!?! That is getting dang close to 90* vertical which we all know is theoretically impossible. Is it some sort of 16ft, 000 weight fly blank made of “unobtainium”? I think I already want one! Please inform the masses; I (we) are here to learn.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

Mark, one of my Point Blanks was 82. Think thick long butt section with a soft tip. Think "hot shot" rods. I tested a Rainshadow RX6 travel rod at 80. It casts light bonefish jigs nicely and handled a 45 in barracuda well. 85 isn't that far off from these I mention.

Why is 90 degrees theoretically impossible? Tape the end of one of your lower power Conolons onto a broomstick and I think you'll get 90 degrees. A rod with high power and a short soft tip will have a high AA. To flex it to 1/3 its length, with a long stiff butt section, most of the flex will be from the tip which will of necessity be very steep. It could even be vertical if the tip is soft enough.

The 16 foot very low power fly blank most likely will have a low AA, not a high. But I suppose, if the tip were capable of carrying essentially no load, like string, it could be high.

Hot Shot blanks, which I have built on very often, will have extremely high AA's, as will dedicated live bait blanks.

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Almost any light power ugly-stik will get you over 80 degrees..a little sanding even more..

When held perfectly level, flexing any beam, a blank in our concern, by adding weight to the tip will produce a parabolic curve. The more weight which is added will deflect the tip more toward vertical but will never, theoretically, achieve 90* simply due to the beam (blank) inherently, continually and algebraically resisting the flexing; closer and closer but no final cigars.
I am surprised to learn blanks can exhibit AAs of 85*. I am also wondering of my achieved 51.5* for that particular blank which is considerably below the angle ranges offered in received replies; rest assured I will re-test.
Thank you to all again for your support.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

Mark, I think you are right about not being able to achieve 90 degrees for the flexure of a cantilever beam of constant section, but not for complex beams like rod blanks which can be very weak at the free end. If the last portion of the blank is made weak enough then it can be flexed to 90 degrees. But not to 91.

My 78 is a painted Rod Geeks C266MLF. Unless I made a mistake.

Ed, sounds about right.

Michael,
You are certainly correct on one point; if a person was to achieve 91*, there is definitely something wrong with their process! None the less, I still attest that no matter how much weight is applied to the tip, the angle will get closer and closer, by diminishing amounts, to 90* but never actually achieve a true 90*.
To be honest, my method of attaching the pointer to the tip of the blank is flawed. I simply attach it directly to the blank with tape or tiny rubber bands; due to the taper of the blank, my pointer is consequently off from the true centerline by the same amount. But I measure all blanks in the same manner so the discrepancy is a constant across-the-board. I suppose I could measure the AA with the pointer mounted both on top and also on the bottom and average the two angles but I do not bother. Now that I think of it, if the pointer was mounted on the top, I might actually be able to achieve the otherwise elusive 90*.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

The CCS calls for the pointer to be mounted on the top of the blank. I may be mistaken, but I don't believe it mentions anything about it (the pointer) being in line with the center line of the blank in its vertical plane.You wouldn't be able to mount the pointer on the bottom of the blank, as it would hit the blank.

As far as AA's for the blanks I've measured. The low is 69, the high, 80. The blank with the AA of 69 has a named action of moderate fast, and is a blank I use for flipping and pitching for bass. The blank with the AA of 80 has a named action of (of course) extra fast. It's a drop shot blank. A severely under powered drop shot blank. lol

I use a piece of the tip of a blank for a pointer, mount it so that its tape is opposite the blank. My theory is that it will then be very close to parallel to the centerline of the blank. Regardless, the error is very slight.

Mark, are you considering that these blanks are not constant section beams? Take it to an extreme. Securely attach something with the structure of an ice rod strike indicator off the tip of any blank, with a tiptop on its very end. It now is part of the total blank, the total beam. Now apply load. What will the angle be? 90 degrees, Straight towards the center of the earth. An "triple extra fast" blank with a real noodle but short tip section will not be this extreme, but the tip section will be overpowered and point straight down. It may not be a practical fishing rod, but my point is only that 90 degrees can in fact be attained.

The really important fact though is that 85 degrees can easily be found, and the rods are practical fishing tools. The idea behind them is that for some techniques one wants a very light, responsive, tip section to indicate a bite without imparting much force to the rod, or to allow a lure to freely work in current, but the fish may be quite powerful, so the total rod has to be powerful also. So a very soft tip on a long strong "butt section."

This is a good mathematical quibble and the laws of physics say that getting to 90 degrees by deflecting a beam in the way described is impossible. You can get arbitrarily close, but never to 90 degrees.

There are a few different ways to formulate this style of problem. With regard to a horizontal system, you can think of the classic strongman and the string problem. Regardless of how much tension you put on a string, it will never be perfectly horizontal. Because the string has mass, there will always be a slight sag in the string and the string will take the shape of a catenary. Similarly, no matter how rigid you make a beam, it will always sag slightly in the center when anchored near the ends. You may need an extremely precise laser measurement to see it, but the sag is there.

For the horizontal cantilever with a vertical load, it will never deflect to a full 90 degrees because the restoring force of the beam will always have a horizontal component deflecting the tip slightly away from 90 degrees.

That is the way that systems with asymptotic limits work.

That said, when it comes to measurement, our numbers are only as precise as our tools and technique allow. Using a protractor type tool, measuring any angle with a precision of better than 0.25 degrees is tough. Any digital instrument with better precision will likely need to be calibrated and checked regularly as with any high precision instrument. So, from a measurement standpoint, there is going to come a point where we call the angle 90 degrees because it is close enough to be indistinguishable from 90 degrees by our measurement tool.

I've found some students that are particularly good at math get deeply disturbed when we talk about significant figures, because they 'know' their number is correct to infinite precision, but neglect the fact that we often work with numbers that are provided to only finite precision. The best way to put it is that you can certainly obtain a deflection that is consistent with 90 degrees, and if you hang enough weight from the tip of any blank, you will be able to get there.

Joe said it very “edge-e-kated”, certainly better than could.
I could be incorrect but think at least most digital levels have a process/method of zeroing the unit; mine does; it has not required recalibration since.
I find the protractor type angle gauge/card to be inaccurate for a number of reasons; 1.) Even Dr. Hannerman’s only had a resolution of 5* = really? 2.) Making/drawing one’s own introduces margins of error. 3.) Attempting to level the angle gauge/card introduces another margin of error. 4.) Sighting the pointer to the focal point of the center of the “fan” of angles is not precise.
OK, all this may be splitting hairs. None the less, if we are going to take the time and effort to measure AA, why not do it as precisely as possible. This becomes particularly evident with so many different blanks possessing similar AAs.
The digital level I have is just a generic Craftsman unit with a resolution of 0.1*. Employing the same digital level to initially set the centerline of the blank to 0* AND measuring the angle of the tip eliminates almost all of the margins of error which equates to precision and repeatability. Even if the unit is off by say 2*, using the same to measure both values cancels- out the discrepancy (not including the gravitational forces {talk about splitting hairs}).
Thanks to many of you on this forum, I have recently gained a wealth of information regarding CCS and its supportive ERN, IP, AA and such through a few topics which I started.
Being a self-proclaimed fabricator, I thoroughly and habitually enjoy constructing all kinds of things. I have used my digital level to measure AA for quite a while but trying to manually hold it and line it up to the pointer was difficult and imprecise. The holding fixture I built a few weeks ago worked very well but, me being me, wanted more. I fabricated a knob actuated adjuster to attach to the holding fixture and it works extremely well. It has an angle range of 40* to 92* (hence the reason for this initial topic). I am finally happy with it, if not admittedly proud. If you care to do so, click on the links.
[www.rodbuilding.org]
[www.rodbuilding.org]
[www.rodbuilding.org]

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

What we are arguing about, whether one can get to 90 or only to "asymtotic 90" degrees has no practical difference. I'm an engineer, and getting to "asymtotic 90" is essentially getting to 90. I still think there is no theoretical reason why a true 90 cannot be attained with a beam whose tip section is infinitely weak. Or even less weak than that. Joe, if you're going asymtotic on me, then you have to accept a beam with an infinitely weak tip section. :-)

I challenge those who say that 90 is theoretically impossible to give me the mathematical formula/equation/expression that proves it.

I'll finish by stating that my Point Blank with an 82 degree AA is a great rod, and does not in any manner seem to be extreme. It fishes many techniques very well.

As usual, Mark, you start some great strings.

You can indeed get to 90 degrees, but that's really beside the point. The idea of AA is to provide a relative number against which to gauge if one blank has a faster or slower action than another. And thus far, I have never found a blank with a lower AA to be faster in action than one with a higher AA, and vice versa.

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In the grand scheme of things, achieving a full 90* or only approaching it really does not matter, especially concerning rod building. My statement was never intended to be a point of consternation or debate; I was simply regurgitating things learned in school. What does matter is the ability to achieve accurate, consistent and repeatable AAs; however that is accomplished is beneficial. I feel like “Earcle” now = “Did I do that?”

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.