[Derek McLaren]

I will take my scales in to work tomorrow and weigh it, will do the others whilst I am at it.


Cheers

Ben

Hi Ben, Have you found time to weigh the rods yet 

cheers

 

[Ben Dixon]

I have more than had time but have forgotten to take the scales into work for the last two days, I am sat looking at them now, they are next to my car keys so I should not forget them tomorrow!!

Ben

[Derek McLaren]

I have more than had time but have forgotten to take the scales into work for the last two days, I am sat looking at them now, they are next to my car keys so I should not forget them tomorrow!!

Ben

cool   

[Mike Barrio]

Hi guys

I find the weight thing fascinating, some folk seem to base this on the "weight" of the rod and others on the "feel" of the rod.

Do you know what I mean? If you put a rod on a set of scales, it will either be physically lighter or heavier than another rod, simple really. But, if you hold the rod in your hand and cast with it, you may well find the same rod will "feel" the opposite, ie lighter instead of heavier, or vice versa?

I guess a lot of this is to do with the amount of effort required to perform a certain cast ...... popular thoughts being that "If the rod is lighter it will require less effort to produce the same cast?"

Best wishes
Mike

[Magnus Angus]

Hi Mike

With some others I've worked on exactly that issue. Simple mass, ie rod weight, doesn't give enough information. We need an idea like Swingweight which is not uncommon in other sports. So we came up with this http://www.sexyloops.com/articles/swingweight.pdf which is a technical article - the principle author is a Norwegian physicist, Grunde Lovoll, the article gives the physics and maths background and justification behind a Rod Swingweight.
From that we took it a step farther by producing a Swingweight calculator http://www.sexyloops.com/eric/moi.php
With some simple balancing, to give lengths and then straightforward weights the calculator produces a figure for the Mass Moment of Inertia for a rod. Sounds intimidating but is a simple number. Compare the numbers and you know which rod will 'feel' lighter in the hand when we're casting - even if the weights of the whole rods on the scales are exactly the same.

This is the introduction to the Swingweight article

The term "swingweight" (or "swing weight") is well established in many sports which use a bat, club or racquet. In those sports, swingweight means the moment of inertia around a predetermined axis. We use the term swingweight to mean the moment of inertia of a single handed fly-rod around an axis at the butt of the rod. This standardizes usage and distinguishes swingweight from the moment of inertia around any other axis { particularly around the center of mass.

Moment of inertia (MOI) is resistance of an object to rotational acceleration. Greater MOI requires more torque to achieve the same rate of angular acceleration. So, the greater the MOI of a fly-rod the more force (torque) is needed to cast or manoeuvre that rod.

MOI is strongly dependent on mass distribution and distance from the axis of rotation. The dependence on distance from the axis is quadratic, so MOI increases with the square of distance to the axis of rotation. The following will generally be true:

    * Long rods will have higher MOI than shorter rods of similar build and/or mass.
    * Mass in the tip of the rod is much more important than the mass in the lower part of the rod (reel seat and grip).
    * Rods with heavy blanks will have higher MOI than rods with light blanks.

[Rob Brownfield]

Mike,
You are spot on with that. I have a Bloke XL50 which when you take it out the tube, feels incredibly light however, stick a line through it and cast and I find it heavy and quite frankly, dull. (Its the 7 weight) I have spoken to a few XL50 owners about this and it seems that the 7 weight has a bit of a reputation for this but the lighter rods in the range (as in line weight) feel lighter when casting, as I found out when I borrowed Iains one at Glentaner.

I also had two of my 9 weights built up, one with a Struble Saltwater Titanium reel seat which is very heavy, the other with a standard fuji reel seat, very light.

The rod with the heavy reel seat felt so light to cast, the other felt tip heavy. Identical blanks and identical fittings except the seat.

[Derek McLaren]

Mike,
You are spot on with that. I have a Bloke XL50 which when you take it out the tube, feels incredibly light however, stick a line through it and cast and I find it heavy and quite frankly, dull. (Its the 7 weight) I have spoken to a few XL owners about this and it seems that the 7 weight has a bit of a reputation for this but the lighter rods in the range (as in line weight) feel lighter when casting, as I found out when I borrowed Iains one at Glentaner.

I also had two of my 9 weights built up, one with a Struble Saltwater Titanium reel seat which is very heavy, the other with a standard fuji reel seat, very light.

The rod with the heavy reel seat felt so light to cast, the other felt tip heavy. Identical blanks and identical fittings except the seat.

Rob, are we speaking about the 10 foot XL 50 ,I liked the rod but found it tip heavy,I was also lucky enough to try the XL 50 9 Ft 5 weight and it was very good but it all goes back to the saying try before you buy.
I must admit if i am buying a rod the weight is a big consideration  ,maybe it's all in the head but if you dont feel good about the rod you wont be giving your full attention to the    .
Must admit the Helios 10 Ft 7 weight is one magic wand

 

[Rob Brownfield]

It is the 9 foot 7 weight...i bought it for saltwater sea trouting...if i was honest..its a bloody awlful rod..my 15 year old Norboron is a million times better   

[Ben Dixon]

Monksmyre,

I eventually got around to weighing the rods, the weights are as follows.

105  102.7g
966  105.5g
967  106.4g
107  112.9g
117  117.3g
108  118.9g

Makes them lighter than what they were designed to compete with!!

If anyone really wants to know, I have the mass of each section too.

Cheers

Ben

[Derek McLaren]

Monksmyre,

I eventually got around to weighing the rods, the weights are as follows.

105  102.7g
966  105.5g
967  106.4g
107  112.9g
117  117.3g
108  118.9g

Makes them lighter than what they were designed to compete with!!

If anyone really wants to know, I have the mass of each section too.

Cheers

Ben

Thanks very much for the info ,that must make the 10Ft #7 about 3.9oz ,that seems ok for a 10 footer ,how much are they selling for in banchory 

[Ben Dixon]

Thanks very much for the info ,that must make the 10Ft #7 about 3.9oz ,that seems ok for a 10 footer ,how much are they selling for in banchory 

They are quite light and light where it matters, they feel good in the hand, will have the above rods with us on Sunday.

Cheers

Ben

[Mike Barrio]

Hi Magnus

Having researched and worked with CCS, ERN and MOI etc ...... which do you think is the most useful to both rodbuilders and anglers? If you were only allowed to use one method to measure and compare fly rods, which would you choose and what do you think would be the benefits?

Great topic this!
Best wishes
Mike

[Magnus Angus]

Pretty academic question Mike. If you know what you like or want and/or have the figures for what you have, then you can figure out some things about how a rod should behave before you cast it. CCS and MOI are valuable if you can't simply get your grubby paw on the rod and try it, also useful for making more informed comparisons.

If I had one method for choosing a rod I'd cast it and fish with it - does that count as two methods? (I'd also try it with a selection of lines above and below the designated line-weight and work through casting those lines at all the distances I'd expect to fish.)

[Mike Barrio]

If I had one method for choosing a rod I'd cast it and fish with it - does that count as two methods? (I'd also try it with a selection of lines above and below the designated line-weight and work through casting those lines at all the distances I'd expect to fish.)

Hi Magnus

Yes, you can't beat "try before you buy"

Cheers
Mike