Since I began building rods 18 months ago I have broken 2 rods while fishing. I broke a CRB Color series 8-14 lb.spinning rod while casting it with a 1/4 lure yesterday. A couple of months ago I broke a Batson rod slinging a 2 pound fish on board. The Batson rep told me not to do that, but I have been slinging bass onboard since BASS outlawed nets in tournaments in the 80s. I have never broken a rod prior to building them. Can it be that I am doing something wrong? These were a couple of my first builds, but they seemed to be very well done.

Yep, you're doing something wrong; you're slinging fish. Rods are designed to cast lures or line and to fight fish. Slinging and dead lifting fish are sure fire ways to "high stick" (over stress) a rod. And an over stressed rod will sometimes not fail immediately but rather will fail well after the damage was done.

Did you determine the final guide positions by static load tests? If not and the guides were significantly out of position so as not to distribute stress according to the rod's taper it makes over stressing a rod even easier as a result of the concentration of stress.

Did the rods break right where a guide was placed? How far from the tip did they break?

Russ in Hollywood, FL.

Need pictures to determine root cause of the breaks.

Danny, work with us and we can probably get to the bottom of this. Keep in mind, even a low priced blank like the CRB series, is much higher quality than your average Bass Pro/Wallmart $100 rod so they will be more fragile. Practices like letting a sinker bang against a blank when motoring from one place to another.....or letting a rod rest on the edge of the tail gate when driving to the boat ramp...well they aren't going to cut it when you step up to better blanks.

Then it could be things like too much tension of your guides wraps.....or a burr on the underside of a guide.....or improper guide layout.

Maybe the way the rods are stored on the boat. Maybe the way you "flip" fish.

At the end of the day it will get you farther if you accept that you need to do something different....as opposed to blaming it on defective blanks (because even if they were you should have stress tested them before you bothered to build on them).

Russ in Hollywood, FL.

Here's the thing - rods do not become defective over time. They either break the first few times out under a good load or they will last until and unless the angler abuses them. If your rods had performed well and stood up to good loads a few times and then broke later down the road - you broke them.

If you want to sling fish into the boat an Ugly Stick should be your weapon of choice. Keep in mind that the known "pros" can get all the free rods they want. The TV shows don't bother showing them breaking rods, but they do.

.................

Been slinging average sized fish onto docks and into boats for 50 years. Haven't broken one yet. I would bet it was your technique on that one fish that failed you. If it broke somewhere on the last third of the rod, then it was high sticked. Last weekend I had 4 of us in the Gulf of Mexico on a school of 2-3 pound specks. ALL 100 (a legal 4 man limit) were slung into the boat. All 4 of us were using med lite 7' blanks I bought from Mudhole. Two were CRB color and two were MHX. I will say that these guys on this board know what they are talking about when it comes to proper rod building. Follow their guidelines and keep on slinging.

Danny,
Searching for as much information as obtainable in the infancy of my rod building, I learned an extremely important rule of which I was previously unaware; NO BLANK IS DESIGNED TO, NOR SHOULD EVER, BE BENT MORE THAN 90* OVER ITS ENTIRE LENGTH. The common term is “high-sticking”. We have all been guilty of doing so, especially when flipping that big, bad boy into the boat. While the blank may not break while doing so, it is very possible some of the fibers may be compromised each time it is over flexed resulting in failure down-the-road as in “the dang rod broke”! By true definition of the title “angler”, those-in-the-know will position the angle of the rod to avoid such. While all anglers are fishermen, not all fishermen are anglers.
Additionally, present-day blanks are utilizing stiffer and stiffer materials and are constructed more uniformly throughout the length resulting in thinner walls and consequently less weight. This is all fine-and-dandy from a weight and sensitivity aspect but the consequent repercussions are that the smallest of nicks in the surface of the blank can cause a catastrophic “stress-riser” resulting in failure as in “the dang rod broke”!
Although I am a firm believer of the 90* rule, I realize others may not be; I will not argue the point. We have all seen tournament fishing videos, dead-lift demonstrations and even rod/blank advertisements well exceeding the 90* rule. It may be fine with them, but not for me = I take too much pride in what I build!

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

Thank you all for the great information. I guess I need to be more careful with my rods and realize that with the lack of weight comes less durability. I may never break another rod, but I want to make darn sure it isn't my rod building that is the problem. I am beginning to think the problem may be my treatment of my rods rather than my building skills. I hope so.

For me the biggest risk to my rods is probably damaging one by hitting the gunnel of the boat while snapping a hard jerk bati. I am very careful in transporting them properly.

If you're breaking budget friendly CRB blanks which can take a lot more punishment than many others then my guess is you need a refreshment course in rod handling and usage tips .



The below should help :



Gary Loomis talks about rod breakage
Hey guys,

With all this talk of some of the newer rods getting bad raps for breaking, I looked around and found a very interesting article by G. Loomis on the subject. Enjoy:

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.

it,s not just a good idea to give a blank a flex test before building but to do it again after building..many builders use heat of all kinds while building but you can,t see any damage, so it,s a good idea to try a flex test again...OK, maybe not so good..lol.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/01/2021 02:49PM by ben belote.

Boat flipping a 2 lb. fish is no problem if done properly, (it's not a crane) bend all new blanks as hard as you think they'll bend while in use before putting parts on. Sometimes they break, they can have defects.

Defects surface quickly - not weeks or months down the road.

............

There was production line of blanks by a major producer that were very inclined to breakage a few years back. I will not say the manufacturer because they are a stand up company and have since corrected the issue. I was in a components area of a local tackle store, when a fellow rod builder came up to me and said "check this out" I look up and he flexes this purple/blue blank and it snaps with with very little effort. He proceeds to grab another one off the rack and does the same thing and it snaps. He grabs another one and bang it snaps, he grabs another and the store clerk who was hearing the sound of breaking blanks, finally comes over and stops him.

Inherent defects or defects from manufacturing are acute and failure typically happens when the rod is first stressed. High sticking and impact damage account for most rod failures after they have been used for a time. Hauling fish will typically lead to rod / blank failure.

The weight, stiffness and elasticity of a blank is determined by the makeup of the prepreg; the resin formula, the fiber type weight and structure, flag pattern and the scrim type. Different combinations and formulas will dictate the characteristics and strength of the blank. Usually, the more you pay for the blank the lighter (tube wall is thinner) it is and easier it breaks, but that is not always the case.

I suspect the leading cause of rod blank breakage - except maybe dirt-cheap blanks - is the ignorance or carelessness of the rod user, not the blank producer. Think rods draped over the tailgates of pickup trucks, 3/4 oz. sinkers bounding around on a taut line between reel and tip-top, or whipping a rod loaded with #30 line against a 10-ton boulder or a large bush!

You are absolutely right, Phil. Rods are a lot like clutches on manual transmission cars and trucks. They can last forever if treated right, but you can break them in five minutes or less if you mistreat them.

Built one to take to Venice La. with me. Snapped it on my 5th fish, a 36" redfish. Used the spacing indicated on the set of guides. Broke between the 2nd and 3rd guides. Didn't really seem to be overly stressed before it broke. Certainly wasn't bent over 90.

Thank you for all of the comments. The bottom line is "these ain't my Daddy's rods". I need to be more careful and attentive.

" A fellow rod builder came up to me and said "check this out" I look up and he flexes this purple/blue blank and it snaps with with very little effort. He proceeds to grab another one off the rack and does the same thing and it snaps. He grabs another one and bang it snaps, he grabs another and the store clerk who was hearing the sound of breaking blanks, finally comes over and stops him"


OMG , that's hard to believe but not the part about the rod breaking I'm talking about a guy willing to stand their in the store and keep breaking them instead of quickly looking around hoping nobody noticed after the first one snapped. Some people just make you shake your head sometimes.

I also agree with Phil 100% , there's no question at all that what you explain happens regularly, I see it all the time . You just can't get away with treating higher end blanks the way many treat off the shelf department store rods .