Josh, You asked in the previous post about high modulus blanks. Painting a blank is a good way to throw away a lot of the advantages of the high modulus.
Forum: rodboard

Bob, Your posts are no fun any more. They were a lot more fun before you put a penny in place of a fuse so that the fuse does not blow any longer in your spell checker. See you in April.
Forum: rodboard

I think that the thing that a rod builder should not lose sight of is that the customer determines the price the builder does not. The customer determines the price because the customer always has alternatives. I also think that if the cost of the rod builders components and overhead make him price too high then he should work on reducing the cost of the components and overhead and not automati
Forum: rodboard

I disagree with most of the above. If you want to be successful at rod building I do not think that your costs should have a darn thing to do with your pricing. Your pricing should be a function of the value of your rod and what the customers alternatives are. And that value is the value from the customers point of view not from your point of view. The difficult part of pricing your rod will
Forum: rodboard

Steve, Yes, you have a very good point. Obviously I should have given it a little more thought before shooting off my mouth.
Forum: rodboard

Why would you extend the blank with high modulus material and then add weight to the butt of the rod? If you use standard modulus material for the extension, regardless of the modulus that the blank is made from, the result will be a tougher rod and it will not be necessary to add as much weight to the butt of the rod.
Forum: rodboard

Walker, If after discussing it with the customer, as was suggested, you find that the customer does in fact want a rod that has a faster action then any of the available blanks do not give up. There is a way to build the rod that the customer wants by extending a fast action blank that is available. If you start with a fast action blank that has the power that you want and is about 6' long an
Forum: rodboard

Bill, You are right that you are not doing any work just because the weight is there because work is by definition mass times distance. However, the minute you move the weight up or down or sideways work is being done. You are also in error in saying that no calories are being burned. The presence of the weight results in calories being burned even if the weight is not moving. You must burn
Forum: rodboard

Doug, Density is the mass per unit of volume. What is called mass density is the mass per unit of length. These do not change as the size of a material changes, or the diameter of a line changes. If the elasticity of the material is ignored then as a vibration goes from a material of lower density to a material of higher density the amplitude of the vibration will decrease. If the vibration
Forum: rodboard

Matthew, No, it is not a matter of opinion, it is a question of physics and the difference is the physics can be proven.
Forum: rodboard

Joe, Thank you. That is really a cool site. I hope that people will look at it and think about what they are seeing. And you are right on with your comment about waves being waves being waves. I would point out though that the site makes a point about the velocity of the waves. When the amplitude increases the velocity decreases and when the amplitude decreases the velocity increases. This
Forum: rodboard

Mathew, As the vibration or "bump" travels up the line and through the rod to the fisherman's hand each time it comes to a material that has a different mechanical impedance some of the energy will continue on into the new material and some will be reflected back toward the source. So at each of these points, called discontinuities, some energy is lost. However, as the vibration trav
Forum: rodboard

Bill, I was referring just to a carbon fiber rod. I do not know anything about the Fuji micro tips.
Forum: rodboard

Tensile strength does drop as a load is applied more and more rapidly but a fisherman setting the hook cannot apply a load to a rod rapidly enough to have a significant affect on the strength under tension or under compression. I looked this up a year or so ago and do not remember the numbers but I do remember that the load had to be applied very rapidly to have a significant affect on the stren
Forum: rodboard

Dan, I would agree that the variables that you mention affect what an individual fisherman will sense and I will also agree that the line has a very large affect on what is sensed by a fisherman. However, if we are referring to the sensitivity of the rod then in my opinion all of the variables must be eliminated that are not a property of the rod itself. If we are interested in the sensitivity
Forum: rodboard

I think that I am going to go take my temperature to make sure that I am OK. I find myself in total agreement with both Tom and Steve in the same thread and it is a thread about sensitivity.
Forum: rodboard

Victor, You are correct. Coatings are pretty dense so they drive up the mass density and that is the main affect they have on sensitivity. The density and the thickness of the coatings will vary but can be more significant than you might guess. I measured the weight of a Steelhead blank with and without a finish coating a few years ago and if my memory serves me correctly the difference was a
Forum: rodboard

Victor, Your assumption is correct, it is due to the higher mass density. The loss in sensitivity due to the fact that many fishermen use much stronger braided line than they would use if using mono.
Forum: rodboard

That is great news. It does not make much sense to only increse the modulus of elasticity of the material because the strain energy goes down directly with increased modulus of elasticity. Have they increased the strengths, tensile and compression? The strain energy actually goes up twice as fast as the increase in strength. A doubling of strength will result in four times the strain energy
Forum: rodboard

Tom, We're listening, what is it? I assume that you are referring to something other than nano-fibers.
Forum: rodboard

Doug, You are right that the higher the tension on the line the higher the amplitude of the vibrations coming up the line will be. The tension on the line plus the mechanical impedance of the line are the two primary factors as far as the line is concerned. The mechanical impedance is determined by the mass density (mass per unit of length) and the elasticity (stretch). Braided line is dramat
Forum: rodboard

Phil, If you actually believe that they have some sort of sixth sense that is independent of sight or feel or the equipment that they are using then I have a bridge that I might be interested in selling you. It goes from Brooklyn to Manhattan and is called the Brooklyn Bridge. It is in really good shape and I will let it go for a very good price.
Forum: rodboard

The highest sensitivity situation would be to take the rod completely out of the picture. To hold the line directly in your hand. But I am not sure that is the answer you were looking for. The most sensitivie material from which to construct a rod will be the material that has the lowest mass density and the lowest elasticity. Carbon fiber is an excellent material in this respect. It has a h
Forum: rodboard

Doug, The energy from the fish's bite that comes up the line has both frequency and amplitude just as you suggested. And whether we sense it or not is also a function of both the frequency and the amplitude. The range of frequencies that we can feel is much narrower than what we can hear but the frequencies that we can feel extends down to much lower frequencies than we can hear. At high ampl
Forum: rodboard

This fella sent me an e-mail as well and frankly Tom was correct and I misjudged him. I thought that he was just a con man but I was wrong. After reading over his e-mail it was clear that he is actually sincere and believes the baloney on his web site. His e-mail also made it very clear that he is not the source for the baloney. It comes from a baloney source that is well known in some rod bu
Forum: rodboard

Roger, I am going to try to say this one more time. The sensitivity of a ROD or how well a ROD will transfer the energy in the fish's bite to the fisherman's hand can be measured and quantified. Once this energy gets to the fisherman's hand it becomes feel and is subjective and cannot be measured or quantified, at least not by me and I do not think by you either. In my judgment this means tha
Forum: rodboard

Doug, Frankly, the last thing in the world that I want to do is try to measure or quantify how you feel or attemp to quantify your subjective opinions. In fact, I think that it is a waste of time for us to discuss it any longer. If you want to discount any rational analysis or proof that is your business, your right. Do you also believe in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus? I know where
Forum: rodboard

Doug & Roger, We are not going to be able to build the best possible rods or improve the rods that we build unless we understand what the real variables are and we are not going to be able to have rational conversations about these variables unless we have a common understanding of what the words that we use mean. I do not actually believe that there is a problem with the words. I think th
Forum: rodboard

Roger, There is much of what you say about Bass fishing technique that I would not argue with. But the tension on a line being one variable that determines how well the line transmits vibration or transmits input energy is not my opinion it is physics. The same is true for added weight reducing sensitivity or feel.
Forum: rodboard

Doug, When I use the word vibration, for lack of a more descriptive term, I mean any change in the tension on the line, a supple tap, a jerk even a reduction in the tension on the line. I have no doubt that you are correct about what you SEE with a slack line. And I have no reason to doubt that you are correct about Bass fishing technique. But I can guarantee you that the more tension on a l
Forum: rodboard