Surprised by this 7042 taper

57Clemson · Post by **57Clemson** » 01/18/09 14:41

Several weeks ago when I introduced myself to the board I mentioned that I was fixing to build a Gould RR108,:my pet:Since then I have been thinking about other 7042..tapers like a 202E,or a Payne or lots of others.Too many tapers and too little time. Then I started thinking "why not just put a bunch of tapers on the table, average them out ,and come out with this new and sensational 7042 ,or possibly a peice of crap"
I took 7042 two piece tapers from 24 builders that were listed on Hexrod and David Ray's library.I removed the high and low numbers from each station of each builders taper and averaged them out. What I found wasn't new or improved. It was ,for all practical purposes ,what looks like an almost dead ringer of the Gould RR108.Surprized the heck out of me!!
The builbers whose tapers I blended include:Gould ,Holbrook. Payne, Winston, Wilcox, Tyree, T&T, Smartt, Powell, Leonard, Granger, Maurer, Degere, Bowles, Bogart, Young, Heddon, Garrison, Dickerson, and Cattanach, I know,maybe I drink too much or have too much time on my hands. Retirement is a beautiful thing!!!

I'm going to build the blended taper. What do you guys think.?
Blend--67-76-95.5-111-125-139-152-164.5-177-185-207-220-236.5-251-270-294
Gould--67-77-95-112-127-140-153-166-179-192-205-218-232-250-271-294

thousandstar · Post by **thousandstar** » 01/18/09 16:03

I think that is a super cool and interesting thing to do. The "Motley" taper, as it has a little of them all. Please post a follow up on your impression of the finished rod.

BigTJ · Post by **BigTJ** » 01/18/09 17:28

Brings new meaning to the saying "no taper is new or original". That pretty much proves it.

1sweetcane · Post by **1sweetcane** » 01/18/09 21:16

Now that is a very creative way of looking at tapers or it is the most obvious overlooked way to find middle ground between certain tapers. I never would have thought of that so thanks for sharing.

BigTJ · Post by **BigTJ** » 01/19/09 07:41

This averaging technique is well known and discussed in the Maurer book in context of blending two tapers. I think the idea has probably been around a long while, perhaps almost as long as cane rods have been around.

In my mind blindly averaging tapers is a bit like indexed mutual funds. You have a great chance at getting a good casting rod, compared with focusing on your own tapers where you do things intentionally to bring out a certain action in the rod. Focusing on your own tapers gives you a better chance of hitting a "home run" but also a chance of making a real dog. I would rather understand what makes a taper a taper, and what different things do to the action of a rod, than blending a bunch of other tapers and hoping I get a good rod. But that's just me and doesn't mean the homogenized approach isn't a good way to go, it's all fun no matter which approach you take.

57Clemson · Post by **57Clemson** » 01/19/09 12:58

BigTJ, I have never built a blended taper and am not necessarily advocating such. My point was that I was curious and did the math and was surprized that the result was almost identical to the Gould taper I originally wanted to build. I thought the result was pretty cool as well.

BigTJ · Post by **BigTJ** » 01/19/09 13:26

57Clemson,

My comments aren't directed towards you, they are just general ideas on the topic. To each his own I certainly don't have the credentials to criticize anybody's approach. So please keep this in mind.

Best,

-John

57Clemson · Post by **57Clemson** » 01/19/09 19:08

John,
I certainly didn't take your responses in the wrong spirit. You are a guy that I can learn a lot from. I appreciate it.
Dave Wallace

BigTJ · Post by **BigTJ** » 01/20/09 05:35

Dave,

Likewise, thanks. Let us know how the rod turns out, I bet it will be a gem.

-John

avyoung · Post by **avyoung** » 10/08/19 20:02

Funny thing about blended tapers.

Way back when I had to do my time studying statistics one of the first things we were taught was the story about the town lottery for the cow.
The idea was that you pay your money and guess the weight of the cow, the closest wins as I imagine you understand.

It happens that almost never does it happen that any one person gets the exact weight but given a sufficient sample the average is almost exact.

We tried it in class to prove the point and it does work. Year later there was a similar lottery for a huge barrumundai fish the local fish shop was raffling for Christmas.
I told the fish monger this story which he doubted but we tried out after the draw and again it was pretty much bang on, from memory it was 4grams out on a fish that was bit over 8kgs.

I didn't win the fish unfortunately.

No reason why a rod tapers can't be something similar provided they're decent in the first place, or may it doesn't matter as long as some are decent?

tony

cdmoore · Post by **cdmoore** » 10/09/19 08:48

Anyone know how Ray derived his tapers? Is it possible that Ray Gould performed a similar exercise, hence nearly identical numbers?

Canewrap · Post by **Canewrap** » 10/09/19 11:21

57Clemson wrote:Several weeks ago when I introduced myself to the board I mentioned that I was fixing to build a Gould RR108,:my pet:Since then I have been thinking about other 7042..tapers like a 202E,or a Payne or lots of others.Too many tapers and too little time. Then I started thinking "why not just put a bunch of tapers on the table, average them out ,and come out with this new and sensational 7042 ,or possibly a peice of crap"
I took 7042 two piece tapers from 24 builders that were listed on Hexrod and David Ray's library.I removed the high and low numbers from each station of each builders taper and averaged them out. What I found wasn't new or improved. It was ,for all practical purposes ,what looks like an almost dead ringer of the Gould RR108.Surprized the heck out of me!!
The builbers whose tapers I blended include:Gould ,Holbrook. Payne, Winston, Wilcox, Tyree, T&T, Smartt, Powell, Leonard, Granger, Maurer, Degere, Bowles, Bogart, Young, Heddon, Garrison, Dickerson, and Cattanach, I know,maybe I drink too much or have too much time on my hands. Retirement is a beautiful thing!!!

I'm going to build the blended taper. What do you guys think.?
Blend--67-76-95.5-111-125-139-152-164.5-177-185-207-220-236.5-251-270-294
Gould--67-77-95-112-127-140-153-166-179-192-205-218-232-250-271-294

Let us know how it turns out and don't forget to also try a WF5 line on it. When I graphed it out it looks like a fast DT4/WF5 rod. Should also rollcast fairly easily.

snorider · Post by **snorider** » 10/09/19 21:52

I have a Jeff Hatton built gnomish rod which is built on a taper developed by taking an average of 12 of the best 7’ 4wt tapers. It’s excellent!

mer · Post by **mer** » 10/10/19 08:52

snorider wrote:I have a Jeff Hatton built gnomish rod which is built on a taper developed by taking an average of 12 of the best 7’ 4wt tapers. It’s excellent!

Heh. I've got one of those too. Very nice.

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