Hopefully not to steal any thunder from the people at Batson, but I was just on another site that has a rod building forum, and there was a post about the Blank Talk Live that Batson Enterprises is putting on, on Facebook. In the other forum a member asked about the replacement blanks for the Eternity series of blanks. I know the Testament was the original replacement, but it didn't last, and I actually wonder if any of the Testament blanks ever reached the hands of builders.

Be that as it may, the person from Batson that was participating in the thread said that they're working on a new Eternity RX10 freshwater line of blanks, and that they are hoping to have them on hand in mid summer of this year.

I for one will be seriously interested!!

This is welcome news. I haven’t had great luck at trying out a couple of different blank manufacturers over the last few months. I called Batson a couple of weeks ago with components related questions. Kerry was very helpful, and he unquestionably knows his products. The idea of getting premium Rainshadow blanks through Utmost Enterprises seems really attractive.

I hope the RX10’s are domestically produced like the original Eternity series was. COVID disruptions have made for some really long wait times for blanks coming from Asia. Manufacturing labor costs are obviously a high ratio of the cost of a $40 blank. I get these coming here by slow ships (literally) as trimming all costs is necessary at extremely low price-points. Production labor is much less of a proportion of the cost of a blank exceeding $150, though. Premium materials and design work comprise much of the cost of these. I am much less favorable to squeezing a few dollars of labor costs off of these.

Before someone takes me to task on domestic production feasibility, consider the following. United Composites manufacturers saltwater rods with lots of carbon fiber and very complex layups in Huntington Beach, of all places. This is really high cost place to be and conduct business. Their blanks retail for prices that are about the same as several imported freshwater blank series, including directly marketed, store branded ones.