Almost Missed This One…

Fellow rod builder Steve Clark operates a nice rod building forum over at www.rodbuildingforum.com. I had received a note to look in on a particular thread there concerning the Common Cents System and did so.  It brought back a few memories of how RodMaker Magazine ended up having the privilege of being the first to publish information on this fantastic system.

Way back in 2002, I got a call from Ralph O’Quinn. Many of you may know Ralph. When it comes to epoxies and rod building technology he’s second to no one. His knowledge and accomplishments speak for themselves. He’s also a very no nonsense kind of guy and doesn’t suffer fools lightly. If he tells me that something has merit, I’ll certainly take a serious look at it.

As it happened, a fellow by the name of William Hanneman Ph.D., had penned an article on a system he had developed for objectively and relatively measuring the inherent properties of fishing rods. He had submitted it to the folks at Fly Anglers Online. They sent him to Ralph. I don’t know if they were simply passing the buck or genuinely felt that Ralph was the man to look this over, but shortly afterwards I got a phone call from Ralph telling me in no uncertain terms that I needed to take a hard look at this thing called the Common Cents System.

A few days later a priority mail envelope arrived at my Post Office Box. It was pretty thick. I have a great deal to do each day and this really wasn’t something I was looking forward to spending time on. So it languished on my desk for a couple weeks without any further notice from me.  Understand that I get a lot of stuff in that PO Box. Much of it pertains to article submissions for the magazine and a lot of it is, well… not very good. I don’t publish things just because somebody sends them to me. Ask any RodMaker article author about the back and forth that takes place before any submission is published. Articles have to be informative, accurate and able to withstand careful scrutiny. Otherwise I’ve got 15,000+ angry readers to answer to.

At any rate, after a couple weeks Ralph called and asked if I had looked the stuff over. He chastised me for not doing so and told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to get off my butt and read it pronto. Ralph doesn’t get excited unless something has real merit. So I finally opened the thick envelope and let the contents spill out.  Tons of graphs, charts, text, etc.  I thought, “Oh great, another kook.” More drivel to suffer through before regulating it to the trash. But Ralph said there was something to this. So I sat down and began reading.

Within just a couple paragraphs I knew this Dr. Hanneman fellow was a pretty sharp cookie. Still, I critically tore the article apart, reading something and thinking “Aha! But you forgot about…” only to find the answer in the next paragraph. By the time I was done I could only imagine that this was how the systems of length, weight and temperature were developed centuries before. Fantastic stuff. Ralph was right, again.

I pulled out a few dozen rods and blanks and began running them through the CCS measurements and considering the results. I sent drafts of the article to some of the blank designers and engineers that I had long term relationships with. To a man, they said it was a brilliant system. But a couple also mentioned that they didn’t exactly relish the idea of anything that would allow true across-the-board comparisons between rods and blanks.  I understood their feelings, but decided to publish the article anyway.

Shortly afterwards, I called Dr. Hanneman and we had a nice chat. Just a very few things in the original article were modified during that conversation. I told him that I saw the genius  in what he had accomplished, both in the system itself and in his method for implementing it. But I also warned him that it would probably take at least a decade to catch on and that he should fully expect a flurry of objection and resistance to it. “Dr. Bill” only laughed and said that would be okay with him.

In April of 2003, RodMaker Magazine became the first to publish the Common Cents System. Many took to it overnight, others fussed and fumed. But in 7 short years it’s seen use by tens of thousands of rod builders worldwide. At least two commercial rod building operations have picked it up and I’m told that more will be on board in the next year or two. We’ll see. I still wonder about those who object to it and yet have no problem with their tape measure, bathroom scale or thermometer – all based on the exact same system as the CSS. But In the meantime I fall back on something Dr. Hanneman has often said to detractors, “If you find it useful, use it. If not, don’t.”

Two things about the CCS will remain foremost in my memory -  the cleverness of incorporating the common U.S. Cent as the system’s weight constant, and the fact that I almost let this thing slip through my fingers. If it were not for Ralph O’Quinn, that’s exactly what would have happened.

Tom Kirkman

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