Life time warrantys on rods

[Maxg]

PS Stuart, I know about ANSA, was in it from 1968 to 1986. Somehow I think it has changed a lot from those days. Whether it's for the better or worse is up to the believer.
I've had a few fish on record lists, and probabilities don't mean much when the temp is 40 degrees, the fish is big and it is three hours to a scale. Records get stuffed in Eskys at times. I have eaten a Spaniard or two, that were probables and threw one that was, on the rubbish heap, because it went off.
But one IGFA record that stands out is Rich's YFT on 8kg. I can look at that and say "wow".
Max

[Steve_Ooi]

Anzac thats great costumer service, i would like to see more service like that around...

Could one of the things that could be contributing to the breakage rate is the increasing attitude that if a rod can cast a mile it's great stick, and that more company are following that marketing trend and focus on making good casting rods and in return they end up with a poorer fighting rod...
Surely its a hard task to get the right balance of materials,tapers and soforth, to #make a rod that absolutely excells in all areas. At some point there must be trade offs in the overall fuction of the rod to make it excell in other areas..
The glass rods where as tough as nails and you could hang a buffalo off one, on the other hand they gave you arms like Arnold Schwarzenegger and where buggers to cast....
Let say we could increase the overall stiffness giving it better recovery, and reduce the weight and make the thing a lot lighter... here comes graphite..
Now we have a rod that responds nicely to the line weight, recovers fast and really punches that line out, why its so light i can cast it all day..
But it doesn't take the abuse so well #, especially in situation where "its give it all you've got". And in WA #those situation come up more than often...
Companies are still treading the fine line trying to build the perfect rod. Different epoxies, mixtures with titanium,Quartz all looking for better bonding systems, making the things lighter, the blanks thickness thinner experimenting with different tapers and so on.... hopefully one day they will find that utopia..
# #

Poony

[adrian]

Hi Stuart
Wehn one of my mates was up north late last year, his fishing partner, who will remane nameless shattered his band new $894 stealth fly on a big Queen fish while fish amony the pilons of the lucinda sugar jetty. When they returned to the camp ground in which the were staying, he rang through to the shop who you bought it of and had frieghted up to him. The shop was so concerned about this that they sent another replicka up to him, this rod was being used 1.5 days after he rang the shop, how is that for service and warranty.

[Maxg]

Well a fair guess is that blanks cost very ittle since they are machine rolled by the hundreds, and rods are fabricated on an assembly line, noone selling rods to a international market would produce less that thousands so the cost it only a small percentage of the retail price, which is buffered by the price of the name.
Take Temple Fork, it hasn't got a name, or didn't ,so rods are reasonably priced but are very high quality, so much so that just in the USA sage, loomis et al must have lost megabuks by this time. TFO offer a lifetime guarantee for $35 on a $180 us buk rod.
I think the test of TFO is that Ron Pearson has been beating a 12# to death lately, and has ordered one, or is it two.
This isn't a TFO advert just pointing out that you can get worthwhile guarantees on reasonably priced rods. For the record Ron says that a TFO has got a lockup point and if you push it, things go bust. Maybe we should be finding out what the lockup point in our rods is. might have fewer guarantee claims and fewer busts in the bush. Max