Fast light rods more easily broken?

[Bobinmich]

Not really. Most graphite fly rods are designed for their deflection characteristics and, since they have such high tensile strength, stress is usually not a factor. Bamboo rods, with their lower tensile strength, are usually designed for stress limits. Don Phillips has a good book on it.

Graphite rods are sensative (very) to cracks and damage. It has been said more rods are broken by weighted streamers than any other cause. You hit the rod, crack the finish, and the rod breaks from the resulting stress concentrations.

You can break most rods by candycaneing them but I think glass and bamboo might be more sensitive to this type of failure than graphite. I have broken two Orvis 2 piece rods this way, (my bad), both of them in the exact same place - right above the ferrule. I suspect a design flaw since there is a section transition there.

Godspeed and good fishing,

Bob

[cross creek]

"Grapheme is stronger than steel"--of equal thickness, weight, or some other characteristic that the statement is based on. Reminds me of the hype surrounding titanium--"stronger than steel"--of the same weight. A heat treated part made of equal thickness steel as a titanium part (other specifications aside), will be at least as "strong," although it will also weigh at least 1/3rd more. But, back to the original post--it's pretty much a given that lighter, thinner, stronger materials of any ilk, while likely performing at a higher level by some metric than their heavier counterparts, will also break more easily, although not in the same way, in most cases. Graphite rods seem to have a virtually limitless lifespan, if you measure their flex characteristics when new, then again after years and thousands of hours of use, compared to glass and bamboo (partially due to glues/resins, no doubt), but they fracture much more easily from impact damage and excessive overloading, and do it in a much more catastrophic and spectacular fashion. Fishermen just have to decide which characteristics make the best rod for them and choose accordingly, accepting the bad with the good for whatever material they select. I've broken glass, bamboo, and graphite rods, and I've had (older) glass and bamboo rods soften up over time--still, I can't say one is unequivocally "better" than the others.
CC