Maxg
17-05-2002, 09:39 PM
Hi guys I'm putting this here because its a nice place. If you chop it OK, But It's my last word on ths subject. if you want more get the Book.
Truth should be allowed to be aired. Sometimes people who you think are wizards are wankers.
This is 2002 we are in, not 1860, the industrial revolution is over, long gone, technical expertise has gone ahead in leaps and bounds. Men have been on the moon. #We all know that, don’t #we.?
The weight of fly reels is not really a problem, in fact the amount of weight loss due to material removal is small, when you consider fly line and backing weight. You can shift the reel balance position on the rod by playing with the foot. You can also remove metal without breaking into the spool inner surface. You can also not bother, which should reduce machine time, preparation and polishing time and reduce costs for a better performance. #That should interest everybody. You could ask those manufacturers whom I have maligned ???? why they don’t do any or either of those things.
I was offered, by the system, a Tibor Gulfstream for guide price. $250 US. That is 250buks US and they make a profit. So why the big buks to joe blo. Makes you wonder about the price of Abels. Sorry Ted, but them’s the breaks.
Lets get something straight. I am not totally insane. #I am not an ex Taxi driver or pastry cook I have a brain, even at 72 years, and I’ve got some fancy head #Xrays to prove it as well. # I #worked #in the Space Tracking industry for 10 years, when ALL of those men stepped on the moon, and in the aircraft simulator business for 12 and then on the Jindalee #Over The Horizon radar for a few more. Technology has been my caper for a long time. This is technical stuff, my business. #I spent 3 years playing with GsP braids, doing many strange things. Technically well???, practically it makes fabulous SWF backing line if you #use it within its technical parameters. Apart from that I have been chucking flies into salt water since 1967 and I’ve caught a few fish. I have been around the traps. Fly fishing is not difficult., you know, any nut can get good at it.
But the tests. #Most abrasion testing is done on an abrasive wheel. I don’t have one, but to simulate a oyster encrusted rock in the ocean I chose to use a textured brick. I used a lot of care to ensure that the thing was done as evenly as possible, that each line was given the same pressure and tension. But before I started I had #to get over the fact that 20lb GsP braid fractured continuously as I placed it on the brick. It is a very fragile fibre but I found a spot where the line survived and used that. You can see the results published in the E Book. It is informative, because it shows that Stren Kevlar is at least 4 times tougher than GsP. My tests also showed that Stren braid is sold at knot strength, the spool is labeled at half the actual line breaking strain. That is being honest. You do not see much honesty in GsP braids, the exception is #Bionic Braid.
I used John Devitts IGFA machine for a few line tests, until he told me #that the load rate was too high at 400mm/minute. It needs to be about 100mm/min. Then I used a slow application of sand in a bucket. It worked. I tested the breaking strain of a number of lines and knots, no knots are 100% and DSM will tell you that anytime you ask.
I soaked glued splices #in my swimming pool for 3 days, then hung them up under 15lb of weight for 3 days then tested the things. #100% break test. I went through a lot different methods of connecting GsP to fly lines, trying to get a no knot no stretch workable system. All the wizz kids reckoned “you can’t do that, it will not work”, #It does, absolutely.
Technical fact, absolutely and positively. #GsP fibre is stiff, has a modulus halfway between #“S”glass and carbon fibre, it has a horrible critical radius. Know what that is. Bent it past that and you get fibre fracture. DSM publish photos of that stuff. That and the slippery characteristic #is what gives it a lousy knot strength. You should not put it into a situation where it is force bent around sharp edges. Like the sharp edges of holes in fly reel spools. There is nothing new in that, most reel makers know this but ignore it. They recommend you use 50lb braid to negate the problem. More expense for Joe Blo.
The reality is that the reel makers probably don’t care a hoot about you, or your expensive braided line.
There are other things, runner strike from those Bimini loop to loop connections, breaking fibres, when fishes belt off at high knot rates.. Then of course there is the relationship between 10kg tippets and the actual breaking strain of the backing system. #If it is 50lb and your knots are 80% it really is 40lb, that is before you start to worry about holes in spools or runner strike. If the cumulate effect of this is 70% the actual breaking strain is now 35lb, which means you are no better off than if you used a no stretch no knot Max System using 30BB, which breaks at 36lb. You have bought your 50lb stuff and its now no better than my stuff which is castigated by the heroes.. #But take that cumulative effect down to #65% or 32.5lb and you are really in trouble since 10kg is really 22lb. You have lost 17.5lb of backing strength and you are not going to get it back..
I have actual 50lb backing systems, really 50lb and really 36lb systems. The line tests show that my system B/S is actual line break. No reductions at all. This is not wistful thinking. Its been tested to death hundreds of times. I can and will, on request, demonstrate this anywhere any time. But I’m a nut.
The reality is that Gel Spun Polyethylene fibre is actually measured in "denier", or weight. It is a measurement of the fineness of silk or man made fibres and is equal to 1 gram per 9000 metres. That is 1 denier equals 1 gram per 9kms of a single fibre. The fibre extruded for high quality fishing lines needs to be within a specific range of denier, to keep product stiffness to a minimum. If the fibre is too heavy, high denier, it is very stiff and the knot performance, while normally bad, would be much worse. Generally, however, most lines of similar or equal breaking strains have similar denier and similar numbers of fibres in similar numbers of plaits.
As I understand it Peter Morses latest great line, has higher Denier fibres than say BB, it has fewer stronger fibres to achieve the b/s, which is why it is thinner, but the higher denier fibres make it stiffer, and technically it must have a worse knot strength and critical radius. #The higher the yarn denier number, the stiffer the fibres, the worse things become , knot strength, critical radius you name it. Have a chat to Don McPherson. #Lines like that have to be used in no knot spliced systems or the fibre fracture can be very severe.
Quotes, on this subject. #“The next time some Swoffer loses #half #a load of GsP backing line will not be the first”, Harro.. “The XFR and Abyss reels have no holes because they are designed to hold GsP backing” Thomas Michael Steelfin Reels. “We understand they don’t sell that well, the ratio is about 10:1. Holes to no holes. But they are the best”. Does Morsie think Thomas and Harro are some kind of radical ratbags.
I am not on anyone’s payroll, nor do I want to be. What can I possibly get for plugging “no hole” spools. Other than being beaten around the head by Wonder Wobblers. I get nothing for nothing. #Absolutely nothing. # Reputation, what’s that, some ego trip. Had one now too old to care. #Publicity, #who cares about that. #So Peter dumps on me, but who the hell is he. If it was Lefty or Harro I’d listen, but is Morsie #someone I should worry about. # It’s all a bit of a yawn really. I like to know exactly what I am using, how it performs and why it fails.
I am on the side of the anglers. The blokes who pay huge numbers of dollars for fly reels. I want them to get the very best available. Every time they hand over their buks. Isn’t this what a independent voice is all about.
Yrs, cheers Max
Truth should be allowed to be aired. Sometimes people who you think are wizards are wankers.
This is 2002 we are in, not 1860, the industrial revolution is over, long gone, technical expertise has gone ahead in leaps and bounds. Men have been on the moon. #We all know that, don’t #we.?
The weight of fly reels is not really a problem, in fact the amount of weight loss due to material removal is small, when you consider fly line and backing weight. You can shift the reel balance position on the rod by playing with the foot. You can also remove metal without breaking into the spool inner surface. You can also not bother, which should reduce machine time, preparation and polishing time and reduce costs for a better performance. #That should interest everybody. You could ask those manufacturers whom I have maligned ???? why they don’t do any or either of those things.
I was offered, by the system, a Tibor Gulfstream for guide price. $250 US. That is 250buks US and they make a profit. So why the big buks to joe blo. Makes you wonder about the price of Abels. Sorry Ted, but them’s the breaks.
Lets get something straight. I am not totally insane. #I am not an ex Taxi driver or pastry cook I have a brain, even at 72 years, and I’ve got some fancy head #Xrays to prove it as well. # I #worked #in the Space Tracking industry for 10 years, when ALL of those men stepped on the moon, and in the aircraft simulator business for 12 and then on the Jindalee #Over The Horizon radar for a few more. Technology has been my caper for a long time. This is technical stuff, my business. #I spent 3 years playing with GsP braids, doing many strange things. Technically well???, practically it makes fabulous SWF backing line if you #use it within its technical parameters. Apart from that I have been chucking flies into salt water since 1967 and I’ve caught a few fish. I have been around the traps. Fly fishing is not difficult., you know, any nut can get good at it.
But the tests. #Most abrasion testing is done on an abrasive wheel. I don’t have one, but to simulate a oyster encrusted rock in the ocean I chose to use a textured brick. I used a lot of care to ensure that the thing was done as evenly as possible, that each line was given the same pressure and tension. But before I started I had #to get over the fact that 20lb GsP braid fractured continuously as I placed it on the brick. It is a very fragile fibre but I found a spot where the line survived and used that. You can see the results published in the E Book. It is informative, because it shows that Stren Kevlar is at least 4 times tougher than GsP. My tests also showed that Stren braid is sold at knot strength, the spool is labeled at half the actual line breaking strain. That is being honest. You do not see much honesty in GsP braids, the exception is #Bionic Braid.
I used John Devitts IGFA machine for a few line tests, until he told me #that the load rate was too high at 400mm/minute. It needs to be about 100mm/min. Then I used a slow application of sand in a bucket. It worked. I tested the breaking strain of a number of lines and knots, no knots are 100% and DSM will tell you that anytime you ask.
I soaked glued splices #in my swimming pool for 3 days, then hung them up under 15lb of weight for 3 days then tested the things. #100% break test. I went through a lot different methods of connecting GsP to fly lines, trying to get a no knot no stretch workable system. All the wizz kids reckoned “you can’t do that, it will not work”, #It does, absolutely.
Technical fact, absolutely and positively. #GsP fibre is stiff, has a modulus halfway between #“S”glass and carbon fibre, it has a horrible critical radius. Know what that is. Bent it past that and you get fibre fracture. DSM publish photos of that stuff. That and the slippery characteristic #is what gives it a lousy knot strength. You should not put it into a situation where it is force bent around sharp edges. Like the sharp edges of holes in fly reel spools. There is nothing new in that, most reel makers know this but ignore it. They recommend you use 50lb braid to negate the problem. More expense for Joe Blo.
The reality is that the reel makers probably don’t care a hoot about you, or your expensive braided line.
There are other things, runner strike from those Bimini loop to loop connections, breaking fibres, when fishes belt off at high knot rates.. Then of course there is the relationship between 10kg tippets and the actual breaking strain of the backing system. #If it is 50lb and your knots are 80% it really is 40lb, that is before you start to worry about holes in spools or runner strike. If the cumulate effect of this is 70% the actual breaking strain is now 35lb, which means you are no better off than if you used a no stretch no knot Max System using 30BB, which breaks at 36lb. You have bought your 50lb stuff and its now no better than my stuff which is castigated by the heroes.. #But take that cumulative effect down to #65% or 32.5lb and you are really in trouble since 10kg is really 22lb. You have lost 17.5lb of backing strength and you are not going to get it back..
I have actual 50lb backing systems, really 50lb and really 36lb systems. The line tests show that my system B/S is actual line break. No reductions at all. This is not wistful thinking. Its been tested to death hundreds of times. I can and will, on request, demonstrate this anywhere any time. But I’m a nut.
The reality is that Gel Spun Polyethylene fibre is actually measured in "denier", or weight. It is a measurement of the fineness of silk or man made fibres and is equal to 1 gram per 9000 metres. That is 1 denier equals 1 gram per 9kms of a single fibre. The fibre extruded for high quality fishing lines needs to be within a specific range of denier, to keep product stiffness to a minimum. If the fibre is too heavy, high denier, it is very stiff and the knot performance, while normally bad, would be much worse. Generally, however, most lines of similar or equal breaking strains have similar denier and similar numbers of fibres in similar numbers of plaits.
As I understand it Peter Morses latest great line, has higher Denier fibres than say BB, it has fewer stronger fibres to achieve the b/s, which is why it is thinner, but the higher denier fibres make it stiffer, and technically it must have a worse knot strength and critical radius. #The higher the yarn denier number, the stiffer the fibres, the worse things become , knot strength, critical radius you name it. Have a chat to Don McPherson. #Lines like that have to be used in no knot spliced systems or the fibre fracture can be very severe.
Quotes, on this subject. #“The next time some Swoffer loses #half #a load of GsP backing line will not be the first”, Harro.. “The XFR and Abyss reels have no holes because they are designed to hold GsP backing” Thomas Michael Steelfin Reels. “We understand they don’t sell that well, the ratio is about 10:1. Holes to no holes. But they are the best”. Does Morsie think Thomas and Harro are some kind of radical ratbags.
I am not on anyone’s payroll, nor do I want to be. What can I possibly get for plugging “no hole” spools. Other than being beaten around the head by Wonder Wobblers. I get nothing for nothing. #Absolutely nothing. # Reputation, what’s that, some ego trip. Had one now too old to care. #Publicity, #who cares about that. #So Peter dumps on me, but who the hell is he. If it was Lefty or Harro I’d listen, but is Morsie #someone I should worry about. # It’s all a bit of a yawn really. I like to know exactly what I am using, how it performs and why it fails.
I am on the side of the anglers. The blokes who pay huge numbers of dollars for fly reels. I want them to get the very best available. Every time they hand over their buks. Isn’t this what a independent voice is all about.
Yrs, cheers Max