How much filler is acceptable on a £220 float rod?

[markcw]

If you remember correctly, I was offered the possibility of returning the rod for them to inspect and, if they agreed, would give me a replacement, which would have left me without a rod while they deliberated. When it actually came to me agreeing for a replacement, the manufacturer failed to reply to my e-mail. I said I would keep the rod to see how it did, ie if the filler stayed in place. As it is, more filler has fallen out of this rod with 5 fishing trips than from my Drennan Tench rod that is over 30 years old. Not only is the cork of much poorer quality, but the quality of the filling is also poor. I brought it up here again merely because I wanted to gauge the opinion of those more expert than me on what standard of handle one would expect from a £200 rod these days, morality having nothing to do with it.

So going by what you say about retuning it and being without a rod ,you only have one float/waggler rod ?
Could you have not tried another method of fishing while it was being inspected ?
You may have had a new rod by now .
Your contract is with the retailer not the manufacturer.
Are you going to return it to the retailer now more filler has fallen out , ?
Did you take before and after photos to show them ?

 

[kingf000]

Your contract is with the retailer, not the manufacturer. So there is no reason why you could not have taken or posted the rod to the retailer. You chose not to. Doesn't matter why. You chose not to return the rod and therefore you have no moral right to keep on moaning about it.

I've clearly pi55ed you off well and truly. As I believe I said in the earlier thread, yes, the legal contract is with the retailer. Reasons I didn't go to them but to the manufacturer were; first: they are a small, independent retailer and we are losing too many of them so why should they suffer financially in terms of a refund when the manufacturer sends them sub-standard rods to sell? Second, I bought it on-line because none of my local shops had it in stock. Because of the length, I would have had to fork out around £24 to send it back to the retailer with no guarantee of getting that money back. Third, the manufacturer could arrange for pick up from my local shops and has spare sections available instantly to replace it. It would have taken far longer to go through the process of sending the rod to the retailer, them sending it to the manufacturer, sending the replacement to the retailer who would then send it on to me with no guarantee of success. If there is any moral issue here, IMO it is immoral for a manufacturer to send sub-standard products out for sale, especially to small independent retailers who are struggling to survive, when they claim they quality check every rod.

To answer another point, 95% of my fishing is fly fishing and I only use the float rod for my trips up North for trotting for grayling in the winter so, yes, I only have one rod suitable for trotting. I do have an 11ft tench rod but that is far from ideal for the relatively big river I fish as I can't control the float where I want it. Finally, I'm not moaning about it. I simply asked for feedback from people on this site, including photos this time, who, I assume, have more experience of buying rods to see whether my moans, as you call it, are justified. The general consensus seems to be that the rod handle is sub-standard so I am justified to ask for a replacement.

Although there doesn't seem to be a shortage of cork, there does seem to be a shortage of good quality cork which means the price has rocketed. My entry grade Greys fly rod from 30 years ago has as good a handle as my mid-range £500 Hardy rod from 5 years ago and as I said, my old Drennan Tench rod has a far better handle than this. Personally I would much rather have a rod with a mainly EVA handle with just a small amount of good quality cork where I hold the rod rather than having lower quality cork throughout the length.

 

[kingf000]

So going by what you say about retuning it and being without a rod ,you only have one float/waggler rod ?
Could you have not tried another method of fishing while it was being inspected ?
You may have had a new rod by now .
Your contract is with the retailer not the manufacturer.
Are you going to return it to the retailer now more filler has fallen out , ?
Did you take before and after photos to show them ?

I think I answered most of this above. Based on the more helpful responses here and the failure of the manufacturer to respond, I have contacted the retailer with the photos and they agree with my moans, and are going to try and get a replacement section from the manufacturer which, hopefully, I will get before my trotting season starts again in November and, hopefully, will be of the quality I expect from that manufacturer. I doubt if I would have had as helpful a response if I had moaned to them before the filler fell out.

 

[mikench]

I wouldn’t accept any new rod with filler added to a cork handle and most definitely if the use of the filler is extensive and badly applied and neither should you. A cork handle is an integral part of a rods aesthetics and how it feels. Drennan should replace it without quibble. As an aside I do buy online but I also use my local AD and I am known there. They have always been willing to take a defective item in such as a chair, brolly, rod or reel even if it wasn’t bought there as the reps call in regularly and can take the offending item away. They know that the goodwill they generate will be repaid in future sales. Good luck.

 

[steve2]

Having had another look at the pics you do seem to have more filler than cork. A right pigs ear of a rod, made by some company with no quality control and over priced for what you have. Drennan appear to have gone down hill since I last bought one of their rod.

 

[Ray Roberts]

All companies have a returns policy. My family have a company that does a lot of mail order business. They never send a replacement or a refund without first receiving the defective item. The reasons for this is that sometimes people; have unrealistic expectations of what they have bought, buy the wrong item, deliberately damage the goods to get a refund, use the item for a purpose it wasn’t intended for or damage the item accidentally and then claim it was faulty. I’m not suggesting that you fall into any of the above categories but some companies experience this on a daily or weekly basis.

Your initial claim if you thought you had received a faulty item should have been with the retailer who sold it to you. That it’s not convenient for you isn’t really the problem of the manufacturer. There is a well established procedure to return defective items and you chose to ignore this and go your own route. It seems somewhat odd that when you chose to buy the item from an on-line retailer you were prepared to wait for delivery. I have broken a Drennan acolyte rod and the company I bought it from had ceased trading. I took the section to The Tackle Box at Dartford and they kindly dealt with it for me. They gave me a receipt and sent it back to Drennan. I did the same with a Freespirit rod I had broken the tip on and they sent it to Freespirit. It wasn’t a drama I just followed the process.

As someone who doesn’t personally know you, or has any vested interest in Drennan, except as a satisfied customer of their products, it looks very much to me that you are suffering from buyers remorse. Hence first complaining about a minimal weight difference and then about a sub-standard handle. Had you returned the item either via the mail order company or a local dealer then it may well have been resolved long ago. That you didn’t is your fault.

 

[seth49]

This is the Cork handle on my korum all-rounder quiver tip rod, not bad for a rod that retails for between £50.00 and £60.00.

 

[@Clive]

I've clearly pi55ed you off well and truly. As I believe I said in the earlier thread, yes, the legal contract is with the retailer. Reasons I didn't go to them but to the manufacturer were; first: they are a small, independent retailer and we are losing too many of them so why should they suffer financially in terms of a refund when the manufacturer sends them sub-standard rods to sell? Second, I bought it on-line because none of my local shops had it in stock. Because of the length, I would have had to fork out around £24 to send it back to the retailer with no guarantee of getting that money back. Third, the manufacturer could arrange for pick up from my local shops and has spare sections available instantly to replace it. It would have taken far longer to go through the process of sending the rod to the retailer, them sending it to the manufacturer, sending the replacement to the retailer who would then send it on to me with no guarantee of success. If there is any moral issue here, IMO it is immoral for a manufacturer to send sub-standard products out for sale, especially to small independent retailers who are struggling to survive, when they claim they quality check every rod.

To answer another point, 95% of my fishing is fly fishing and I only use the float rod for my trips up North for trotting for grayling in the winter so, yes, I only have one rod suitable for trotting. I do have an 11ft tench rod but that is far from ideal for the relatively big river I fish as I can't control the float where I want it. Finally, I'm not moaning about it. I simply asked for feedback from people on this site, including photos this time, who, I assume, have more experience of buying rods to see whether my moans, as you call it, are justified. The general consensus seems to be that the rod handle is sub-standard so I am justified to ask for a replacement.

Although there doesn't seem to be a shortage of cork, there does seem to be a shortage of good quality cork which means the price has rocketed. My entry grade Greys fly rod from 30 years ago has as good a handle as my mid-range £500 Hardy rod from 5 years ago and as I said, my old Drennan Tench rod has a far better handle than this. Personally I would much rather have a rod with a mainly EVA handle with just a small amount of good quality cork where I hold the rod rather than having lower quality cork throughout the length.

No. You accepted the rod by not going through the normal returns process. Given that you predicted the filler falling out and still chose to keep the rod then you have no one but yourself to blame for your current situation.

I also find it strange that you made so much fuss about a rod weighing 10g more than it should, claiming some problem with your health. And now you are saying that most of your fishing is fly-fishing. That puts more strain on your hands and wrist than any float rod does.

And looking at your post above; you say that you bought it from a small independent retailer. Then you say that you bought it online because your local shops didn't have it. And the retailer doesn't lose out by accepting your return as they will have an arrangement with the manufacturer.

In short I think that you are talking nonsense.

 

[nottskev]

On the subject of cork quality, and I think i've posted about it before, I don't think the current cork producer's grading system helps in that I believe it's graded within the year it was produced and not to a set scale irrespective of time but I will caveat that with a question mark?

I believe Portugal is by far the largest cork producer and i'm not sure if that is their system of grading or not.

Unless i've got it wrong that tells me that eg. a 2021 B grade might be better than a 2022 Flor or A grade because the seemingly better might just be the best available from a poorer production year and therefore is accredited with the best score when in fact it might not be up to the standard of the previous year's and lesser accredited B grade?

This is an interesting read...

https://www.rodbuilding.org/library/corkscale.pdf

It was interesting. The GuidesnBlanks website has some pics of cork handles/rings, and you can see how their cork relates to their quality categories.

I bought some cork handle sections from them a while back, and the quality is very high - dense, uniform and silky smooth (there's my cork fetish coming out).

I'm a big fan of good cork handles. Nothing, imo, looks or feels better. Of necessity, due to the power of these fish, my barbel rods have screw seats of various types, but until roach, perch, bream, chub, tench et al start ripping the reel from sliding bands, I'll stick to full cork, and if that rules out buying new, I won't cry. (Is £220 such a lot these days? Doesn't seem to be when I'm paying bills or buying groceries.)

How much filler is acceptable? I don't want any really, but then I'm out of touch with reality and I don't find the common dog's breakfast handles - mixing foam, plastic, metal and a few sad scraps of inferior cork - acceptable either on a "good" float rod that I'll hold/admire all day.

I think if you buy a rod and it's flawed or disappoints you, best to take it back or flog it and get something you actually like.

 

[kingf000]

No. You accepted the rod by not going through the normal returns process. Given that you predicted the filler falling out and still chose to keep the rod then you have no one but yourself to blame for your current situation.

I also find it strange that you made so much fuss about a rod weighing 10g more than it should, claiming some problem with your health. And now you are saying that most of your fishing is fly-fishing. That puts more strain on your hands and wrist than any float rod does.

And looking at your post above; you say that you bought it from a small independent retailer. Then you say that you bought it online because your local shops didn't have it. And the retailer doesn't lose out by accepting your return as they will have an arrangement with the manufacturer.

In short I think that you are talking nonsense.

What I wrote is totally consistent and not nonsense. A pity some here don't realise it because they are so pi55ed off with what I have written that they nit pick to try and find inconsistencies that are purely in their imagination. I never predicted that the filler would fall out so quickly. What I did say was that if the filler did fall out it would reduce the weight of the rod by most of the 10g. I was being flippant at the time following someone's equally flippant suggestion that I break off the top foot of the rod to which I made the comment that I would have to break off the whole top section as that weighed just over 10g, or wait until the filler fell out. Clearly I'll have to learn to use emojis as some people seem to be totally unable to differentiate serious points from those less serious.
You say I accepted the rod by not going through the normal return process, but that is not what I wrote. I made a fuss about the 10g because it was not what was advertised and I feared it pointed to the use of heavier, poorer quality materials. I made a claim about my health because I suffered strain injury in my forearm when using a longer and heavier trotting rod so wanted as light a set up as possible to minimise the risk. When fly fishing, as you say yourself, you don't use the same muscles in the same repetitive manner, so again what I wrote was consistent and entirely plausible. In terms of buying it, I bought it online from a small independent retailer - where is the inconsistency? It is a small independent tackle shop and I bought it from them on line. I checked the details of the shop before I bought it to make sure it was genuine. I'm not entirely sure whether the retailer would lose out or not, but if I got a refund, I assumed the retailer would only get back from the manufacturer what they paid for it, so they would lose out on the sale. If I went through the process of returning it to the retailer, someone would have to pay for the postage and I doubted the manufacturer would pay. I may be wrong but that is what I thought, so either I or the retailer would lose money for a sub-standard product provided by the manufacturer.

In short, I don't think it is me who is talking, or writing nonsense.

 

[@Clive]

What I wrote is totally consistent and not nonsense. A pity some here don't realise it because they are so pi55ed off with what I have written that they nit pick to try and find inconsistencies that are purely in their imagination. I never predicted that the filler would fall out so quickly. What I did say was that if the filler did fall out it would reduce the weight of the rod by most of the 10g. I was being flippant at the time following someone's equally flippant suggestion that I break off the top foot of the rod to which I made the comment that I would have to break off the whole top section as that weighed just over 10g, or wait until the filler fell out. Clearly I'll have to learn to use emojis as some people seem to be totally unable to differentiate serious points from those less serious.
You say I accepted the rod by not going through the normal return process, but that is not what I wrote. I made a fuss about the 10g because it was not what was advertised and I feared it pointed to the use of heavier, poorer quality materials. I made a claim about my health because I suffered strain injury in my forearm when using a longer and heavier trotting rod so wanted as light a set up as possible to minimise the risk. When fly fishing, as you say yourself, you don't use the same muscles in the same repetitive manner, so again what I wrote was consistent and entirely plausible. In terms of buying it, I bought it online from a small independent retailer - where is the inconsistency? It is a small independent tackle shop and I bought it from them on line. I checked the details of the shop before I bought it to make sure it was genuine. I'm not entirely sure whether the retailer would lose out or not, but if I got a refund, I assumed the retailer would only get back from the manufacturer what they paid for it, so they would lose out on the sale. If I went through the process of returning it to the retailer, someone would have to pay for the postage and I doubted the manufacturer would pay. I may be wrong but that is what I thought, so either I or the retailer would lose money for a sub-standard product provided by the manufacturer.

In short, I don't think it is me who is talking, or writing nonsense.

Yes, you did accept the rod because you chose not to return it when the offer was made to you. The reasons that you didn't change every time you reply.

Yes, you do use the same repetetive muscle actions when fly-fishing. A lot more than when trotting.I never said otherwise. You are making things up to cover your chopping and changing your story.

 

[Richox12]

I have to say that cork looks very black and well used for something which is supposed to have only been used 5 times.

 

[Keith M]

I’ve certainly never had a Drennan rod with a damaged handle like that; and I’ve been buying Drennan rods for donkeys years.
It looks like an old rod which has been used, abused and badly damaged; and certainly not a brand new rod that has only been used 5 times.
It would have been sent straight back to the seller if it was anything near as bad as on those pictures. It’s very hard to believe the originator of this thread.

Keith

 

[rob48]

Looking at the photographs the fuji reel holders and thread appear to have had next to no use at all.

 

[nottskev]

Looking at the photographs the fuji reel holders and thread appear to have had next to no use at all.

Are you sure you weren't looking at someone else's pic of a Korum handle? You can't see the reel seat/thread on the OP's rod, the one with the shabby cork.

 

[John Aston]

Leave it a few years and you can advertise it as 'beautifully patinated'.

 

[rob48]

Are you sure you weren't looking at someone else's pic of a Korum handle? You can't see the reel seat/thread on the OP's rod, the one with the shabby cork.

I can see the end of the thread on photograph 001 in the OP.

 

[nottskev]

I can see the end of the thread on photograph 001 in the OP.

I see now; I hadn't expanded the pics.

 

[RMNDIL]

To be perfectly honest that does look like an abnormally high amount of filler for an Acolyte handle. Not AAA grade cork.

That said I wonder what gouged the cork out here ?

 

[Keith M]

It’s not a cheap Chinese copy of the Drennan rod is it???

Keith