Diawa has a carbon fiber guide they use on their rods, and St Croix uses it on their upper end rods as well. Apparently they are not available as retail. any other manufacturers offer these to builders? Are carbon fiber guides an up and coming thing, or overhyped?

I don’t know, I never used them. I imagine it would be a pain in the butt to replace a damaged guide, if they are not available to rod builders.
Norm

The design of the guide frame has more to do with things than the material. Simply making a guide frame out of carbon doesn't automatically make it a superior guide. Ultimately, frames made of some sort of nylon composite should be the very best thing to look forward to. The trick has often been mating a ceramic or steel ring to a frame. If the frame design allows it to flex where the ring is fastened into the frame, the two can separate. But there are some designs that limit guide flex to the legs and feet and I remain hopeful that this will be the future.

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Roger,
The only CF guides I have seen were roller guides; and if you thought titanium guides are expensive, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
The fishing rod and component industry is highly competitive and hence manufacturers are looking to be the first to discover, offer and increase sales with the newest products and materials, whether fad or functional. One cannot really blame them; it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.
CF truly is the modern-day wonder fabric; its stiffness-to-weight ratio exceeds that of any previous material. Applied properly, CF laminates (structures) increase the rigidity of the part while significantly reducing the overall weight profoundly! I have employed the attributes of CF in numerous projects for more than 25 years, long before starting to build rods. But CF does have its limitations, the most important being that with its stiffness, it is also inherently “brittle”, similar to SiC (silicon carbide) = when it fails, it does so catastrophically. Anyone would be hard-pressed to convince me a CF guide would be better than the present metal frames, especially titanium. But if approached with an aramid (Kevlar) guide, I would certainly be interested.
In the end, any weight savings of a composite guide would be miniscule at the very best, especially micros but even larger reduction guides as well. Add in the cost of manufacturing and it could well exceed the point of diminishing returns, even for those seeking the newest, most exclusive and expensive components.

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

I haven't seen much about these guides since their introduction. They are not available to the public. [www.rodbuilding.org]

Carbon's not brittle in the least. Very durable and capable of withstanding tremendous impact and abuse. But it has such a high stiffness to weight ratio that most structures made with it aren't very substantial - they don't have to be depending on the goal at hand. But don't mistake that for brittleness.

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This is a great reminder about the misconceptions still out there courtesy of Gary Loomis :



Ever since the introduction of the first graphite rod by Fenwick in 1974, myths about this mysterious material have been growing and circulating the globe like wildfire. How many times have you been told that the difference between IM6, IM7 and IM8 is the difference in quality standard, or that the higher the modulus, the more graphite was used to produce the rod?

With there being so many misconceptions surrounding this material, Gary Loomis – one of the world’s foremost authorities on graphite rod design and founder of the G.Loomis Corp. – agreed to lend his expertise to eliminate these myths.

Loomis began by explaining that the identifiers IM6, IM7 and IM8 are the trade numbers used by the Hexcel Corp. to identify their product and is not an industry quality or material standard, although the Hercules Fibers produced by the Hexcel Corp. are the benchmark that most companies use to compare their materials. The confusion is compounded because a number of rod manufacturers use materials produced by companies other than Hexcel and yet identify their rods as being IM6, IM7 and IM8, which by itself means nothing.

What an angler needs to understand is how the word “modulus” pertains to graphite rods. Modulus is not a thread count, as many would have you believe. Modulus basically equates to stiffness. The higher the modulus, the stiffer the material is by weight, meaning less material is needed to achieve the same stiffness of lower-modulus materials. This results in a lighter product.

“You have to remember, weight is the deterrence to performance,” Loomis said. Stiffness also equates to responsiveness – that is, the rod’s ability to store and release energy. The higher the modulus, the faster and more consistent a rod is able to store and release its energy, which enables an angler to cast farther and more accurately.

But you cannot talk about modulus without including strain rate, or the measured strength of the material. While modulus is reported in millions, strain rate is reported in thousands. An acceptable strain rate for a fishing rod is 680,000 or higher. A graphite rod made from IM6 Hercules Fibers will have a modulus of 36 million and a strain rate of 750,000.

With the original materials used for graphite rods, as the modulus rate increased, the strain rate would decrease, resulting in the rods being more acceptable to failures because of brittleness. However, through the advancements of materials, technology and engineering design, companies are able to produce high-modulus, high-strain-rate rods. These new high-tech fishing rods are super-light, responsive, and extremely sensitive and strong.

But the misconception of brittleness still plagues them, and the reason for this is because as the modulus gets higher, the less material is needed and therefore used. This means that the wall thickness in the blank, which is basically a hollow tube, is thinner. “Remember what I said before – weight is the deterrence to performance,” Loomis said, and went on to tell a story:

“I had a gentleman come in with a fly rod that broke near the handle, and he was asking for a new rod. I examined his broken rod and knew from the break – it was splintered – that his rod broke from abuse. So I asked him how it broke, and the man, being sincere, told me it broke while fighting a fish. I explained that it would be nearly impossible for the rod to break this way. But to be fair, (I told him) if he could break another rod the same way, I would give him three brand-new rods of his choice, but if he couldn’t, that he would pay for the repairs, and the man agreed.

“So I took him out in the back by the shipping docks and handed him an identical rod. With the rod in his hands, I grabbed the blank and asked him to apply the same pressure he was using when it broke. The man was applying a great deal of stress on the rod, and it wasn’t breaking. So I asked if he wanted to apply even more pressure, and the man responded that he didn’t think he could, but he insisted that is how his rod broke.

“So then I told him, ‘We are going to break this rod, so that it breaks just like yours did.’ I then laid the blank on a rubber mat and I kneeled on it by the handle, and we tried it again but it didn’t break. Then I laid it on the concrete and kneeled on it. Examining the rod, you couldn’t see it was damaged, but this time the rod broke just like his did, and the man simply asked where he needed to pay to get his rod repaired.”

The point of this story is that these high-modulus, high-strain-rate, thin-walled rods are extremely strong and are highly unlikely ever to break under normal use. Almost all rods are damaged by other means – an angler accidentally stepping on them, hitting them against a hard surface while casting, or storing them where a toolbox or some other heavy object can slide into them. Then, with the damage done, the rod collapses while under the stress of fighting a fish. So while high-modulus, high-strain-rate rods are not brittle, they do require more care in storage and transport.

There is a graphite rod made for every angler and their lifestyle. Composite blends (a mix of graphite and fiberglass) can take a lot of abuse. Intermediate modulus rods (33 million to 42 million) with high strain rates (700,000 or higher) still offer a lot of sensitivity and responsiveness and are quite durable. The high-modulus, high-strain-rate, extremely light rods are usually a rod manufacturer’s high-end product. These rods are the ultimate in responsiveness and sensitivity, and they cost a lot more than the average fishing rod. As with anything that costs this type of money, you would want to take a lot better care of it, including using protective cases to store and transport them around.

Hopefully, you now have a much better understanding of graphite as it pertains to fishing rods, and as a result, understand the care you need to employ with their use, storage and transport. Finally, armed with your newfound knowledge, you will be able to make a much more informed decision the next time you purchase your next graphite rod.

Tom,
From your statement “By its very nature, graphite does not like to take a very sharp bend over a very short area” within you outstanding “Building Live Bait Rods” article in RM magazine, it would appear you have an understanding of CF properties. That statement was/is very true; your present statement that CF is not brittle is false.
chris,
Be careful how you use the term “strength”; for our purposes, it can be measured from different perspectives such as shear strength, yield strength, overall stiffness and overall toughness.
There is a reason so many heavy, offshore rods are still being manufactured from FG rather than CF, with toughness being #1.
I will stick with what I learned from over 20 years in the composite industry.

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

Mark can you point out to me where I mentioned the word 'Strength' ? I can't seem to find it .

Tom Kirkman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The design of the guide frame has more to do with
> things than the material. Simply making a guide
> frame out of carbon doesn't automatically make it
> a superior guide. Ultimately, frames made of some
> sort of nylon composite should be the very best
> thing to look forward to. The trick has often been
> mating a ceramic or steel ring to a frame. If the
> frame design allows it to flex where the ring is
> fastened into the frame, the two can separate. But
> there are some designs that limit guide flex to
> the legs and feet and I remain hopeful that this
> will be the future.
>
> ............

Noted, I was thinking more along the lines of taking corrosion out of the picture, which is always a concern in a hypersaline environment. Not so sure the performance benefits being hyped by St Croix are valid, or if it is more of a "wow factor"

Mark,

Everything it relative. "Brittle" compared to what? One of the reasons we use carbon fiber to edge our rudders and boards is because it is so very, very durable and not at all subject to fracturing upon hard impacts. Depending on the particular lay-up for a given application, you can beat it with a hammer and it won't incur damage. Drop it from a great height and it will not fracture.

When you see a failed graphite rod (carbon) rarely if ever will you see fibers that simply fractured or broke from any sort of impact. What you see, is a failure of the structure from impact that delaminated the fibers resulting in a collapse of the tube on on the compression side. Breakage of the actual fibers happens after the delamination collapse, not prior to it. They fail due to the sharp bend they are forced into, not from the impact. It is the structure that fails from the impact, not the fibers themselves.

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Corrosion is one of the absolute last things I worry about with guide frames . I have never had a guide frame of 304 stainless (Fuji) corrode on me or the slightly softer but more corrosion resistant 316 (S-6) stainless (Alps) corrode on me in my entire lifetime . As long as you clean and rinse your rods after use in saltwater it's a complete non issue .

I know some others have experienced corrosion but I never have and I'm no spring chicken and can only go by what I have experienced.

Carbon intrigues me due to it's incredible vibration enhancing properties and because it's exceptionally lightweight . I have my questions as to whether different guide ring materials can be successfully contained due to what Tom mentioned which is flex. I have a hard time buying into whether carbon guide frames will become the choice of the future . Superior to stainless steel based on a big weight savings advantage but not necessarily titanium .

I view titanium guides as the ultimate and I base that on their weightlessness compared to stainless steel . Their extreme ability to fend off corrosion comes in a very very distant second to me. If stainless guides were the same weight as titanium but lacked titanium's corrosion resistance I would use them for everything .

I would much rather see rod manufacturers concentrate on building more sensitive rods NOT adding things to them like Carbon guides to enhance what's not already inherently there.

Fuji Nylon Guide Frames:

[www.fujitackle.com]

[www.fujitackle.com]

[www.fujitackle.com]

[www.fujitackle.com]

They're cool, and it's nice it can be done. I don't think they will have a great impact on the overall guide industry.

Maybe everyone doesn't have the same definition of "brittle."

That is entirely possible. For me, Brittle equates to something that shatters easily from hard impact. Carbon fiber doesn't shatter.

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Believe I read that a carbon tail rotor on a helicopter stood up to .50 cal machine gun fire better than titanium.

Perhaps an alternate definition of brittle would be a material that deforms very little under strain, and then reaches a point where it fails totally.

Russ in Hollywood, FL.