TUNA EXPRESS R710

"When Rodhouse first contacted me about this project, the brief was truly unique: to create a blank with a tip that would cast small 30gr lures, yet be able to tackle fish up to 50kg effortlessly. Needless to say, from a design point of view, this represented a real challenge.

I started by looking through our current range to see if I could find anything that came close in terms of action. We didn't have anything equivalent, but it gave me an idea of where to go next. One of the other unique features requested was a butt no larger than 0.750' outside diameter. Not really a problem, except that in this case, it also had to be fitted from the inside of the butt, not tip over butt or spigot.

These two conditions meant that I couldn't use the butt diameter to give rigidity. There are three ways to add stiffness to a blank: you can play with the diameter, the wall thickness and the type of material.

The first is to use the diameter of the butt to add stiffness.

I quickly realized that I was going to have to use at least three different types of material and play with the positioning of the modules to achieve the desired action and power. I decided to use 24T carbon for the purpose, with a special reinforcement of about 10cm at the fitting to avoid the risk of breakage under heavy load there.

Then the tip: three different materials would go into its construction, namely our E-Glass, 24T carbon and 30T. The E-Glass is extremely strong and allowed me to achieve the desired tip flexibility. Then the 24T and 30T carbons provide the power and stiffness needed to cope with a 50kg tuna or similar fish. As the tip is quite thin all the way through, I had to use more 24T and 30T than I would normally use on a more conventional blank.

The first proto I sent to Rodhouse lacked power. On the following ones, I added a good amount of 30T carbon to recover even more power and push the breaking limits under load. A lot of work went into the dosage of each material, to get everything just right. To be honest, this was one of the most interesting tuning jobs I've ever done. Without the close collaboration with Rodhouse, none of this would have been possible.

Mike Thorson"