Don,

I'm not sure what you mean. On a casting rod and assuming you cast directly overhead in-line with the guides, which on the forward cast means they then on the backside and towards the load, the lever arm effect causes them to follow the casting stroke. The instant you hook a fish, or load the rod in the other direction, the guides will attempt to twist the rod towards the load. The lever arm effect of the guides will always attempt to turn the guides toward where ever the load is being applied from.

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Tommy Bee Wrote:
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people are still missing the point of this
> thread
>
> It is to establish exactly what people are talking
> about when they refer to the ''spine''


GUYS YOU ARE OFF TOPIC

Thanks

Second to my post above:

I am seriously beginning to believe two things:

a) the spine moves and is not straight

and b)

that it does not matter whatsoever anyway

If we have a very finesse, tiny fly rod used by a champion caster, maybe it matters to have it very accurately spined... but then we get straight to an absolute misnomer:
The blank is not always, or more to the point EVER straight along the spine

Point is if a World champion flycaster was able to pick through 1000 rods and find one that was straight AND along the spine (whether that spine was the ''weak'' one of easiest settlement or the ''strong'' one being the dominant ''bump'' or overlap spot), whichever was required AND if anybody knew what they were actually talking about (which it doesn't to me seem YET that they do) Then they might get a big aid in dead straight casts

I remember reading about Tiger Woods picking through and testing HUNDREDS of drivers with different shafts and different configurations of the spine before he settled on ONE he liked, then the engineers spending WEEKS trying to duplicate and replicate it
That is the seriousness of high level sport
And it is a definite that some rods feel sweeter and you grow more fond of than others both for casting and fish playing

I am beginning to find this topic too random.
I think that the main thing is to stick with a blank type that you like. In my case that happens to be a high quality one.
The quality of the blank is thus, in my opinion, far more important than spine orientation.
I am no expert rod builder but I have spent a lot of time thinking about this subject over the past few weeks.
I am fishing small waters where the rod's qualities are ALL about the ''feel'' of fish playing rather than much about casting ability both accuracy and distance, with distance being very unimportant and accuracy pretty important.

In short I am beginning to not give two hoots any more about this bizarre and somewhat infuriating topic.
I am not alone.
This statement is from one of just TWO UK blank manufacturers. I may be wrong but I think there are only two, and they are both very high quality and expensive (you would be very surprised how huge it is UK Carp market).
This to me says it all about this, I dare say pretty stupid, topic. Interestingly Dr. Harrison repeats what many of the experienced US rod builders repeat on here. Please read on:

From Dr. Harrison, ''Harrison Advanced Rods'' (UK High quality Blank producer (a very friendly guy to talk to I might add):





Rod blanks are made by rolling a pattern around a mandrel. Like a swiss roll, there is a start and an end to the "roll" and they can produce a hard and soft side to the blank. That is, if you roll the blank whist slightly bent, there can be a feeling of almost a bump in stiffness in one part of the blank. If you hold the tip in one hand and twist with the other, whilst keeping the rod bent, you are most likely to feel this. Holding the rod tip against a wall or floor whilst rolling the rod will do the same. Often the spine coincides with a slight bend in the blank, as ths spine tends to pull a slight curve during the cure. Many builders would say find the stiffest side of the blank, mark it and put the rings in relation to it. But they dont agree where! Some say at 180 degrees to the spine, some say at 90. One going for the stiffest plane, one for the preffered plane of bending. There are arguments for both. I have listened to all the arguments, spent more time thinking about them than most, and I feel I have as good knowledge of the subject as anyone, but I cannot offer you a simple answer. But I do say the following, and this I know is right. Instead of twisting the flexed rod bent over a hand or some other artificial fulcrum, you hold the rod at the handle end, with a weight hanging from the other. That is you load the rod at the tip and hold it at the butt like you do when fishing. Now roll the rod through 360 degrees, and voila, the sensation of the spine has disappeared. Yes, if you do this in a special jig you will detect a tiny variation in the apparent test curve due to a spine, but it is so small you will not detect it in real life. The spine as many rod builders detect it is an artefact of an artificial test. But like a lot of rodbuilding questions, there are no strightforward answers, so talk to someone else about the spine. However, if you want my advice, for what it is worth! Put the blank together and rotate and adjust the sections until the rod is as straight as possible, any natural curve in the rod bending upwards, then place the rings on the underside.

That is correct - the spine is not a physical component of the blank - it is an effect and it does not lie along any particular straight tip to butt axis. It tends move around the blank. What you get when you flex the blank is the cumulative effect.

And, it really does not matter.

There are likely a few hundred threads on the subject of spine. It's not a new topic here. Feel free to peruse the forum archives to find about anything want concerning spine.

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Tom,

"On a casting rod and assuming you cast directly overhead in-line with the guides, which on the forward cast means they then on the backside and towards the load, the lever arm effect causes them to follow the casting stroke."

"On a casting rod and assuming you cast directly overhead in-line with the guides, which on the forward cast means they then on the backside and towards the load. "EXACTLY
" the lever arm effect causes them to follow the casting stroke" and "you cast directly overhead in-line with the guides," THIS IMPLIES NO LEVER ARM ACTION IS NEEDED

So, for simplicity let's use a Brighton cast. For the positioning of the cast the sinker is pointing toward your feet, the rod is pointing away from the intended direction of the cast, there will be a bend in you right arm in order to get your hand under the reel (if using high reel position) and the left hand is on on the rod butt with the left hand at least at head height and most of your weight is on your right leg, You start the cast by transferring your weight from the right leg to left leg. While doing this, you raise your right arm, and start pulling down with your left arm. At the conclusion of the cast, the sinker, guides, and rod have stayed in plane. OBTW, with 34 to 36" from the butt to reel, it's almost impossible to have wrist action.
So, where is the rod twist coming from during the power stroke?

Don Becker

Tommy - I think we all understood your initial question as to what we refer the spine to be, but it has been defined over and over again for many years. The spine definition has been is ingrained in us and we assume that all rodbuilders know what we are talking about. I think we all agree that the spine is a manufacturing anomaly that reveals itself when rolling a blank under pressure. I also think everyone agrees that blanks of the same model from the same manufacturer will differ in the way the spine feels, and this is true for high end and low end blanks. The spine may be due to how the scrim and fiber cloth flags are cut, positioned and rolled on the mandrel, or to slight differences in the clothes and resins batches being used from blank to blank. The cause is probably not precisely known. I also think if manufacturers knew exactly what caused a rod to have a spine or if they thought it played a role in blank performance they would find a way to eliminate it. As custom rod builders we all know that rod blanks will have a spine, and we do not give a hoot as to what manufacturing anomaly caused it. I think what I have said is a given. The above discussions moved on from what the we refer the spine to be, to whether or not the spine is of any importance. So I do not think we were off topic, we just expanded the topic to something we think may be more important and informative. I do not know exactly what you were looking for, but you certainly got a discussion going and I am sure you learned something.
Norm

If you don't believe me that every cast is completely different from the last, watch some darts players for a while

Humans have an amazing knack of judgement physically, but perfection and consistency are two things that never did and never will exist, no matter what the action. nor the distance of it

A darts throw is a very short, simple action

And if any chance whatsoever of perfection was attainable, they would be scoring 180 every time

Then if you think about it, a golf swing or a rod cast has 10000000000 extra movements going on.. so I feel that blaming an unspined rod, when we have no idea what we are talking about in the first place (still, despite trying very hard with this thread), and whether it is a ''thing'' at all, and whether it is straight, and aligned correctly, that is what rod we are talking about be it spinning, reel up, reel down, reel sideways, where the line is precisely exiting the reel, what stretch the line has, what finger positioning we have, where, how, etc. etc.

I am going to leave this subject now as it is frankly boring the teeth out of me.

I feel that a rod with the backbone, or ''bump'' at the back (how I was taught) will give my rod a bit more endurance than a rod without, as has been explained scientifically, but the fact that this is in the single figures of percentage, and in pulling for a static deadlift extreme test, says it all really

We are talking about a MINUTE amount of difference:

Obviously at a high level of competitive sport a minute amount of difference is everything -
but for the guy chucking a spinner about on his local lake before he goes to the pub, I think the major rod manufacturers, who have been accused for years by snotty self important custom rod builders of sheer negligence, have a point actually!!!


NOBODY CARES, LEAST OF ALL THE ROD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2017 04:53PM by Tommy Bee.

a rod is there as a tool only. It is not some sacred wand which is a holy grail of perfection. It is just a bendy stick which flicks a bait and absorbs lunges of fish!

To be quite honest, Norm, I have learned nothing reading through these answers

" It is to establish exactly what people are talking about when they refer to the ''spine''

Perhaps you could repeat your question in a way that would be easier for me to understand.

Don Becker

Mate I found your description of casting and rod twist both confusing and a little ''loaded'' to be perfectly honest

i don't mean anything by that other than the fact that you may be an established old school rod builder who has been pushing the spine thing down people's throats a little as an ''edge'' you have over the big fat cats and their factory builds

Point of thread is long gone, nobody got it or answered it, even slightly

And from my point of view I am beginning to lose both faith and interest in the subject and believe that the big fat cats had a very good reason to bypass spining altogether

That being that it matters for toffee!

I link this not to advocate for spiral wrapping, but for the information it contains related to what causes rod twist.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

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Tommy,

" and believe that the big fat cats had a very good reason to bypass spining altogether"

Could you explain that remark ?

Is it based on opinion or fact ?

Don Becker

Tommy, if the intent of your comments was to @#$%& people off you certainly succeeded! You need to stop asking questions because you already know all the answers. Have a good day.
Norm

Why don't we just move on to another topic. "Spine" will come up again in the future and we can revisit it then as we seem to do every few months.

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Tom,

I have read the information before.

Picture 1 also depicts how a rod may look when being cast.

Yes, if the rod is out of line, the guides, if they are tall enough, will twist the rod. Nothing new here.

I prefer a more practicable approach.

Put two conventional rods in sand spikes with sinkers set out. Reel in on both and set the drag,
Rod 1 is built so that the rod tip points down
Rod 2 is not built on a spine.

As time goes by, Rod 1 stays in place. Rod 2 very slowly starts to rotate (rod 2 always rotates clockwise), speeds up, and finally flips over with the reel coming to rest below the rod,

The blanks are identical model. Other than one built on the spine, and the other one not being built on the spine, the builds are identical.

???

Don Becker



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2017 08:57PM by Donald Becker.

If the guides are on top of the rod, both rods will twist regardless of spine location. The demo device in the article proves that, if you take the time to build it and see for yourself. It is conceivable that if you can possibly load the rod exactly on the zero axis, exactly, it might not twist as the guides will not create a level arm effect, but that would be very rare and almost impossible to count on every time. Mount the guides under the rod however, regardless of spine orientation, and it won't twist no matter what. How many spinning rods have you seen twist in those same rod holders?

It is lever arm effect, not spine, that dictates if a rod is going to twist or not.

.................

"If the guides are on top of the rod, both rods will twist regardless of spine location. "

After I experienced the event, I repeated the process several times, a few days, and with the line at different angles, and at different locations. It was always the same rod that rolled over. I finally gave up and accepted the rod the way it is. If I am fishing and I happen to pick up the rod for use, I will stuff a rag into the sand spike to keep it from rolling. I should say that I bait cast with 2 rods.

I am not saying that guides do not cause twist. I am saying that the spine also causes twist.

Don Becker

I have been building rods for 48 years, and ALWAYS spine my spinning and casting rods. For a spinning rod, I put my guides opposite the stiff side for two reasons; 1) greater casting difference 2) more accuracy.

While I cannot quantify the casting difference, I can definitely attest to the greater accuracy. In a test, I temporarily wrapped a spinning rod with the spine opposite the spine, and my casts were exactly where I pointed. I then wrapped the rod with the guides on the same side as the spine, with similar results - it cast where I pointed. I then wrapped the rod with the guides at 90 degrees to the spine, and the lure consistently landed about 5' to the soft side. In other words, if the spine was on the right side, my casts went left, and vice versa. I felt this was significant impartial evidence of the value of locating the spine.

For a multi-piece Fly rod, the spine is far less critical, as it is the path of the line during the forward stroke that determines where the fly will go. In that situation, as indicated by an earlier post, it is more important to rotate the sections until you get the straightest blank possible.

As to what the spine is, it is simply the result of the cloth wrapped on the mandril in such a way that there is an excess of cloth on one side, caused by the edges of the cloth not lining up exactly. This creates a slightly stiffer axis directly over the thickest part of the blank, where there are more layers of cloth. This was described in Dale Clemons book "Fiberglass Rod Building", where I learned the basics of rod building.

The lever arm effect always trumps spine effect. The force of the former is greater than the latter by a large margin.

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Twisting a rod around it's axis will not affect the path of the lure in flight.

The opposite of the stiffest axis is not the spine. Again - [www.rodbuilding.org]

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