I have been reading about the Common Cents System for rating rods/blanks for sometime now. I build mainly light spinning rods and bass weight casting rods. I have never built a flyrod and checked it out on this Common Cents System. I did however decide several days ago to build the rod holding jig and other hardware needed to run some of my ultralite and light spinning rods thru the system. It is my understanding that this system should work for these light rods. I am fairly certain that I have the test set up properly and feel pretty comfortable that I did the testing as it has been described. The results of testing 4 light to ultralite spinning rods has produced some very surprising results to say the least. Here they are:
St. Croix 3S70ULF Rod factory rated for 1/32 - 3/16oz lure weight gave a Common Cents lure weight of 3/16 - 3/8oz.
St. Croix 3S66LF Rod factory rated for 1/16 - 5/16oz lure weight gave a Common Cents lure weight of 1/4 - 5/8oz.
Loomis S841GL3 Rod factory rated for 1/32 - 3/16oz lure weight gave a Common Cents lure weight of 1/4 - 7/16oz.
Loomis SJ6400IMX Rod factory rated for 1/64 - 1/8oz lure weight gave a Common Cents lure weight of 3/8 - 5/8oz.

The Common Cents lure weight values are from 2.6X to 7.1X higher than the factory ratings. The Loomis SJ6400 test was so far off factory that I reran it several times. It required 104 post 1996 pennys to defect the 21 1/4" from horzintal or 1/3 of its' total lenght which is 63 3/4". Half of the ern's exceeded the conversion of cents ERN table that I was trying to use. Anybody had any results like these? It is hard to believe I can be this far off from factory specs. I personally fish all these rods and most perform very well with 1/16 to 1/8 lure weights. These are rods that I built myself and not factory rods. Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.

Tom
Your findings are in line with the readings I have been getting. I hope you will add your results to Bob Hesser's site as to date there has been little information on spinning and casting rods submitted. I for one think it would be helpful to explore these findings further and have more knowledge of the results when choosing blanks.
Stan Grace

I'll second your findings. My Shikari SHX rated for 1/16 - 5/16 was coming out at having something like a 7/8 ounce high end rating. AFTER the adjustment figures for spinning/casting rods were given to me. Before that it was something like .92 ounces! The system is severely lacking for those of us that don't do fly rods. BIG dissapointment!! I can't emphasize that enough. For all the hype that surrounded this it has turned out to be a big dud in my opinion. About the only thing I've liked is the action angle rating. At least you can compare the actions of rods accurately.

I've run all 3 of my fly rods through the system and was very impressed. It was right on the money to where I thought it should be. I totally support the system for fly rods.

I totally agree with Stan. Much more information needs to be gathered. Hopefully someone will be able to come up with some formulas that can help us spin/cast fisherman utilize the system better.

If the lure weight ratings you have now are good, why do you want to run the common cents system on the rods? Isn't that redundant?

The system as I understand it was to help people properly line their fly rods by nature of the rod's intrinsic power, as well as compare power across the board.

Also, if you read the articles in RodMaker with regard to spinning and casting rods, you'll find that the formula given represents the absolute upper weight range for these rods.

The ERN can still be used for comparitive rating purposes and I think if you'll use it that way you'll see that it isn't a dud at all. Right now, a Loomis 2 power rod is not exactly the same power as a St. Croix 2 power rod. But a Loomis rod with an ERN of 3 will be exactly the same power as a St. Croix rod with an ERN of 3. I think you fellows are overlooking the relative nature of the system and what it's intended to be used for. Intrinsic power -- not lure weight ratings is what it's designed to give you.

I was beginning to think I was the only one who understood this. Good lure weight ratings are already given for casting and spinning rod blanks. The same cannot be said about fly line ratings, because their weight changes as their length changes. The weight of any given lure or sinker remains constant no matter how far you dangle it off the tip of the rod.

The stats arrived at by the Common Cents ratings are for Action Angle and Intrinsic Power. This is what they give you for all rods, whether it be fly, cast or spin. And they can be compared from rod to rod and type to type.

If you want to go the long road to see what the IP or ERN comes out to as far as lure weight rating then you can use the upper weight range limit or 1/4 deflection for lower limit, but as Tom pointed out in the magazine and Dr. Bill has pointed out on this board, the system isn't really designed to give you that info. It's designed to give you a power rating which it does. As Arthur said, that power rating will be consistent from blank to blank no matter who makes it because the set up and method are consistent and based on a single constant for all rods.

Use the lure weight ratings given by the manufacturer but use the AA and ERN to compare blanks from manufacturer to manufacturer.This thing ain't a dud at all. You just have to know what to use it for.

I haven't seen the need to rate casting or spinning blanks for lure weight ratings. If you already know what lure weights work best with those blanks, rating them over again does indeed seem redundant. I'm not sure what purpose it would serve.

If you still want to do it, you can use the ERN as the very top end limit for your casting lure range. To determine the bottom end of the range, change the deflection to an amount equal to just 1/4 of the blank's length and use that ERN. The only place where I can see this being helpful, is when you plan to cut a rod blank and need to know how much you're changing the power by cutting at any particular point.

The ratings you get will normally be very accurate except on very fast taper casting and spinning rods blanks which generally can accept a very wide range of casting weights. Often much more than the manufacturer lists for them.

Overall, the Action and Power ratings are meant to be used for comparative purposes and for that they're perfect. We've long needed a method or system that would give us relative action and power ratings across the board from manufacturer to manufacturer and the CCS certainly gives us this.

Let's take that St. Croix 3S70ULF mentioned above. Let's say you really like it and then St. Croix stops making it. How would you find an exact substitute from the ratings given in the various manufacturer's catalogs today? The thing is, you'd have a heck of a hard time doing it. But if you have the CCS DBI rating, you could just pick out another blank that would be identical in action and power. Of course, this would also depend on the manufacturers providing the DBI for all their blanks. Until then, Bob's database is the best we have.

Anyone who still wants to use the CCS for rating casting lure weights for casting and spinning blanks can easily plot their own graph. Start with rods which you know the accurate casting weight to be, and then correlate the ERN to those. With just a little work, you can come up with a chart that will match any future ERN to your personal idea of what the proper casting weight should be. At some point, when I have a bit more time, I plan to develop something along these lines. It really won't be that hard.


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I made a post exactly like your post a few months ago Tom, resulting from having tested a Lamiglas blank. [www.rodbuilding.org]

The Common Cents system doesn't help in determining the appropriate lure weights for spinning rods the way it does for fly rods. Instead of recommending an appropriate lure weight, as Tom writes it recommends a "maximum lure weight." But I find that even this does not hold true, at least for the few spinning rods I have measured. For instance, the Lami I rated in that thread could in no way, shape, or form deal with the lure weights the CC system rated it for. It wilts when using a lure of half the recommended maxiumum weight. It's very confusing.

Tom, you are right that the system is still useful for comparison purposes, but that recommended weight table (Table C in the article) really needs to be revisited, or anglers will never find the CC system useful for spinning rods in the same way that it is for fly rods.

I'm not so sure about that. Since the manufacturers already give pretty good ratings for lure casting lure weights, I really don't see a great need to revisit what we already know. Of course, it would be nice when trimming blanks, but as I said, you can come up with your own chart with about an hour's work.

The primary purpose of the CCS is to provide relative action and power ratings, nothing more. The CCS does not assign fly line ratings to fly rods anymore than it assigns lure weight ratings to casting and spinning rods. You have to take the ERN and correlate that to the appropriate weight needed. Dr. Bill has done this for the fly rods and lines, but not for the spinning and casting weights, yet.

You will find that the information given in the weight table is pretty accurate until you get up to blanks with very fast actions, perhaps an AA of 70 or more, which is very common on casting and spining blanks (there really is no such thing as a fast action fly rod blank, insofar as when compared to cast and spin blanks). But again, it would only take an hour to comprise a weight table for these very fast action blanks. If I get a chance this weekend I'll take another look at the forumla for correlating ERN to casting and spinning blank weights and see if I can't factor in a better constant. Shouldn't be a problem.

Until then, keep in mind that the ERN is neither a fly line rating nor a lure weight rating. It's an Intrinsic Power (IP) rating.

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My biggest reason for wanting to use the CC system on spinning casting rods is so that blanks of unknown specs can be run through it and assessed. Also blanks that have be altered.

I only used it on currently (and accurately) rated blanks to find out if it really worked. It didn't. So, I'm no further along than I was 8 months ago.

Tom K.
My initial reason for using the CCS was to find a comparable St. Croix blank for a Loomis S781 that I have built several of. I was sucessfull at doing this and the CCS worked for me in this regard. I noticed that the ERN'S for these four ultralite and light spin rods seemed to be very high when compared to this "Table C". I then calculated the upper and lower casting weights. I guess you could say this is redundant if I came up with the same results but I did not. This is my concern. I know through my own common sense that had I attached a 5/8oz jig to one of my SJ6400 rods as determined by ERN/Table C that I would proably end up with a two piece rod. Table C does not compare blank to blank. It assigned a specific casting lure weight for the upper limit of the blank.
Of the four rods I tested three that were rated as fast and one was a extrafast action. All their AA's were 70 and above. It is hard to find many spin/cast blanks rated moderate action. If Table C does not work for blanks with AA's of 70 and above then you have proably eliminated the majority of the blanks (spin/cast) sold by Loomis and St.Croix. Moderate action blanks are definitely in the minority of what is available to us.
I agree with Mike N. Table C needs to be revisited.

As an increasing amount of information is compared I think you will have the opportunity to rate blanks with unknown specs. The ERN and AA information will allow you to compare with rods of similar measurements. Rods with similar measurements certainly should share similar lure weight ratings regardless of what the current CC tables indicate. Also given enough information current CC tables can be fine tuned towards more accuracy. I still urge folks to enter spinning and casting rod data in Bob's site to allow us to have comparisons available that can only lead to better understanding and better choices.

Table C is not part of the AA or ERN readings, which work perfectly every time. They can't be wrong - any more than our system of inches or pounds can be. They're relative measurements.

The ERN is meant to take the place of the manufacturer's power ratings, i.e., a Loomis 3 power blank is not necessarily the same power as an All Star 3 power blank. But a Loomis blank with an ERN of 3 will be exactly the same power as an All Star with an ERN of 3.

The ability to correlate the ERN to a weight rating is something outside of the system and will have to be developed. This has been accomplished for fly line weights per length. But it's not a linear scale and this is the problem with the table given for casting and spinning lure weights. More work has to be done on this end to allow for a scale that won't necessarily be linear.

But as far as the AA and ERN readings go, I can assure you that they're 100% accurate. If you have a few rods that you know the proper casting lure weight for, you can easily plot your own chart or graph to match the ERN for those figures. Or, if you'll give me a few days I'll do it for you.

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RodMaker Magazine- Volume 6, Issue 2, page 16, Table 6. The table says "Conversion of ERN to Casting Lure Weight (For Casting and Spinning Rods - ounces)"

In the table it shows, ostensibly, how much weight can be cast based on the ERN calculated for casting and spinning rods (ERN's calculated from Table B). So you run the system to get the number of pennies, then you go to Table B for the ERN, then you refer to Table C for "conversion of ERN to casting lure weight." So far so good.

But right away you find that the table is WAY off in terms of what you can actually cast (as opposed to the fly rod ratings, which match up perfectly with the recommended lines). The most ultralight Lamiglas Perigee blank ever made takes 75 pennies to deflect to 1/3 length- putting it totally off the table.

Is there any spinning rod ever made that actually falls within Table C? I have a whole fleet of UL rods, and none of them fall within the table. Sure, the system still works fine for comparing blanks. But if Table C is not wrong, as you suggest, at the very least it is extremely confusing, because one thing it does not do is suggest what lure weights will work based on a rod's ERN.

Shucks- I meant Table C in the first line, not Table 6...

For the high end of your weight range -

(1.5 x number of cents) - 20 = number of grains.

For the low end of your weight range -

(.8 x number of cents) - 20 = number of grains

Multiply the number of grains by .0022857 to get your weight in ounces.

The optimum casting weight usually falls somewhere in the middle of the weight range, depending on your casting style.

........

As I said earlier, the scale is not perfectly linear so this equation may not work perfectly once you move up to larger saltwater rods. But it will match what most of you already know for most freshwater spinning and casting rods.

When I have time, at some point, I'll correlate all the figures onto a chart which you can just trace across to the ERN and get the weight range without having to do any math, but the above equations shouldn't take you any more than a few seconds.

.........

Now THAT is very accurate! I have a light power spinning rod that I use to throw 1/4 oz. jigs with. Over a few years I have found that 1/4 ounce is the best overall amount of weight that I can use on the rod. Any more tends to flex it what I feel is too much and any less just causes me to have to put a lot more power into the cast but usually at no more distance.

So I had done a common cents test on it some time back and it takes 96 pennies to get the prescribed deflection. That would be an upper limit of about 5/8 oz. and a lower of about 3/8 oz. both which are too high if you translate via the fly line weights. Way too high.

This new equation puts the upper limit at just under 5/16 oz. and the lower limit at 1/8 oz. which then puts 1/4 oz. right smack in the middle. This is accurate for this rod.

One question is that I wonder if you still drop to 1/3rd deflection to get the lower limit? I just plugged in the 96 pennies needed for the 1/3rd deflection and didn't bother with the 1/4 deflection. Is this correct?

I was never comfortable with having to use two deflection amounts to get a high and low range. In order to be consistent in terms of AA and ERN, all readings have to be taken at the same point - otherwise you really couldn't compare blanks on a relative scale. But it was stop-gap solution until we had time to do more work with casting and spinning rods.

The equation I've given you above will provide the high and low range from a single measurement of pennies, taken at a single deflection distance equal to one third of the blank's total length.

As I said, to make it as easy to use as the fly rod/line combinations, I'll have to correlate the information to a chart. The fly blank equation works the same way, but Dr. Bill had already correlated and created an easy to use chart based on two equations, one for line weights of 6-weight and under, and one for the jump in AFTMA scale for 7-weight and above.

I'll do what I can, but this week I have to finish up the new magazine and the 2004 resource guide, so don't look for the chart until sometime in January.

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

That's much better and much closer to what experience shows. I don't build many big saltwater rods so I don't know if it will work on those but it does seem close on my B65M GUSA bass stick. I think it still puts the weight a little bit high but it's been my experience that most factory rods have the weight range pegged just little low to begin with. Hope you'll put the new equations in the magazine.

Amen.

O.K. You got my attention.

It looks like the dreaded can of worms has been opened and there is no easy way to close the lid. All of you are going to have to help.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, depending on one's popint of view, I am in the process of moving to Texas and have not had a chance to do any recent work, nor do I have access to the data I have already obtained. Anyway, this is the way I remember the situation and my current thinking.

In the first place, this infamous Table C was not included in the original manuscript I sent to Tom. Unfortunately, having practically no experience with spinning rods, I let him include this table in the article as a "sop" for all the devotees of other than fly rods. That was an error on my part. I am sorry.

Now, Tom has reaped the problem of trying to make everyone happy. Don't be too hard on him. Some concepts simply have limits and one only gets into trouble trying to stretch them. The following represents my current ideas concerning "typical light weight" spinning rods. Maybe they will be useful, but I need feedback from those who can generate the data.

Shortly after publication of the technique for determing the DBI (ERN and AA), it was pointed out to me that there are many rods which simply cannot be deflected one third of their lengths, or if so, it requires an inordinate amount of weight. It was now obvious to me the CCS was not applicable to all rods.

Nevertheless, for those rods on which one can obtain CCS values, these values are useful for comparisons. However, determining lure weight is an entirely different kettle of fish.

Before my move, I did have the opportunity to make a few meaurements at Rainshadow and G. Loomis. On the basis of this, my advice was for them to stick with their current systems of defining lure weight. I saw no evidence their present system was broken, so they should leave it alone. The CCS really had little to offer them.

Of course, that is not completely true in the case of custom rod builders. In the course of my measurements, I formed the conclusion that a spinning rod could be considered a short fly rod mounted on an ungodly strong butt. (That is why they all have fast actions). I was attempting to develope the BIG Pictures for these rods. While I could easily get the data for the first four feet of the tip, I ended up breaking my holder with the longer stronger rods.

From the data I did obtain, I developed the following hypotheses: If one creates the BIG Picture of the first four feet of the rod tip, The minimum ERN value should relate reasonably close to the "specified lure weight." As a first approximation, one could come pretty close by just determining the ERN of the first four feet of the rod.

However, you must recognize it will be necessary to develop a new equation relating IP to lure weight (similar to the graph relating IP to line weight in my first article). This is the crux of the matter.

That's as far as I got. Now, how about some of you spinning rod makers making a few tests and telling me your results so I can determine if this hypothesis fails. The only data we need is the ERN of the first four feet of the rod tip measured in common cents and the weight of the lure you feel is optimum for that rod under "average" fishing conditions. If we can get enough data, I'm certain we can solve the problem.
Happy Holidays,
Dr. Bill