"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.