glass vs graphite

[Paul Arden]

Beginners can tell the difference between rod too. They might not get the same out of them that an expert casters can, but they certainly have preferences. I’m no expert in fine cuisine or fine wines, but I certainly have preferences.

Totally shagged. FP in the making

Cheers, Paul

[VGB]

I have a wide range of preferences, it’s probably why I have to count my calories

[Paul Arden]

There is a strange thing that’s happened. Beginners struggle to cast very stiff rods. (I don’t know what Lasse makes of that but no doubt it is psychological for him and not physical) however if you put a very stiff rod in your average caster’s hands then many can’t form serviceable loops. Even something like the HT6 with a MED5 which was tested. Ie the original Comp5, which is a noodle compared to what we throw now.

So it follows that to cast stiff rods you need to be an expert. But many casters who have expertise in fly casting and fishing find these rods too stiff for their purposes also.

Very stiff rods are a mistake for almost all fishing circumstances IMO. I know that’s subjective.

I would suggest however, that if you can’t double haul a rated rod as I would rate them, then you should overline by one for distance. Actually I would suggest that you/they/everyone learns to double haul.

And then we have marketing. If customers want very stiff rods, and very stiff rods sell, and customers want lines incorrectly numbered, and incorrectly numbered lines sell, then this is also a driving force.

It’s of no surprise then that fibreglass rods have “feel” because carbon rods became rods with less and less feel. But that’s not the material. That’s just the design trend, with companies following Sage. If you want a very flexible rod then carbon is the way to go, because it has less weight and recovers better.

If you want something you can use as an axe then fibreglass is better.

I think this whole discussion was dead 40 years ago. But rod design mistakes reopened it. Not the material. Your average carbon fly fishing rod was better 30 years ago. In fact some of the best carbon fibre rods I’ve cast were 30 years ago. That’s not to say they couldn’t be improved, because they could. It’s just that design went largely in another direction.

Cheers, Paul

[Torsten]

Hi,

I'd just like to mention (again) that rod stiffness is only partially related to the material - you can create the same action, overall stiffness of a rod with both materials. Just the diameter of the glass-blank has to be higher. The disadvantage of a glass rod with the same action is the higher MOI, because of the higher density of glass fibers and you need more material for the same bending stiffness.

The advantage of glass fibre is the "Elongation at Break", ~5% for glass and ~2% for carbon fibre that means you can stretch the fibres more until they break. Most other properties are worse than (modern) carbon fibre.

A good site for material properties is matweb
https://www.matweb.com

S-glass is here
https://www.matweb.com/search/DataSheet ... a09&ckck=1

On the other hand, toughness of rods depends on the design, there are big game carbon rods - I'm sure if you change the fibre orientation it's possible to build robust carbon blanks. Carbon fly blanks are optimized for weight and not robustness, that's why they more brittle than glass blanks.

Not all carbon rods are stiff for the given line class, I'm sure it depends on the strategy of the rod maker. E.g. this is a product to mimic bamboo rod actions:
Douglas Upstream
https://douglasoutdoors.com/fly-rods/upstream-series/

Merlin:

Scott have been making (small) glass rods for years, I own two of them, built at different times (30 years in between or something).

Sure, but the latest glass trend looks to me different, e.g. in Germany popularized by the "Seele" fly rods, you can find for instance glass streamer rods. Here is an article about this tackle trend, I'd say it started mid 2000s
https://midcurrent.com/gear/glass-fly-r ... e-to-stay/

Greetings,
Torsten

[VGB]

Here is an article about this tackle trend, I'd say it started mid 2000s

I’d suggest that more people became aware of glass rods in mid 2000s due to the internet, the fiberglass fly Rodger’s forum was launched by TFM about 2005.

However, glass rods were commercially available continuously much earlier, Steffan Bros launched in 1980, I guess Fenwick/Lamiglas/Eagle Claw/Diamondglas may have been around longer. E-glass rods are still being manufactured if anyone is interested.

https://www.graywolfrods.com/product-pa ... ass-blanks

I'm sure if you change the fibre orientation it's possible to build robust carbon blanks.

I wonder how a carbon rod manufactured to be as damage resistant as an equivalent glass rod would perform?

Regards

Vince

[VGB]

Rodders not Rodgers

Correct blank link, top 2 rows:

https://www.graywolfrods.com/search?q=E+glass

[VGB]

Scott have been making (small) glass rods for years, I own two of them, built at different times (30 years in between or something). One is a 5 piece, the other one is a 3 piece supposed to be made of a different glass grade. It is sanded, not like the 5p one. However they have exactly the same characteristics (including dynamic ones). One is a #4, the other a #3. Line rating is a variable thing among different series of rods (with objective data references), and building a rod scale is possible as long as you are not disturbed by overlaps in stiffness.

This might interest you:

https://wiki.fiberglassflyrodders.com/wiki/Scott

Other than a few pre-1973 rods built on Lamiglas blanks by Harry Wilson, Scott glass has had at least 5 separate generations:

original yellow glass, slightly on the amber/orange end of the spectrum, built for Scott by Cal Tackle Co from 1973 to 1976-ish
same glass, same mandrels, same patterns with a slightly different yellow color going just slightly toward the green end of the spectrum. The color change reflected a change in the pigment in the pre-preg used in 1976 and 1977
brown glass, simply a different pigment, a conscious color change by Scott. The blanks were still rolled by Cal Tackle on the same mandrels and patterns, from about 1978 to 1981
the brown S-glass rolled on new mandrels by Scott itself starting in 1993, but without the internal sleeves of the earlier Wilson era glass rods
the black S-glass rolled on those same new mandrels beginning around 1996, also without the internal sleeves

[Lasse Karlsson]

There is a strange thing that’s happened. Beginners struggle to cast very stiff rods. (I don’t know what Lasse makes of that but no doubt it is psychological for him and not physical) however if you put a very stiff rod in your average caster’s hands then many can’t form serviceable loops. Even something like the HT6 with a MED5 which was tested. Ie the original Comp5, which is a noodle compared to what we throw now.

So it follows that to cast stiff rods you need to be an expert. But many casters who have expertise in fly casting and fishing find these rods too stiff for their purposes also.


Cheers, Paul

Hi Paul

HT6 is very much like the tcr 590, used to be my go to rod when teaching, before I broke it and sage wanted my first born to repair it. It's not the rod that makes your average caster not able to cast a line, loops are byproducts, get over trying to put the cart before the horse. It's that your average caster has got a flawed movement, and it's magnified with a slightly stiffer rod, than what they are used to, and often also a much heavier line... oh and yeah, psychological too. If 200 punters with absolutely certainty say its the rod, then one instructor saying it isn't, moves nothing but air...

A good instructor can teach a beginner to throw a line with a broomstick, it's been tested.

Cheers
Lasse

[Paul Arden]

My first flyrod was a fibreglass Pfleguer. Around 1980. I still have it in Hungary. I haven’t checked in a while but it might still be vibrating.

[VGB]

Butt section of a noodle