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Updated 02,01,2010.

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Lure, Vibe / Blade Protection.  

Light Braid to Heavy Braid. Leader.

Knot Wars in the USA.  

Abrasion Resistance. 

Testing Mono's Dry then Wet

Why I believe all braid you use should be tested.

With fishing, well its like instrumentation, Knots, Lines and Setups one will never ever know enough.

Paulus  

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About Knots.

One may say its Crunch time, and no more BS, that's on braid to leader knots.

You see comments like my Pappy did this knot and it never ever failed, or this great Fisho does this fantastic knot that is the best I have ever seen, and Bob Jones from What's a Name said.... forget all that stuff.

On lighter braids with a tested breaking strain of up to 15 lb, tied to lighter leaders, knots are not all that much of a problem. That's because the lines physical size, generally has a big enough foot print to carry these smaller loads. An improved double blood with the braid flattened and folded in the knot will suffice.
But go beyond that size and breaking strain, a whole new area opens up ........ like:-  like the braids physical size verses breaking strain, the materials elongation capability and hardness, leader size and hardness are all factors.

I used a 22 lb braid with a 0.222 mm average diameter, flattened and folded in an Improved Double Uni knot. Now a Double Blood would have performed a little better.

With going to a heavier it does not matter what knot you have, if you have a single line of braid going into the knot, you may have an outcome of 45 to 55% of the braids test strength, flatten the braid out between thumb nail and fore finger a few times each side, and then fold the braid in the knot, you may get an increase of 5%.
To get better results than this, you need to go a step further, you will need to go to a double in the braid and then tie both of the legs to the leader, in other words you need to share / spread the load over a bigger area.
 

A test I did to prove my point.

The braid was tied to a :-
10 lb tested medium hardness leader diam 0.262, Leader Failed at 7.9 lb, 79% of the leader.
28 lb tested medium hardness leader diam 0.444, Braid Failed at 12.9 lb, 59% of the braid.
As can be seen once the leader is heavier than the braid, the braid needs a double in it (bimini twist) with the 2 legs tied to the leader.

With a Bimini in the braid and 2 legs on the 28 lb leader, the braid failed at 21.2 lb, 97% that's an increase of 61%
With a Bimini in the braid and the 2 legs tied on a 42 lb leader diam 0.560, the braid failed at 21.6 lb, 97%
 

I have tested a number of doubles made in braids and all failed to an extent where you would not consider using  them, even some of the so called great bimini twist tiers failed.

If you tie on a leader and it almost goes full strength of the braid you do not need to replace it to often, so spend a little more time making the knot.  I have seen where guys in a rush, decide to do a quick Uni onto a leader to save time, and loose two lures casting in a row, because the knot fails, on lighter lines a Double Blood would have saved time and lures. Not a lot of difference between the strength of the two but enough.

You see a lot of guys putting up information on what knot is good and how to tie it, but not with one stick of test information given, as to how it actually performs under a real load. Its of little help to say I fished with it all day and its the best knot I have used. Proof of the of the knots strength is in the testing.

With heavier leaders a Bimini Twist in the main line is the way to go, and a Bimini Twist Tool makes it a quick and easy loop to do.

The best way to see how a knot will perform is to draw the knot or to animate it you will see where the line crosses its self, and where the braid may cut itself.

More to come
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Lure, Vibe / Blade Protection.

The reasons for the tool are numerous,
That more and more people are starting to use Vibes and Blades the Flatties and big Tailor swallow them whole along with your line, so then the flattie, vibe/blade and $14 / $25 are all gone in one hit, ask my mate (Bolts).

Now with all the bigger Tailor about, loosing lure after lure to them, generally gets me pretty peed off, you to I suppose, then also hanging a few small hooks out the back to catch a few livies, they also get bitten off, that's why I initially made the tool to make the 125 mm stainless eyelet trace.
I also lost a few very good fish because the 65 lb braid I was using on the stingers was tangling a little, and on occasions that was bitten through, so now the stingers have the stainless traces with the eyelets. Keep in mind I catch most of my fish on the stinger.
Putting an eyelet on the end of stainless, with a nice twist that does not slip, is difficult hence the tool, I can now also vary the length.

Paulus

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Light Braid to Heavy Braid. Leader

Playing with knots you try all sorts of things, people mention things like, have you tried this or that, you pick up on all sorts of things.

I think it was my mate Rog that said, I believe that they are using braid for leaders that are very heavy and large, as it cuts through the kelp better than the conventional leaders, that are much larger in diameter than the equivalent breaking strain in braid.

So I thought how would you tie a light braid to a heavy braid, and get good strength, a little R & D required, I think.

After trying a number of knots, Uni and Double blood, results poor to medium I tried some thing new, and got all but 100% of the main lines breaking strain.
I used a Bimini Twist as a knot, just one knot to tie the 2 lines together. One thin line (22 lb) in and one heavy line (74 lb) out, with a resulting breaking strain of 21.9 lb.
I also did this with a 22 lb braid onto a 28 lb medium hardness leader and got a 20.8 lb result, which is not to bad. I tried it on 42lb medium hardness line, it was difficult to do but a similar result.
 

Well I thought i would put up a You tube vid on how its done

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j7X9-4foKg
 

New Knot for light braid to heavy braid as a leader excellent result. This development will lead to more and new knots.

Paulus

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Knot Wars in the USA

I watched this on the web and found it really interesting, I started watching the 2009 results, I then went and had a look at the 2008 run up to the final, I was amazed that in the final the double uni equalled with the double blood for the top spot, now I know that with all my testing, that the double blood is far superior to the double uni.

So I thought I wonder why they said that they are equal, I turned to the video on how the knot was formed, which is shown separately to the main show, That's when I saw it, a mistake on how the knot was tied, the entry of one of the tag ends is wrong, this allows the knot to untwist one turn on one side, leaving only two of the three turns on that side, That also allows both tag ends wind up facing one way instead of opposing, not only that but they did it with three turns which should have been at least four.

This is the mistake, I believe it altered the end result and that a retest should be called for, and with 4 turns.

Now I have done this test a few more times today and its a No Contest, the double blood wins,,,, every time.

If you do it with Braid to a mono, then an even better result can be achieved, by folding the braid and using the improved double blood.

Knot Wars in the USA

2008 http://www.fishingclub.com/ExtraContent/ExtraContentDetail.aspx?id=132344

2009 http://www.fishingclub.com/ExtraContent/ExtraContentDetail.aspx?id=146070

Paulus

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Abrasion Resistance

I read about guys testing the abrasion resistance of a line by rubbing the line on bricks and doing other subjective things to rough it up, yes one line may wear better than another, but that is only a small portion of it. Maybe it should just be roughed up to a point and then the breaking strain tested, rather than saying it took 240 rubs and the other took 180 rubs. maybe the first line (240) would fail a breaking strain test, at 20 % of its strength after one rub.

I was recently doing some breaking strain tests on  a line, when I accidentally put a small crease in the line, it was not a cut (I bent the line over a sharp 90 deg edge) the line got a small white spot in it, the sort of thing you may see in a knot, the spot wound up in the centre of the test area, I thought I will see what happens here, well it failed at 51% of the lines breaking strain. This one had me thinking I may have to do a little more work in this area.

Paulus

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Testing Mono's Dry then Wet

Momoi Hi-catch IGFA 30 lb.

I was surprised to see this 30 lb IGFA line break over the the rating at an average of 33.56 lb (15.25 kg), this could be a problem for some. When tested wet the line came in just under at an average of  29.57 lb (13.43 kg), dangerously close if your chasing a record.

The line was 2 yr old and the end of a spool that was never used, this age could also harden it, maybe that's why it broke well over when doing the dry test. Wetting the line and doing another test it failed just under, maybe the wetting process rejuvenated the line to some extent.

The difference between wet and dry seems to be about 10%, well on this line in this instance it was actually 11.9%. 

I have done some other wet and dry tests and run some comparisons between them, the end result was that......

Generally wet lines loose 6.3% to 7.5% of the lines strength that's from dry to wet. 

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Why I believe that all braid should be tested

As you can now see that what is written on the packaging is not what is on the spool.

Manufacturers make line to differing specs, Japanese make lines to break close to or below indicated, but not always,,,, a lot depends on where it's to be sold.  Americans like the braid to break well above indicated,  If you buy your line from overseas it can be quite different from the line in your local shop.

Having tested many brands of braid, being differing samples and colours of the same line, the test results vary a lot from the same manufacturers, different machines on different manufacturing lines.

Lets look at a few,,,,,,,Daiwa Team TD the 10lb is stronger than the 15lb,,,,,,, Fins Original - Prt is twice as strong as the other lines they make ???? except Wind tamer it's stronger too,,,,,,,Hi- Seas Grand Slam 30lb the difference between the yellow and red, one tests at 33lb the other at 50lb,,,,,,,,Mustad Dynamite  one 19lb breaks at 22lb the other at 36lb,,,,,,Tuf Line XP breaks close to except the 100lb which was actually 80lb,,,,,,,Sunline Super PE well its a little all over the place and a thick line for its breaking strain.

Thicknesses indicated on the packaging; Take no notice of those numbers at all, and buggered if I know how they come up with those numbers. Maybe its measured at breaking strain (max elongation).

So looking at the list (Line Testing) at least you can see what some of the results are, well that's those samples any way.

It's simple to get your line tested, just send in a 3mt sample (wound on a piece of cardboard), I often wonder how consistently a manufacturer can make a line.

I like using a thin line with a high breaking strain it has :- less drag in the water, quicker to get to the bottom, picks up less water, easier to jig with, catches less wind and casts further,, although you need to be careful with your knots.

Paulus

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