How could you improve on carbon?

[Ken L]

Carbon nanotubes !

Now if ever there was a material with future potential for structural composites (like fishing rods) then this has to be it. Yes, it's carbon but is about as similar to grafite as a lump of coal is to a diamond.

The price might put some people off. At the monent it comes in at about $10,000 per gram.

Oh yes, there is one other slight problem, it conducts electricity about as well as a suit of copper armor.

 

[ 25 May 2002, 12:57 AM: Message edited by: Ken L ]

[Spindle]

Newt:

Newt:

A material that did'nt conduct electricity so

efficiently might be more desirable.....

Boron is a poor conductor at any temperature you will find while fishing. E-glass is a non-conductor. So, a boron/glass composite will give you a light, strong, non-conducting fishing tool.

Sounds good - has anybody made a rod out of this composite?

[Vagabond]

Just out of interest, does anyone else own and USE greenheart rods. I have a few greenheart fly rods - my favourite being a 9 ft single handed eight-weight grilse rod.

 

It is amusing, this obsession with lightness in rods - at 68, I can still cast all day with my greenheart rods (are we men or mice?). As someone has said, its not the rod, its the angler behind it.

[Peter Waller]

Vagabond, for years I had two greenheart sea boat rods. Sea defences were made of green heart, so, with a draw knife, there was a plentiful supply! They were never bettered and were the most responsive boat rods that I ever used. Eventually they snapped off at the butt ferrules. I refitted the ferrules and got a few more years use till they eventually snapped mid section. Long fractures so glued them up but never the same. Eventually, as I understand it, they dry out and go brittle. My rods must have been over sixty years old, (my grandfather had made them during the 1930's,) before they finally gave up the ghost. They were no heavier than their split cane equivalants. He had also made a delightful salmon fly rod for my mother, for her 21st. That lasted many a long year. I still have, and still use, a trout spinning rod. As sweet an action as you could hope for, certainly nicer than a Wanless Wand that I also have of the same length etc. A delight to use, just waiting for it to die gracefully though! A very under-rated material by the purists. Primarily, I suppose, because it tends to snap, eventually!