ICAST 2011 | Airrus Rods Debuts KIII Nano Fusion Rods
Posted by Jason Sealock on Wed, Jul 13, 2011 @ 02:09 PM
Talking to Ken Whiting is always fun for us. He's a straight shooter but he has a little used car salesman in him too. But one thing for sure, he's built some of the coolest rods, having taken the rod Best of Show award several times at ICAST.
This year he's back with Airrus and debuting the new KIII Nano Fusion rod. This rod features a new material in rod building called bucky paper. Bucky paper is basically carbon fibers that are put together similar to how paper is mulched together and formed. Then those bucky paper wraps are added to the tip and butt sections of the rod to make them more durable and sensitive.
The rod can take amazing load but has incredible sensitivity thanks to a custom designed real seat. With the vibration test we could feel the faintest vibrations in the palm of our hand and not just on the fore finger.
Another innovation on the rods are custom guides that Whiting developed to match the angle the line comes off the reel with micro guides. The guides start further off the rod to lessen the angle change and improve casting and smoothness in performance. Then each guide gets closer to the blank. The custom guides are also much stronger than a lot of microguides while also reducing the amount of cracking at the attachment point on the rod.
The rods will come in 4 models in the casting and 2 models in spinning. The rods will retail for $259 and should be available to the public sometime around December.