Berkley Dropshot rods?

[Jeremy87]

I'll start by saying that i don't claim to be an expert on rod building so if anyone finds anything wrong please correct me. But for all those who aren't familiar with rod building the guides are bound on then coated with a filling agent which shrinks the binding slightly and then is coated with epoxy. If the binding is put on too tightly the filling agent can push the guide foot into the blank, scratching it. As a result when load is put onto the rod it consequently breaks. This is also an issue with heavier rods as the guide foot can cut the blank when it is under load so it is underbound. Lighter rods are generally not underbound as it can alter the action of the rods (additional binding stiffens up the section of the rod near the guides causing flat spots in the rods taper). Anyway back to the point we had about 3 of the rods brought back (out of 5 or 6). All of which had failed under the binding of several guides. Graphite rods are most often broken around the tip from mis treatment or high tipping, and normally aren't broken next to the guides as the binding give additional strength to that area (for the same reason it creates flat spot in the taper). So basically it would appear that the builder had bound the guides on to tightly coupled with the fact that it was a brittle blank to begin with. Its a good idea to get a sales assistant to load up a rod for you before you buy it to make sure there are no nicks or scratches that will cause immediate failure of the blank.

[land-lubber]

cheers, thanks for that. yeah, i got the sales assistant to load her up before i bought it to cheak that, they were quite happy to do so. they also said that they were getting rid of them as too many idiots bought them for thier kids or beginners and ended up high tipping them. some didnt even make it home before they destroyed them by putting the tip into thier back windshield etc. i look after mine really well, so i havnt had that problem yet . i ended up getting a good deal on it thanks to the novices