THE LOWDOWN ON GRAPHENE

 

"As a highly specialized and engineering-oriented blank manufacturer, we often get asked about materials, and what are truly the best fabrics for making blanks".   CTS Fishing New Zealand   A number of you have asked about graphene lately - here's the lowdown as I can gather.  Graphene was the name given to a single layer of connected carbon atoms when they were first observed in the 1960's. It is made, in elementary terms, by removing or 'peeling' a single layer of atoms, off a lump or sheet of graphite.

 

The current commercial industry practice within the recreational composites market is to mix a small amount of graphene flakes, commonly called Nanopowder, into the resin that makes the carbon fiber epoxy impregnated material (prepeg) that fishing blanks are made from. CTS investigated graphene as an additive to our resin system some years ago. We found no evidence that adding graphene nanopowder to the epoxy resin improved any of the characteristics we were looking for in a material for fishing rods. Conversely, we found evidence that adding more than 10% nanopowder to the epoxy matrix, increases its brittleness. In a fishing rod we rely on toughened epoxy resin systems to distribute impact shocks, protect the laminate and support the fiber in compression.  One of the main benefits of adding graphene nano powder to composite materials is to improve electrical conductivity. Naturally, not something we're particularly wanting to do with fishing rods! We concluded that adding a bit of graphene to our resins might be good for the marketing department and our ability to sell a higher priced product, but marginally detrimental to performance. CTS is at the forefront of any developments in the composite industry. We attend trade shows around the world in search of the latest advances in both materials, equipment and procedures.  Our in-house test lab provides us with real world data, with testing specific to our requirements. It's where we constantly ask the question: "Does it improve on what we have?"  We live and breathe our 'Hooked on Technology' mantra. With CTS, you can be assured you are getting the best, most advanced blanks in the world.  CTS is about Performance. Pure. Simple. At TheFlySpokeShop.com we proudly sell CTS blanks and use CTS blanks for our custom builds.  You will not find better from any maker of fine quality fly rod blanks.

Fly Rod Power And How It Transfers To The Fly

Fly rods are very simple primitive tools.  They have two key factors that enhance our ability to make them transfer power to energy and complete a work output.  For this discussion I will limit the details to single hand fly rods.  Two handed rods have additional information needed and because they originate in a different way, we will need to talk about them in another post.

First, is the bending power that is generally referred to as the weight.  The rod is bent while casting and un bends when the cast stops.  Our body creates power that is transferred as energy to the rod and then transferred at the tip top to the line.  Every rod has a certain amount of weight, that it can withstand, when bending before it will fail and break.  The tube will go out of round and collapse.  Hence, a 3 weight will accept less bent weight than an 8 weight.  

Fly line companies are governed by The American Fly Fishing Trade Association(AFFTA) as to the total grain weight of the first thirty feet of a fly line.  Yes, as you can see on the attached chart, there is a range. 

 

So, the obvious reason for having this knowledge would be to make appropriate line choices.  A very key factor that this chart does not take into focus is the length of the head itself.  It really only deals with a static thirty feet.  What we need to do is know what our casting day will be.

Let's say you will be fishing a very small brook and your casts will only be in the twenty foot range.  In this case you will want the weight of the line to be in the first twenty feet so extra power will not be required to bend the rod.  Some anglers will step up a line weight in this condition.  Then there is the opposite condition.  We are casting sixty to seventy five feet with a long head line where extra weight is always out of the tip.  Now a reduction in the weight of the first thirty feet might be required.  Having the fly line industry dictate to the fly rod industry the bending and breaking strength of our equipment can only be for it's stated condition.  Thirty Feet.   It helps to know the weight of a line before making the purchase.

The second factor is the speed that the rod will recover to straight.  This determines the action classification.   When I am fishing for striped bass I go extra fast.  For trout a slower rod is advisable.  Tippet and fish size can be your guide for a rods action choice. 

Today we have so many line and rod choices.  At The FlySpoke Shop, we build most rods for specific use and condition.  We still have the 9'0" 5 weight customer but so many are now fishing in Euro and single hand Spey swinging styles that require advantage in the rod length  and tip temper.  

A great advantage we have is the custom ability for creating reduction rods.  Most are ten to eleven feet and range between three and seven weights.  These blanks also work as float centerpin rods.  It's having the tip be reduced that makes for light tippet possibilities.  For these rods I use switch style lines that have forward belly weight so overhead casting is not required.  

How we manipulate a fly rod is determined by the condition of the moment.  How we achieve the optimal for that moment is determined by choices.  It all starts with the fly and moves up the system with the rod last.  The fly is the lure.     

Bobber Down

Over the last six months I have started building high quality Float Rods using CTS Blanks.  It started out using the blanks CTS sells.  A range between thirteen and fifteen feet.

These blanks are wonderful for larger rivers and larger fish like King Salmon and Steelhead.  What FlySpoke has added are three distinctive eleven foot blanks to be used as Micro to Ultra Micro Trout Float Rods.

Because float fishing requires a flip of weight and bobber, it is important that the tip section of the rod be able to bend and flip a float.  Also the tip section needs to be able to play larger fish on light tippets.

We created three blanks for this purpose.  All are eleven feet.  Because they were derived from fly blanks lets talk in  those terms.  In addition to being float blanks they make incredible Euro nymphing rods.  They are also included in our CTS Affinity X collections.  The base is three, four and five weight with the tip section reduced by one weight.  So they become 5/4, 4/3 and 3/2.

If you have any interest in Float, Centerpin or Euro Nymph fishing please visit us at TheFlySpokeShop.com