Just a question,do carbon fibre rods get tired after a few hours use.The reason i ask is that a friend and i were fishing for a few hours solid yesterday when for no apparent reason his delta rod seemed to go a bit spongey,i had heard that on occasions carbon rods can act up any info on this would be appreciated.......................

I have experienced this.It happens so quickly that you wonder 'did it really happen'.Mine just folded over then sprung back when I was playing a fish.very weird.I have also heard folks talk about their rod loosing It's crispnes over time.but i have no knowledge of this

jim

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Thats good news, as it's my rod he is talking about and all of a sudden i couldnt cast to a rising fish 30feet away. I thought my casting had got even worse than normal

I've never experienced a change in action during use, but in my experience, it does relax over a period of time.

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If it's above a 4wt, it's built for Tarpon.

My dad had a 15ft bruce and walker salmon rod and he nicknamed it mr floppy as it just turned like a length of spaggetti when casting. Someone said that it was suffering from fibre fatigue.

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Simple answer is no. You'd have to ask yourself what would give you a reversible effect - I assume the rod 'recovers' some time later. Heat effects material properties obviously (generally lowering the elastic modulus as the temperature increases) but you can't build up significant heat through casting etc. so this can be ruled out. The carbon in a rod is in the form of woven fibres - these, individually, are fairly brittle in nature and once damaged there is no going back. That leaves the resin material, generally visco-elastic in nature. Ruling out heat, I can't think of a process you will encounter whilst fishing that will cause a reversible lowering of the elastic modulus.

Tired arm?

this phenomenon is usually linked to very small hairline crack in blank,very hard to find unless under magnification, usually at spigot join and occasionally on butt piece. rod casts ok for a while and then seems to "soften" as crack flexes and fibre opens up more. when rod is put away crack then tenses slightly ie weave closes and can feel as good as new again!! only for exact same thing to happen next time out.
regards,
bert.

Some "knowledgeable" people say that carbon cannot age. I am not in a position to say yes or no, but I do think if not the carbon then the resins that are used maybe up to 3-4 years ago might not have stood the test of time, especially in the cheaper/chinese range.
But I would imagine the very highest quality resin these days may last a very long time.
I think also the fact that most anglers have several rods may somewhat cloud their judgement, as differing actions etc..

DFlex is the person that could shed technical light on this one.

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If it can happen to carbon bike frames, especially forks, it can 100% happen to rods.

It is the hair line fracture as mentioned above. Hard to fix as once a fracture start it just spreads vertically
Carbon nano tubes and cross weaving stop this, plus some fribes arent that long on bike frames, but i dont know oif rods are advanced or not?

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John Danter

I believe the original poster suspects the rod has 'tired' and then will recover in a matter of hours or so (I've heard others talk about this also). I cannot see what the recovery process could be (if in-fact there has been any degradation in the first place).

---------- Post added at 03:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:01 PM ----------

Obiwan - just to clarify, is the rod still 'spongey'?