Glass V Graphite Rod

[spears]

Damn that was as bad as watching some guy get nutted on funniest home videos. I can feel his pain.
I would like to know the actual drag setting. I didn't think the mm rods were rated that high for drags settings. It's not the only monster mesh I have heard of breaking though although the others I know of are the older models.

You can ask him right here
http://fishwrecked.com/forum/heres-v...my-stella-8000

[MudRiverDan]

Still on an autopsy, though I have to say I think those kind of graphite rods with the extended section below the lower grips are well flawed.

For heavy work when the rod is fully loaded, it relys on the butt section strength to give the rod its full power.

With those extended rods, they have moved the grips quite high on the rod, with a great length of unused rod extending below the lower grips.

So when loaded up the rod bends from the point of resistance which is most probably your upper hand and some on the lower grip, but mostly the section just above the upper grip will take the full brunt of the force at that small point.

Hence the rod never loads up to its full potential.

Correct me if I am wrong in my observations.

Dan

[diabolical]

I think you are pretty close to mark Dan. The butt section is way more rigid than the top section causing more problems at the join.

I have a overhead pe6-8 of the same rod . I had the whole butt section rebuilt, shortened from the gimble end 3", did away with the split grips adding new grips and heavy duty reel seat. The rod feels so much better and has moved the pressure to the rod and away from the join.

[Stuart]

Got to love advertising BS. Monster mesh, super strong, incrediable strenght and all the other crap. I have been building jig and popper tossing rods since the early 90s from 30lb to 130lb and the technology back then wasnt even close to that as it is today. Some of them even had the join at the top of the grip for guys flying to Christmass Island , seems all must have that today. Whats even more surpirssing is the ones of today measure exactly the same lenght as mine did. Its a good idea to have the join that low, more material and thicker diameter = strenght. However if you miss match the rod to the drag and fast driving such as this video showed then that will be the end result. There is no such thing as a super blank, there is in advertising world. You know the one. Its the blank that you can pry the rusted old 9 inch ford brake drum off with. The tip is light enough to cast 50 grams but also cast 400gram popper if need be. You can use 32kg of drag and if you snap it, you pay $120 and you get a whole new rod that we charged you $1800 for, even if its a lagit warranty claim= illegal. If the join is done right they do offer great strenght, keep reducing the OD of the blank and is will happen. Some say my blanks are to radical, a bit to heavy, but none will cast as far, work a popper as easy or move fish as fast as what mine do. There are very defined limits as to what a blank can do, you can design it for potential problams, misuse, high sticking, drag to high and so on. But to expect a blank/rod to be as fin as a pencile and expect it to perform all those just mentioned is BS. The marketing is also getting to the point of insainity, who in there right mind belives half of that crap anyway. I was speaking with a Diawa rep last year about a new range of rods. He didnt know who I was, what I do so it was good for me to listen to. He said they take a titanium mandral, heat untill its white hot, he said around 5000C. Titanium melts at around 2900c from memory. They then roll the cloth on the mandral, dont know who tacs the cloth on by hand, must be a robot. The cloth is rolled under extrem pressure, he said around 3500 PSI, I said FAAARK they have a rolling press that can that heavy? The blank is then baked at 500c again to form a solid wall blank. His words not mine, and by the way its mostly actually all bullsh!t. Once I rattled a few things off to him he relised maybe what he was told was BS, I said it was BS. But thats the story he gave the tackle shop. Believe .0000001 % of what you read and even less of what you hear. In this day and age where compatition is cut throat anyone and everyone will do and say anything to sell stuff. Buyer beware!.

[Noelm]

I guess in a "theory" sort of way, the most pressure/strain is on a rod right where your hand is on the foregrip, just try it, get a length of anything (even polystyrene) and have someone hold one end (the tip) and you pull up, it will always break where you lift it from, so I guess any join in a rod should be below or above this point, (lets assume we are talking a decent thickness/strength walled blank) and as mentioned, almost anything can and will break, (regardless of what the advertising will have you believe) if it is abused or misused in some way, I have broken an "unbreakable" Sabre jig stick` quite a few years ago.

[Noelm]

I might add, it seems to be some sort of ego thing to have a reel that can exhert the most amount of drag, reels these days are measured in the Kg's of drag available to the angler, right or wrong is anyone's guess, but I personally don't think 50KG of drag is the be all and end all to stop and land a big fish. The pre-requisites of a new reel is 50+ bearings, 50KG of drag and a high price tag, and be made out of some sort of thermo nuclear material, if it meets these criteria, it must be good, and to a point it may well be too.

[Stuart]

Thats pretty much it mate. There is an unsaid comp going on betwen reel manufacturers to reach the highest drag rating.
The thing that p!sses me off is that most of these reels main body would crack and fail long before that effectivedrag was reached. I do a lot of heavy stand up fishing and Im a big guy, I can tell you for sure that after 15 minutes of hanging on to a 37kg outfitt with 22kg of drag. And thats with a harness and gimble belt. I have tried to hang on to one of my 80-100lb popper tossing rods with 21kg of drag for 6 minutes and almost went for a swim. I have been game fishing for many years and while technique amounts for nearly 99% a stuck drag or seized reel will result in your potential drowning. You may laugh but there has been many deaths due to this very resone. Other other side note that many dont seem to consider is lever drag reels. Many advertise x amount of drag. Ok lets assume 15kg at sunset. Now work out that this reels lever has a movement of 4 inches, some less than this. Now 4 inches of travel means you have a drag from free spool to locked up at 15kg over 4 inches. Thats 4kg per inch of travel, thats a hell of a lot and next to useless if your trying to increase the drag smoothly. I have used reels with this very drag and it was a pain in the arse trying to bump the drag up smoothly and softley. I often direct this question to reel manufacurers an d suppliers with no reply or response or even a shrug of the shoulders. So the knock on effect is often for rod companies to try and buidl rods that can handle these drag settings. I wonder what would happen if someone decided to take legal action against the reel manufacturer for injury, its a very real posibility. Lets see, that guy's rod snapped. Lets say for round figures at 80lb. He was running 20kg of drag, the reel is rated to 30kg of drag. So all that is well under the spec. He falls over hits hs head and dies, or left brain damaged. I know this may sound like BS but I know of cases in the states and hence why I took insurence when selling rods over that way. I dont think they think about the real dangers of this much drag and how guys who may very well be wet behind the ears go out and try it only to instanly relise they are about to go finding nemo. When I build unlimited stand up rods they each come with clear intructions and warnings. I also give all this to the customer well before any money changes hands. I have seen the dangers first hand of high drags and while spin outfitts arent fished with a harness the chances of going head first into the drink is still there. I watched my mate go head first into the drink trying heavy drag in the rolling and pitching boat, friggen funny to watch but the boat came down on his head as he as comeing up. He was almost knocked out from the blow.