Manufacturers of rod blanks and guides advertise how light their products are and the lightest ones seem to be the most expensive. At the same time some rod component manufacturers advertise weights and systems to attach the weights to rods in order to balance the rods. There is something fishy going on here. What's the story?

Phil,

The lightest rod blank for its stiffness will give the angler the most feel of what is going on at the other end of the line. These are typically made from materials that are more expensive to produce and thus carry a premium. Additionally, there is brand recognition fee attached to some blanks and components, but clearly they don't charge more than the market will bear.

In regard to other manufacturers selling weights to add to a rod, there is nothing fishy going on here. Some people prefer to have their rods to have different weight distribution than what the build may end up with before weight is added. It's not really any different than auto racing. You can take a factory car out on the track and run it, but if you want it to turn left better, you are going to add weight to the left side, use different air pressures in each tire to affect the way the car rolls in the turn in addition to many other things. Some people like to use a rod that is tip light for some applications and the extra weights serve as a tool to get that characteristic out of a rod without using a handle that is too long for the angler.

That's the great thing about custom rods is that they are custom. Do you want better line control? A custom rod can help with that. Do you want a specific action and power that you can't find anywhere else? A custom rod can help with that. Do you want a rod balanced according to your preferences for a certain technique? A custom rod can help with that. Do you want the lightest most sensitive rod possible? A custom rod can help with that.

As I'm sure you know by now, I'm an advocate for building the lightest possible rod that meets the ergonomic and functional requirements for the build. If that means building a rod that is heavier than it could be otherwise, so be it. I can say, I've seen the reaction on peoples faces when I gave them a factory rod that weighs in at 3.90 oz, and then give them a rod built on a blank from the same model that was stripped and rebuilt weighing in at 5.10 oz with weight added to the butt to balance the rod. It always lights up their face when the heavier well balanced rod is in their hand.

Personally I don't balance my personal rods because I haven't had one tip heavy enough to feel the need, and because I don't like the penalty in the feel and response of the rod with the extra weight, but it all boils down to compromise. One must always give up something to get something.

A rod builder should have lots of tricks up his sleeve, know the trade offs and be able to articulate and/or demonstrate what those trade offs are to the end user of the rod. Adding weight for the sake of balance is one of those tricks. I've kicked around the idea of balancing rods and even came up with a simple system that works effectively for me and meets the requirements I wanted in a balance system, i.e. it should go completely unnoticed and have no effect on the rear grip length.

Joe

Where there is demand for a product, someone will step forward to meet that demand. Some anglers want their outfits to balance at a specific point.

Where you add weight is as important, or more so, than what you add.

The lighter the rod is overall, the less important overall balance becomes.

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Other than lighter materials that will perform the same job as heavier materials of the same dimension being more expensive to produce, part of the added expense is in the engineering of the product. Regardless of how strong a material is, if it's not engineered properly it will fail, or won't perform up to its potential. Country of origin also has a lot to do with it.

As far as the balance of a rod is concerned, there is another thread currently running on this site, that has touched on that aspect of rod building. Personally, I believe the importance of a balanced rod is dependent on the purpose for which the rod is being built. In reference to some of the responses in the aforementioned thread, I was surprised to find that rod balance seemed inconsequential to more than a few members of this site. Perhaps rod balance means little, if anything, in the types of techniques employed during the use of their rods.

Be that as it may, what I am really interested in reading is how some of those that believe a balanced rod is preferable at times, add their weight? I'm also interested in their opinions on how I have added weight in the past.

My last two builds were spinning rods that used a split rear grip. In planning for the build, knowing that I would be using EVA foam for the rear grip and butt grip, I was concerned that having such a light butt section would cause the rods to be tip heavy. As they were going to be rods used for slack line techniques, I had planned on using a portion of a foam reel seat arbor with the appropriate amount of split shot epoxied into it, and then epoxying it, into the butt of the blank. I figured that way the weight would be concentrated in a small area, at the furthest point from the reel seat that I could possibly make it, with no evidence of its presence.

It ended up when I received the blank, the last 2 1/4" of the butt of the blank had been crushed at some point, and had a crack in it. They let me keep the blank, and rather than cut that portion of the blank off, I decided to repair it. After getting some great repair ideas from members by posting a thread on this site, I ended up inserting a 4" piece of an old rod blank, into a foam reel seat arbor that I sanded to fit the ID of the blank, and epoxied it into the butt of the blank. The weight of that assembly proved to be the amount of weight required to have the rod balance on the reel seat nut, (I installed the seat as down locking) with the reel installed. Perfect !!! So I did the same thing with the blank they sent me to replace the damaged one.

I guess my question is, was my initially planned way of adding weight a good one? Or, taking away the fact that I needed to reinforce the butt of the one blank, was the way I ended up adding weight a better way of doing it?

I can't help but think my initial plan was a solid one, and the one that would have had the least adverse effects on rod performance.

Thoughts?

Dave,

There's nothing at all wrong with the way you handled things. One word of caution, when you need a significant amount of weight for the job, shoving weight inside the rod blank is not the best option unless the weight needed is small. As you push the weight in it gets closer to the fulcrum and becomes less effective. If you would need to use split shot inside the full length of a reel seat arbor, you have weight pushed halfway to the reel seat on a lot of bass rods. The way I've handled the situation is to fit an 8-32 stainless T-nut into a seat arbor that is shaped to fit in the blank. Then I will use stainless washers, or a lead weight that I make using a 3/4" hole saw in a piece of wood. If you don't go all the way through, you can bore a 1/8" hole in the center, screw in the bolt and pour the lead around it. It effectively replaces the reel seat tenon on the butt grip. If a little extra weight is needed, then I'll wrap lead tape around the butt of the blank and shape the ID of the butt grip with a dremel to fit over it and mix in a little cork dust with the rod bond to make it look better.

Remember that you get the most torque when the weight is farthest from the fulcrum, and that the larger the diameter you can use for the weight, the more weight you can get.

Here's a pic of a balancer I used on a steelhead rod. [www.rodbuilding.org]
The top shows the T-nut. Behind the T-nut is lead tape wrapped around the blank. The washers used in the pic aren't stainless. I took the pic before the stainless fender washers came in. They were much thinner than I expected. The build ended up requiring the lead weight that I cast anyway. The lead weight wasn't pretty, but it was effective. It wouldn't be hard to make a nice mold, but I don't have a drill press and a tap and die set. Once the butt cap gets glued into place, no one would know the rod had the balancing system.

This is my preferred way to handle balance because the grip stays a fixed length and once properly balanced, the but cap gets glued into place and there's no need to fuss with it anymore.

Joe

Joe, thanks for the response. I truly appreciate it. I like the way you handled the balancing issue. And while it may not look pretty, it looks cool, and has the ability to be adjusted in the future if need be. Something my procedure wouldn't have. And even though I don't have plans of changing the reels I use on my rods, we all know how best laid plans can go sometimes. adjust-ability is definitely something I should consider. Thank you for sharing that.

I'm currently waiting on the rest of my components for my next build. I already have the blank and reel seat in hand, and based on a little experimenting I've been doing, I'm probably going to need to add about 3/8 of an ounce, to get it to balance well. A trade off I will gladly make for a well balanced rod.


Thanks again Joe. Much appreciated

Dave,
I seldom add any weight to rods any more, but at one time I did add weights, especially when some of the blanks were heavier - especially in the tip - compared to the lighter rods of today.

With a typical spinning rod, the typical diameter of the rear grip is about 1 1/8th inches. At that time, I commonly used rubber chair leg tips to act as butt caps. They would be sanded to size, and cut to length to be glued onto the butt of the rod - with a step turned into the rear grip.

If I wished to add weight to the rod, I would just glue the rear grip onto the blank, leaving 1/2 inch of blank exposed. Then, I would use adhesive backed lead tape and would wrap it around the butt of the rod, until I obtained the necessary balance for the rod, that was still consistent with fitting on the inside of the butt cap that I had made for the rod. If I did not need to fill the entire void with lead tape, I would just add wraps of masking tape to bring the diameter of the butt end of the rod to be a slip fit into the inside of the butt cap.

By using this method, all of the weight was concentrated in a mass at the furthest aft section of the rod to minimize the total weight required.

Generally speaking, it is a pretty bad idea to add weight on the inside of the blank, because the amount of weight that can be added at the extreme butt end of the rod is typically insufficient to get the required balance. Then, folks continue to push more and more weight into the butt of the rod, pushing the weight further and further forward, doing little except to make the rod heavier.

As many others have said, with today's light weight blanks and components and reasonable planning on the part of the builder, a reasonable rod balance is typically achieved for those rods that require it; without adding additional weight to the rod.

As part of that process is good planning. It is NOT a good plan to put a very short rear grip on a fishing rod that has a long length. Even if the client really wants a very short rear grip on a long rod, do your best to convenience the client that the short rod butt with its inherent very bad balance is not in his/her best interest.

Be safe

It hasn't been mentioned, but adding weight to rods to achieve balance applies to spinning rods, not casting rods, fly rods, jigging rods, trolling rods, or any other rods of which I am aware? I would not advise adding weight above the grip of any blank in order to achieve balance.

Phil, the rod I mentioned in my last post that will probably need some weight added to the butt to balance it out, will be a casting rod. It's going to be a 7'2" rod using a split rear grip, with the grip material being EVA foam. It's also a split reel seat, so that's even less weight. I may not need to add the estimated 3/8 oz. that I mentioned in my prior post, but I doubt I'll be able to get away without adding any weight at all.

Roger, thank you for the response. I totally agree that good planning is part of the rod building process, And that putting a very short rear grip on a long rod is not a good idea. Nor is putting too long of a rear grip on a rod. A rear grip that is too long, can make a rod difficult and frustrating to use. Part of good planning is making sure that the rod you're building, will be usable for the purpose you're building it for.

The rod I'll be building is going to be a 7'2" casting rod, that will be used for Carolina rigs, deeper water football jigs, and pitching and flipping jigs and soft plastics in and around heavy cover. I'm building it on an Immortal IMMC72MH blank. The blank isn't heavy, but with the blank weighing in at 3 oz., it's not what I would consider light, either. I'll be using a Pac Bay Minima split reel seat, with no fore grip. The rear grip is going to be split, with a length of 9 1/2" from butt to rear of reel seat.

Certainly not too short, and 1/2" longer than the 7' factory rods that I own that I use for the same purposes as this rod is being built for. Could have gone longer to avoid the potential need of adding weight to gain good rod balance? In my case, no. A longer rear grip would make the rod difficult to use year round. A lot of spring shallow water fishing is done with bulky clothing on. There is nothing more frustrating than having your rear grip catch on your clothes when trying to pitch or flip.

If I have to add weight to the butt to keep the rear grip at the length I want it, I have no problem with that. Building what I want at the dimensions I want is the reason I took up rod building.

And while I understand what you're saying about having to cram a lot of weight inside a rod blanks butt. But with the advent of titanium weights for bass fishing. A pretty substantial amount of weight can be added in a very small area.

David: Titanium is a relatively lightweight metal, but it sure is pricey. What is the advantage of using titanium to add weight to rods? Corrosion resistance?

Phil, my mistake. I meant to say tungsten. lol I must have had the titanium color of the blank in mind.

Sorry for the confusion.