Here is a question I have been thinking about, I don't think there is a right or wrong answer but wondering what people think.
I have read the statement in at least two books and on the internet that if you want to make a heavier-weight rod, you have to select a "heavy" culm with a thick section of power fibers. The thing that gets me going is that density and weight are two different things. Rods are subjected primarily to bending stress, not so much shear stress, so the fibers near the surface of the rod are the most important for strength. Getting back to weight, you could have a smaller culm with denser power fibers near the surface that weighs less than a heavy culm yet the fibers from the small culm could theoretically perform better than the thicker, heavier culm.
The other wild card is hollowing. If you are just going to hollow most of the inside fibers anyway, then the weight of the material past about .100 from the outside of the rod seems somewhat irrelevant. If you are going to hollow, especially flute to say 75 thou, then it seems to me that using the heaviest culm with the deepest fibers would be counter-productive, and that what you realy want is a culm with the densest power fibers you can get in the upper 100 thou our so.
Like I said there probably isn't any right or wrong answer to this question. I guess what I am really asking, has anybody built a heavier rod with a light culm with thin yet very dense power fibers say .120 and had good results? Has anybody done the same and had problems?
At this point in the game I read some stuff in books and it just makes me wonder where it comes from.
I have read the statement in at least two books and on the internet that if you want to make a heavier-weight rod, you have to select a "heavy" culm with a thick section of power fibers. The thing that gets me going is that density and weight are two different things. Rods are subjected primarily to bending stress, not so much shear stress, so the fibers near the surface of the rod are the most important for strength. Getting back to weight, you could have a smaller culm with denser power fibers near the surface that weighs less than a heavy culm yet the fibers from the small culm could theoretically perform better than the thicker, heavier culm.
The other wild card is hollowing. If you are just going to hollow most of the inside fibers anyway, then the weight of the material past about .100 from the outside of the rod seems somewhat irrelevant. If you are going to hollow, especially flute to say 75 thou, then it seems to me that using the heaviest culm with the deepest fibers would be counter-productive, and that what you realy want is a culm with the densest power fibers you can get in the upper 100 thou our so.
Like I said there probably isn't any right or wrong answer to this question. I guess what I am really asking, has anybody built a heavier rod with a light culm with thin yet very dense power fibers say .120 and had good results? Has anybody done the same and had problems?
At this point in the game I read some stuff in books and it just makes me wonder where it comes from.
).
Empirical evidence for that is how many rods do you see bust off at the handle? I've seen defective graphite do that (Sages were famous for that in the
90's) but I don't think cane rods do that very often.
This rod was
cast by professional certified casters with the intent of getting the greatest distance. It passed with flying colors. Now another attempt useing the Powel
scalloping method ended in disaster. I nicked the bamboo to much close to the non bending ferrule and the rod snapped. I think Wayne's approach is on the
money and a flexible ferrule can only help to relieve the stress at that point and improve the rod action. I feel that the less dense pitch contributes very
little to the rod and removing it can gain a better power fiber to weight ratio.. Below is a picture of a piece of the hollowed out section.
