Fishing Rod Design and Manufacture

Fishing Rod Design and Manufacture of a High-End Bamboo Fishing Rod The art of angling has in many ways remained unchanged for a century or more, and though the development of graphite, fiberglass, and composite material rods have changed the industry somewhat the highest-end rods used for fly fishing are still made of bamboo, as the best rods have been made for quite a long time. Material selection and the design and manufacturing process are still complex and detailed undertakings, whoever, and require careful consideration at each stage.

In the following pages, a brief description of the design and manufacturing for a bamboo fly-fishing rod will be given, with a focus on certain engineering aspects of the design necessary to maximize quality and usability. Cost and sustainability are also important elements of consideration in the following process overview, and efforts are made to explain each design and manufacturing decision from all angles of the project as fully as is possible in the space given.

Materials Selection and Design Fly-fishing rods present a unique engineering problem in that they need to possess a great deal of tensile strength while also retaining a high degree of flexibility and elasticity. With greater tensile strength than steel and greater compression resistance than concrete, bamboo has long been recognized as the material of choice for these fly-fishing rods, however not all bamboo is made equal and selecting the right bamboo is cost intensive (Newswee, 2008; Penrose, 2008; Carrasco et al., 2009).

A specific type of bamboo rod is typically purchased in six foot lengths with the bamboo nodes already mostly flattened; this rod is then split down its length into six large canes which are made into successively smaller strips through a laborious hand process (Penrose, 2008). This element of the operation could most likely be mechanized but this would cost a great deal and would likely lead to quality control problems; though the skilled labor need for the task is high this expense is still preferable to mechanization (Penrose, 2008).

The high-grade Tonkin bamboo most typically utilized in this application would have been pre-selected by the supplier for appropriate qualities, yet the individual strips broken down must themselves be examined for flexibility and strength before selecting those that will become fishing rods (Penrose, 2008; Barkley, 2012). The basic design of the fishing rod is simple -- a tapered rod made of six triangular-cut, planed, and individually tapered bamboo strips glued together along their lengths (Penrose, 2008).

Flexibility and strength in the individual strips is mediated/enhanced by the positioning of the joints and the strips in relation to each other, and strip size and selection are the primary design and materials elements that affect the outcome of the product -- "faster" action rods have more flexibility in the last third of the rod and decreasing flexibility moving down the rod and closer to the angler's hand, while "slow" action rods have significant bends all along their lengths (Penrose, 2008; Barkley, 2012).

Bamboo's unique cellular structure enables this flexibility along the length of the rod while also providing a tensile strength of approximately 15,000 pounds per square inch and a flexural strength of over 2,000 kilo-Newtons per square centimeter (Carrasco et al., 2009). The result is a six-foot pole with a high and variable (based on purposeful selection, in the hands of a skilled manufacturer) level of elasticity and strength to withstand continuous bending and various direction of strain.

The design process has remained unchanged for sometime because there is not a better way to balance the needs of flexibility and strength that has yet been developed, and because there is not demand for.