Testing and Analysing the Fly Rods
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I needed to find a way to be able to show the rod’s actual bending during a casting-cycle and started testing with over 300 strips. 240 of these strips were hollowed and glued together, making 60 small rod sections.The heat treating process was completely reviewed and besides breaking and bending tests they were carefully examined under the microscope. The treating of nodes and straightening of the bamboo strips were also carefully tested and tools and techniques were adjusted where they needed to be. As soon as I was satisfied with the results I started with bending and moment of rupture tests to find the relation between the bending of the bamboo rod sections and the cross-sectional diameters. The modulus of elasticity is a fundamental material constant, and is an index of the stiffness of the material. But, when for instance bamboo strips are heat treated with a different process these strips have a different modulus of elasticity and the cross-sectional diameters need to be adjusted to be sure the bamboo fly rod does not exceed its stress limits. If two different bamboo fly rod makers are given enough strips with the same density to make a bamboo fly fishing rod, and both use the same taper but different methods for heat and/or node treating, both bamboo fly rods, although they might look the same to the naked eye, respond very different. This is why hundreds and hundreds of test were done before I actually started to think about how to develop my own tapers. Eventually I used the Finite Element approach to solving the rod design analysis task with the same software NASA also uses. I figured that if they use it to test objects that will be shot into an orbit around the earth it would surely be good enough for fly rod analysis. All these tests resulted in what Mike Montagne, a good friend of mine and well respected retired maker of bamboo fly rods, already discussed with me over and over again. A cross-sectional design that is wider than deep in the plane of bending making the rods one of the fastest yet delicate ever built in splitcane history with tips that taper down to very fine dimensions. While the emotion series follow Mike's design philosophy. The Suave and Paradigm series are my own
Keone Rodsmiths |
