Back in the early to mid 70's I bought my very first Carbon Fibre Rod.
All I can remember was that it came in an aluminum tube and it was called a Diamondback. If my memory is correct it was a grey blank with a diamond pattern. Quite expensive at the time. Can anyone remember them and who actually made it?

Thanks

Graham

Sue Burgess Diamondbacks.
My father absolutely loved 'em.

I'm pretty sure it was produced by Sue Burgess in the business that eventually mutated into Airflo. They were very good rods and much sought after at the time and for quite a while post production. I once had their 14' salmon rod and it was one of the best I've ever used.

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“There is no more lovely country than Monmouthshire in early spring. Nowhere do the larks sing quite so passionately, as if somehow inspired by the Welsh themselves. There is a blackbird on every thorn and a cock chaffinch, a twink as they call him there, on every bush...... It moved me profoundly. I had been spared to see another spring, and I thank God for it.”

Oliver Kite
“A Spring Day on the Usk”
A Fisherman’s Diary

Not this then


Diamondback Fly Rods - Home

Taff

one on ebay at the moment

CLASSIC " DIAMONDBACK" SALMON ROD on eBay (end time 26-Apr-10 19:34:13 BST)

This is quite right. Made in Brecon by Sue Burgess Company. I did in fact make, or should I say assemble these rods for the company for quite some time together with a cheaper rod they called the Sidewinder. They were very much at the forefront of carbon fibre rods then. They were true fishing rods as compared to todays 'casting tools' having a much fuller action. Nice rods indeed. I still have a 9' 6" model which I still use from time to time[I also have some spare spigots somewhere should anyone need one.

Diamondback Blanks were made by a manufacturing offshoot of Johnson's Wax in the USA . They then did sort of nothing with the job for years !

Quite why they were sufficiently demented as to let Paul Burgess distribute in the UK the lord alone knows - and they weren't that bad of blanks !

Steve P

I still use my 1981 Diamondback- optimistically rated AFTM 4-7 by the vendor.Worked fine with a 4 or 5 and total car crash with a 7.Very very slow action- and rod bends double with a 8 oz grayling. Cost me £105 from the aforesaid Paul Burgess- from whom I am still awaiting an order I sent in - and paid for - in 1983.....

Re the aforementioned - a pal of mine has a credit note for a 30p packet of black chenille from 1976 framed and on his wall !

He reckons what with compound interest he's owed several hundred pounds on the job - but I think he's overoptimistic !

And weren't there some wonderful inside trade jokes from that period " Burgess has had to put guards on his tent at the gamefair - folks were sneaking in at night to return those flylines ! "
' I hope he's never murdered - that'd be 250,000 customers in the frame !! '

Best wishes

Steve P

Here we go ... I built on the same blank in the late '70s ....



4 or 5 OK but as you say the blank simply collapses under anything heavier. Having said that, I did land a 6/7lb grilse using it with a 5DT on the Teifi ... that was fun.

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