Custom rod question

When production rods are not enough, it's time to go custom. Come share your experiences building and/or ordering a custom rod and tell us if you'll ever go back to off the shelf.
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Heavy Action
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Custom rod question

Post by Heavy Action » Sat May 14, 2011 6:38 pm

If given two identical blanks with the same ratings, power,action and length, with the only difference being one wrapped as spinning and the other casting, would the rods "fish" the same or would one be a little heavier powered than the other? Any help on this would be great.

civicrr
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Re: Custom rod question

Post by civicrr » Sat May 14, 2011 7:28 pm

Logic would dictate they would fish the same. Perhaps a better question would be, given identical blanks, would a spinning rod feel more powerful that a casting rod? :-k

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Re: Custom rod question

Post by Heavy Action » Sun May 15, 2011 5:10 am

civicrr wrote:Logic would dictate they would fish the same. Perhaps a better question would be, given identical blanks, would a spinning rod feel more powerful that a casting rod?
Thats my question exactly. The reason I ask is I have two off the shelf rods with identical blanks, one casting the other spinning, and the casting rod feels a full power heavier. I wonder if this has to do with guides(placement, number and foot type) and reel seats or if it's just the blanks.

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Re: Custom rod question

Post by civicrr » Sun May 15, 2011 7:05 am

Thinking about it a little more....
When I was fishing a lot of St Croix rods, I had the LTB Finesse (LTBS68MXF) spinning rod first. I then purchased & fished the casting version LTB Topwater (LTBC68MXF). Similarly, I owned the LTB Teaser (LTBC70MF) casting rod & later picked up the spinning LTB Tube (LTBS70MF). Through information I've gathered, which could be wrong, the blanks are the same. IIRC, I actually asked a couple of rod builders who frequent this forum & received confirmation of that information. Finished rod weights, on the St Croix website, are listed as heavier for the casting models. I've always assumed that was component differences.

Now, here is the interesting thing. While the lure range remains the same from spinning to casting, the line rating increases for the casting models. As an example, for the 7' Med power Fast action blank, 6-12lb is recommended for the spinning model. 10-17lbs is recommended for the casting model.

Is that because the casting version fishes more powerfully? Or, could it be that casting is more abusive on line?

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Re: Custom rod question

Post by STETSON1B » Sun May 15, 2011 6:47 pm

ill get back to you on this with an answer.

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jimmyb
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Re: Custom rod question

Post by jimmyb » Mon May 16, 2011 1:29 am

stcroix answers:
5c68MXF = 5s68MXF
5c70MF does not equal 5s70MF!

Now lets talk about line and lure ratings: IMO, they are useless in today's day and age! Especially with different fluoros, braids, etc. Most manufacturers throw on the number because people are used to seeing it, but you will find that it is simply just a generic number that matches the power/action of the rod. Almost all medium power rods will have a 8-17 +/- 2 lbsline rating with a 1/4-5/8 +/-1/16 lure rating!

Same blanks, spinning vs. casting: If you had identical blanks that measured exactly the same, a spinning rod would feel a bit slower or "softer" than the casting rod after it is built. This would be mainly due to the weight of the spinning guides vs casting. The longer wraps can also add to this. This effect can be minimized by using TI framed guides and/or micros. Also keep in mind that differences in handle length of casting vs spinning can also effect the feel and how you are grabbing the rod due to handle construction will effect as well.

Finally, differences in manufacturing can also effect how the "same" blanks actually measure. I have measured 15-20% differences in power on some "identical" blanks. This can be due to poor quality control (the consistency of how a flag is cut and put onto the mandrel prior to rolling) or just luck of the draw where the spine ends up (i always measure the power and action of the blanks by bending down the spine). Just by rotating a blank and building off the spine, you can can a rod's power by about 5-10% depending on how strong a spine the blank has.

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Tokugawa
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Re: Custom rod question

Post by Tokugawa » Mon May 16, 2011 5:31 am

Short answer - identical blanks won't feel the same with different builds.

Long answer - I've fished a Batson RX8 822.5 in both spinning and casting, and they feel completely different because of the reasons stated by Jimmy - handles, guide weight, distribution of the guide weight, etc...Just think of those big, heavy spinning rod guides cantilevered out compared to micros on a casting stick. The two configurations will fish completely differently, especially at the upper and lower limits.

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Re: Custom rod question

Post by civicrr » Mon May 16, 2011 8:00 am

jimmyb wrote:stcroix answers:
5c68MXF = 5s68MXF
5c70MF does not equal 5s70MF!
Thanks for the info. I appreciate the correction. :D
jimmyb wrote:Now lets talk about line and lure ratings: IMO, they are useless in today's day and age! Especially with different fluoros, braids, etc. Most manufacturers throw on the number because people are used to seeing it, but you will find that it is simply just a generic number that matches the power/action of the rod. Almost all medium power rods will have a 8-17 +/- 2 lbsline rating with a 1/4-5/8 +/-1/16 lure rating!
Unfortunately, those numbers are all that most of the buying public has to use when selecting a rod, especially a 'off the shelf' product. Since there really is no standard for rod powers (Medium, Med Heavy, etc) and even different lines within the same brand can actually exhibit different powers, consumers are dependent on the line & lure ranges as specified by the mfg. As most rods are purchased 'off the shelf', I would argue that those rating are actually very important.

Since this is a discussion about custom rods, I will acknowledge there are many builders who have, either through experience or a custom fixture designed to compare a rod/blanks power and/or characteristics, no need for those ratings. While I applaud the knowledge & skill of these craftsman, one also needs to be aware of those entering the field. These new builders need some basis for comparison in order to actually make what the customer is expecting.

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Re: Custom rod question

Post by Sportive » Mon May 16, 2011 8:29 am

civicrr wrote:
jimmyb wrote:stcroix answers:
Since this is a discussion about custom rods, I will acknowledge there are many builders who have, either through experience or a custom fixture designed to compare a rod/blanks power and/or characteristics, no need for those ratings. While I applaud the knowledge & skill of these craftsman, one also needs to be aware of those entering the field. These new builders need some basis for comparison in order to actually make what the customer is expecting.
I completely agree. I'm in this situation, and sometimes it's very difficult to find what you are looking for. If you add that here in Europe it's only easy to find fly blanks in the shops it's even more complicated ](*,)

IMO should be a "standart power rating" that it's pretty easy to do, like the CCS or similar, but with all the blanks available in the market. The line or weight recomendations are less important, just need to know how much the blank bends with 1 kg i.e. and where begins.

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Re: Custom rod question

Post by Heavy Action » Mon May 16, 2011 5:36 pm

Thanks guys for clearing this up for me, I was losing sleep over pouring through every rod building forum I could find that made any sense of this matter.

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jimmyb
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Re: Custom rod question

Post by jimmyb » Tue May 17, 2011 1:49 am

civicrr wrote: Unfortunately, those numbers are all that most of the buying public has to use when selecting a rod, especially a 'off the shelf' product. Since there really is no standard for rod powers (Medium, Med Heavy, etc) and even different lines within the same brand can actually exhibit different powers, consumers are dependent on the line & lure ranges as specified by the mfg. As most rods are purchased 'off the shelf', I would argue that those rating are actually very important.

Since this is a discussion about custom rods, I will acknowledge there are many builders who have, either through experience or a custom fixture designed to compare a rod/blanks power and/or characteristics, no need for those ratings. While I applaud the knowledge & skill of these craftsman, one also needs to be aware of those entering the field. These new builders need some basis for comparison in order to actually make what the customer is expecting.

"those numbers" line and lure ratings are very arbitrary. No different than rod powers, so there really is no benefit to them! You can try to trick yourself and "figure things out" but you are just gonna end up frustrated until you actually handle and feel a rod or get access to real information from other builders that have measured the rods.

Long story short, but there was a group of us that measured rods (RDA) and built a very large database but were forced underground because of stupid actions and threatened lawsuits by some in the rod building community. gotta love egos...
Right now the best alternative you have is the ROD measurements that tackletour uses on their rod comparisons.

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Tokugawa
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Re: Custom rod question

Post by Tokugawa » Tue May 17, 2011 2:23 am

jimmyb wrote:Long story short, but there was a group of us that measured rods (RDA) and built a very large database but were forced underground because of stupid actions and threatened lawsuits by some in the rod building community. gotta love egos...
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