I got a call today from a customer whose rod broke on its first use. I built the rod back at Christmas, but apparently this is the first use.

Apparently, his son caught a bass and a few casts later heard a snap. The break occured right above the butt guide.

Based on my experience with breakage issues, this would indicate a crush event, but i rarely build on painted blanks.

Is it possible the paint would have remained unblemished while the blank underneath was damaged?

Looks like someone stepped on it.
Norm

Norman Miller Wrote:
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> Looks like someone stepped on it.
> Norm


If someone stepped on it, would the paint show the damage before it got used? Is the paint flexible enough to hide that damage or at least not be very noticeable?

It's a crush fracture. If the crush had existed prior to the blank being painted, there is no way the guy could have caught a bass on it and a bit later had a failure. It would have failed on first use and certainly on the first fish caught.

They may believe the rod was flawed, but sometime between catching that fish and when it broke, it was crushed by someone or something. Could be a tackle box was dropped on it. Might have been stepped on, etc. Somebody probably took a quick look after the incident, saw no damage and forgot about it. The crush raised its head the first time it was decently loaded after the damage occurred.

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Thanks, Norm and Tom.

Im guessing he caught the first fish, set the rod down (i know it was caught bank fishing) and the rod got stepped on in the process of unhooking and releasing the fish.

I hate that you can never really know what happened, unless you were the one that was holding it when it broke.

I agree that is a crush failure.

Patrick,
The rod was out of your control since Christmas. A lot can happen during that time.

You must have flexed the rod during the assembly and a hidden flaw that extensive would have surfaced immediately, so I believe the rod had no defects when it left your shop.

Tom,
I agree,. my guess is, in the excitement of removing the bass from the lure the rod got kneel-ed or stepped on and in the haste of getting the rod back into action the damage went unnoticed and failed when loaded by the next fish.


The customer believes the rod was flawed and may not be aware they damaged the rod by accident.

If it were crushed when you received the blank you would have been aware of it the first time you flexed the blank. As Tom states, it was surely crushed after you built it and after the first fish was landed.
Norm

When I prepared the RodMaker article on rod failure, which now hangs in rod manufacturing plants all over the world, we broke over 200 first quality, identical, rod blanks to find out what these different type fractures would look like when a rod broke. We don’t really have to guess. Now we know. An overload failure shows itself one way, a crush fracture another, and a high stick failure yet another. There are several other types of breaks that we noted. Each one was consistent each and every time per the type damage and subsequent failure.

………..

100% stepped on.

200 blanks in the big picture is not really a lot to base scientific facts on. It is even less when considering the types of rod failures.

200 blanks, of the same type and model, is the greatest number than anyone has ever used for such testing. Even against several different types of damage/breaks, there were no outliers or exceptions - every one exhibited the same breakage pattern per a certain type damage/failure. If you have 25 to 30 all with the same damage, break exactly the same way and exhibit the same appearance, how many more will you break in an attempt to find one that shows differently? Another 10? Another 100? Had we experienced a single result that fell outside what we were seeing, we would certainly have broken more just to be sure what we were seeing was indeed indicative of that type failure.

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Glad to see someone has taken the initiative to start testing rod breakage. I stand by my statement it is a small amount of rods that were tested. I would also dispute the facts that they were all of the same EXACT breaking characteristics. Nothing is that exact and my common sense tells me there would be differences. My personal opinion is that in the zeal to make rod builders and companies less culpable this small demonstration was done. There should not be any excuses for getting out of warranty work but on the same hand I also believe there should not be programs to replace rods at a fraction of the original cost. To me that just says they could sell the rod cheaper to begin with and have zero warranty other than defects of product and or workmanship. Like I said, glad some testing has been started. Companies and builders in their zeal to sell product started these ridiculous warranties many years ago and now wish to escape them I believe. Lets see how far these rod companies and builders go with doing away with warranties except for what was noted because of "undisputed" facts of breakage. If those facts are correct and clearly concise there should be no reason to continue these warranties thus should by rights drive prices down for builders and companies if they're not replacing rods. For what it's worth I never had a rod returned for warranty in all my years of building. If someone broke a rod they only discount I offered was for the usable parts.

These tests had nothing to do with "zeal to make rod builders and companies less culpable." They were instigated and performed by RodMaker Magazine solely to learn what so many of our readers wanted to know - can you tell by looking at a break, what caused that break? As it turned out, yes you can and you can do so with near absolute certainty.

This wasn’t the sort of thing where we just started picking up blanks and broke them over our knees. We built equipment to ensure that the damage that we caused and how we caused it, was identical for each group of test samples. This took many months to do and we were helped with coordination from St Croix rod company who provided us with blanks that were of the same model and quality. Some additional blanks from them also of the same model and quality were used to determine the strongest orientation for a blank. In those load limit breakage tests per the same orientation the load limit failure was less than 1 percent difference. So we knew we were working with identical blanks.

Had we tested 10 times the number of blanks that we did, the results would not have been any different. This was very accurately and carefully done and the rod manufacturing industry trusted the process and results enough that many, if not most of them, keep the article in their warranty departments to determine breakage causes and evaluate possible warranty replacements. If you read the article about the tests, you will also note that quite a bit of information was shared on breaks that can be identified by actual manufacturing flaws and defects. So again, none of this was done to make anyone "less culpable." RodMaker Magazine is above that sort of thing. You can't pay us to deliver any sort of pre-determined results.

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Patrick Coco Wrote:
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> ...
>The break occured right above the butt guide.
> ...

I have seen rods break at this point when they were hung up and grabbed the rod at the butt guide and tried to pull a lure loose.
Not saying this is what happened...but just my experience.

Yes they can and do break that way, but the resulting break evidence wouldn't look like that the photo. The spiraled lengthwise fractures indicate a crush fracture.

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Tom Kirkman Wrote:
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> These tests had nothing to do with "zeal to make
> rod builders and companies less culpable." They
> were instigated and performed by RodMaker Magazine
> solely to learn what so many of our readers wanted
> to know - can you tell by looking at a break, what
> caused that break? As it turned out, yes you can
> and you can do so with near absolute certainty.
>
> This wasn’t the sort of thing where we just
> started picking up blanks and broke them over our
> knees. We built equipment to ensure that the
> damage that we caused and how we caused it, was
> identical for each group of test samples. This
> took many months to do and we were helped with
> coordination from St Croix rod company who
> provided us with blanks that were of the same
> model and quality. Some additional blanks from
> them also of the same model and quality were used
> to determine the strongest orientation for a
> blank. In those load limit breakage tests per the
> same orientation the load limit failure was less
> than 1 percent difference. So we knew we were
> working with identical blanks.
>
> Had we tested 10 times the number of blanks that
> we did, the results would not have been any
> different. This was very accurately and carefully
> done and the rod manufacturing industry trusted
> the process and results enough that many, if not
> most of them, keep the article in their warranty
> departments to determine breakage causes and
> evaluate possible warranty replacements. If you
> read the article about the tests, you will also
> note that quite a bit of information was shared on
> breaks that can be identified by actual
> manufacturing flaws and defects. So again, none of
> this was done to make anyone "less culpable."
> RodMaker Magazine is above that sort of thing. You
> can't pay us to deliver any sort of pre-determined
> results.
>
> ………….


I think the insinuation was innocent enough. But you have to realize that people who do not take the magazine have no idea the lengths you go to get good and accurate information for your readers. And most of us that do take it know that you have never been a shill even for your own advertisers.

I have had the same happen to me with a painted blank. I do not believe the paint had anything to do with the break. Mine broke from the butt to the stripper guide, and looked exactly like the pic that was posted. Perfect splits running the length but still didn't end up in 2 pieces. This was my own rod , building rods over 45 yrs and i know for a fact it was never stepped on. Also there were no marks or scrapes or nicks in the finnish. Guess it was just tired, I've used this rod hundreds of times and landed hundreds of fish, so I chaulked it up to it owed me nothing. One of a set of leadcore trolling rods that I use from a row boat. I'll just build another pair. Also I ordered the same blanks, the broken rod didn't deter me from using the same blanks.

Fishing is not a matter of life or death, it's much more important than that

I'm not the arbiter of rod fractures, but I agree with the OP. It looks like it was crushed.

John Sansevera Wrote:
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> I have had the same happen to me with a painted
> blank. I do not believe the paint had anything to
> do with the break. Mine broke from the butt to the
> stripper guide, and looked exactly like the pic
> that was posted. Perfect splits running the length
> but still didn't end up in 2 pieces. This was my
> own rod , building rods over 45 yrs and i know for
> a fact it was never stepped on. Also there were no
> marks or scrapes or nicks in the finnish. Guess
> it was just tired, I've used this rod hundreds of
> times and landed hundreds of fish, so I chaulked
> it up to it owed me nothing. One of a set of
> leadcore trolling rods that I use from a row boat.
> I'll just build another pair. Also I ordered the
> same blanks, the broken rod didn't deter me from
> using the same blanks.


The splits on the OPs blank do not run straight up along the blank's axis. They are slightly spiraled. Another sign of a crush fracture.

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