Rod Building Materials

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Would you like to have your own custom fishing rod? Think you can't afford it.Well think again, you can, especially if you build it yourself. Just imagine a fishing rod custom made for the type of fishing that you do most. A rod that is the right length with the right handle size, shape and material that fits you comfortably. The right type and amount of guides plus it is the color combination that you desire. This last item may not seem like much, but if you are making it yourself, you can do anything you like from mild to wild, whatever your heart desires. With this in mind, I'm going to explain and show you how to do it yourself. The first few months of articles will cover the basics and some theory and background into rod building.

To start off with this in this series, I'm going to talk about rod materials, past and present. Many different materials have been used in the past to make fishing rods. Let's get one thing out of the way early on, notice that I use the word "rod" and not "pole". Fishing poles are typically made from Calcutta Cane or Bamboo with a piece of string tied to a hook or safety pin, just like Huckleberry Finn. These are not rods in the sense that we are talking about, so this is my last reference to fishing poles.

Getting back off my soap box, some of the materials used in fishing rod construction have been various types of wood, bamboo and cane. Metals including solid spring steel, tubular steel and beryllium copper. Synthetic materials starting with solid fiberglass, hollow fiberglass, graphite, boron and KevlarÆ. Plus there are probably some others I've never heard of and or forgotten about. Of all these materials, what we have left with us today are cane, solid fiberglass, tubular fiberglass ("E" glass and "S" glass), graphite, and graphite / glass composites.

Tonkin Cane is being used primarily to manufacture high quality fly rods, with some casting and spinning rods also being built by a few. Blanks are available from a few sources, plus some excellent books are available on the subject of building your own from scratch. Contact your rod building supply source for these. We will not be going into detail about this particular part of custom rod building at this time. Solid fiberglass is also available from a few sources. It's main claim to fame is that it is extremely durable and inexpensive without many other qualities. Primarily used for childrens rods, ice rods, and heavy boat (rental) rods.

"E" glass is used for probably 90% of the fiberglass fishing rods in use today. It is heavier for its strength than "S" glass, but is extremely durable, and moderately priced. "S" glass is a stronger stiffer material than "E" glass, but has been usually made with extremely thin walls, making it susceptible to fracturing or breaking much easier than "E" glass or graphite. However with the proper rod design it is a great material and used frequently in freshwater spinning steelhead type rods.

Graphite (carbon fiber) is broken down into various degrees of modulus. The modulus of elasticity (resistance to bending) of graphite is called out in terms such as 24,000,000 (million) modulus, 33,000,000, 42,000,000, etc.. The numbers represent the stiffness (strength) to weight ratio of the materials in relation to each other. The higher the the modulus, the stronger the material is for its weight. These numbers seem to be used today more as an advertising ploy than anything else. Basically the higher the numbers, the smaller the diameter of the blank and the less weight. If a manufacturer doesn't publish the modulus of a material, doesn't mean that their product isn't any good. The opposite is also true, it really comes down to what feels good to you and works for you.

The final material in use today is a graphite / glass composite. This is used primarily for light to heavy saltwater and some bass fishing applications. This is manufactured typically in the past by making a graphite butt for the stiffness and strength and blending in an "E" or "S" glass tip. A new type of composite being built has graphite and fiberglass being used the full length of the blank. I'm sure that more new and exciting materials will be forthcoming, but these are the ones that I am aware of at this time and will be covering in this series.

Most of the early materials have obvious reasons for not being around any longer, but boron is gone for a not so obvious reason. Graphite has been improved by making it stiffer, stronger and lighter, which gives you a smaller diameter rod with less weight. Boron achieved all of this very handily, but it was dead, like fishing with a wet 2 X 4. KevlarÆ, which is more of a fiberglass material died for similar reasons.

These are my opinions expressed above, and not necessarily the opinions of all people in the rod building profession.