Help Build the Ultimate Bamboo Fishing Rod: Free $1000 Valued Reward Offered!

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the design and optimization of bamboo fly-fishing rods, specifically focusing on calculating bending characteristics and cross-sectional dimensions. Participants explore innovative approaches to rod design, including the potential for rectangular shapes and the ideal bending form for improved performance.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested
  • Mathematical reasoning

Main Points Raised

  • One participant expresses a desire to calculate the bending characteristics of bamboo rods and explore new designs, including rectangular cross-sections.
  • Another suggests that expertise in MATLAB could be beneficial for the calculations involved.
  • A participant proposes using graphite instead of bamboo, citing its strength and lightness, but this idea is met with resistance from others who advocate for bamboo's traditional appeal.
  • Some participants discuss the application of optimization routines to enhance rod performance, focusing on local cross-section and shape transitions along the rod's length.
  • One participant emphasizes the importance of understanding the ideal bending form to determine how the rod should behave during casting, suggesting that this should inform the design process.
  • A technical explanation is provided regarding the mechanics of bending in fishing poles, including the relationship between torque and the rod's thickness, with a proposed mathematical model for achieving even bending.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on the best materials or design approaches. There are competing views on the use of bamboo versus graphite, and the discussion remains unresolved regarding the optimal design for the fishing rod.

Contextual Notes

The discussion includes various assumptions about material properties and design principles, with some participants noting the need for further exploration of the bending mechanics and optimization strategies. Specific mathematical steps and definitions are not fully resolved.

Who May Find This Useful

Individuals interested in fishing rod design, materials science, and optimization techniques in engineering may find this discussion relevant.

dedoo
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Help needed 1000 dollar valued reward!

Hello all,

I make fly-fishing rods from bamboo (the traditional way) and because I want to bring this to another level I would like to get some help from those who can help me. I’ll be willing to make you a rod for free (they normally sell for around US$ 1000/1200) If you are willing to help me with this quest.

I want to be able to calculate my rod design from another angle.

I would like to graph the rods bending ( how it looks like at its greatest moment of bending)
And together with some other variables calculate the rods crossectional dimensions.

The idea is to make a whole new kind of fishing rod. I’m thinking about making rectangular shaped rods. Wider than deep in the plane of bending.

Of course it would be great if we too would be able to calculate the ideal bend form.
i.e. how should the rod be build to accelerate the fly line with minimum force.

If these few lines got you interested and if you are willing to help me out please send me an email to dannyheus@hotmail.com. I’m sure we will have a lot of fun finding the right answers.

Kind regards,
Danny
 
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This sounds like a job for someone who is good with mathlab.
 
why not use graphite , it is super strong ,super light , and su... real stiff...
 
I suck what comes to fishing but those things do bend quite a bit ... would be an interesting application to see what could be done applying optimization routines to the cross-section ... both to a local section and then the shape transition over the length of the rod and maximize tip acceleration etc.
 
I do not use graphite because I think we are not really done yet with bamboo. And besides that there are still (including me) a lot of people who appreciate a handmade fishingrod. I would like to show graphite and all other "plastic" users that very good fishingrods can be made from this natural material. Rectangular is not experimented much with and I would like to prove that this actually has BIG advantages in order to improve stiffness and casting abillities. In order to achive this I would like to design my rods from a diffrent point of view and start with finding the ideal bendform first. Find out about how a rod should bend and behave during a casting cycle and start with that bendform to calculate the crossectional dimensions.
 
The force on a fishing pole is largely perpendicular to the pole. If your pole ends up in some more complicated form, you will have to adjust this with the appropriate cosine or sine. But if your pole is only bending slightly, and the force is applied at the tip (i.e. ignoring the momentum of the pole), then the bending force that is applied to the pole at any given point is in the form of a "torque".

A torque is a force times a distance, like ft-lbs. For the case of this ideal fishing pole, the bending force is largest closest to the hand of the fisherman, and drops to zero at the tip in a linear fashion. Thus, to get the same (small) curve along the length of the pole, you want the strength of the pole to linearly decrease to zero.

And what is the strength of a rectangular bar as a function of its thickness? The resistance to bending of a rectangular cross section bar is proportional to its thickness cubed. So to get a pole that (for small bends with the fishing line perpendicular to the tip) bends evenly (i.e. as if it were an arc of a circle), you solve the equation:

Bending Moment = F * x = \tau^3(x),

where \tau is the thickness of the rod, x is the distance away from the tip, and F is just there to make the units work out. The solution for \tau is:

\tau = \eta x^{1/3}

where \eta is just a constant. In other words, you would make your rod thickness follow the cube root of the distance from the end.

I hope this gives you enough help that you can solve the more complicated problem yourself. I don't have time to give any more help (or to fish), so please save the fishing pole for someone else.

Carl
 

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