We are very excited to announce some exiting additions to the ground breaking
Mackenzie FX1 Graphene rod range! The long awaited addition of single hand models, Switch rods and 6 piece travel Spey rods will introduce this amazing rod material to a whole new demographic of anglers! We have very limited initial stock of the new models now, with more available early next year - so be quick!
When the team from
Mackenzie DTX teamed up with Professor Gary Savage, former Formula One World Team Champion and one of the world’s leading experts in carbon and composites, to bring to market what has to be regarded as the most advanced fly rod ever made they could only dream a how big an impact it would have on the Salmon fly rod market! With Professor Savage's help, Scott Mackenzie and his team designed and built a world first - a fly rod incorporating a new super material called Graphene - and it was soon a worldwide success with rods being sold much faster than they could be built and a long waiting list formed to get one.
We have been lucky enough to test the
new FX1 rods on the water this autumn and were instantly amazed at the performance of the single hand rods. The 9'6'' # 6 was an instant favourite, even as we took it from the luxury cloth bag it felt as though we had picked up a much shorter lighter model by mistake and once it had a line in the air we were immediately impressed! Laser sharp loops and a feeling of control meant we could place a line anywhere you pointed the rod tip and even when under or overlined we found the blank to be very forgiving, allowing for a quick recovery when going from a short cast to a long one and vice versa. The fittings and cosmetics on the
FX1 single hand rods are high quality and give the rod a very modern look, and so they should - this material is after all at the very cutting edge of technology today!
A pair of 11'2'' #7/8 Switch rods will fill a gap in the summer salmon anglers armoury, or for those who haunt the smaller rivers in the UK and further afield. These two rods may share the same size and line rating, but have very different actions, each identified by their F and MF annotations. A Fast rod that loves overhead casts and longer lines, and the more forgiving Medium Fast rod that can perform the most intricate spey casts in tighter spots with ease and play big fish out on light tippet without fear - a rod that both novice and expert casters will appreciate. Both
FX1 Switch rods work well with the latest crop of switch lines on the market, in particular of course the Mackenzie Switch line, and our old favourite the Airflo 40+ line.
The Mackenzie DTX Atlas Travel rods are the best selling 6 piece Spey rods of all time so it makes good sense that the new Graphene material is put to use on a rod that you are most likely to need to depend on when fishing in remote areas of far off lands! The
FX1 Atlas rods share the same fittings and cosmetics as the original FX1 rods but in 6 sections, and cover all the rod sizes you will ever need - 12'7'' #8, 13'7'' #9 and 14'9'' #10!
So what is Graphene? The
Mackenzie FX1 flyrod is the Spey rod to use Graphene, a Nobel Prize winning material that is set to revolutionise carbon-composite engineering. Discovered at the University of Manchester in 2004, Graphene is the strongest and stiffest material known to man. It is up to 300 times stronger than steel, even stronger than diamond, and 30 times stronger than Kevlar - the material used for bullet proof vests! Graphene recently revolutionised the tennis world after Head launched a new tennis racket using the material, now used used by Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic.
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| Single walled Graphene Nanotube Multi walled Graphene Nanotube |
The way it is used in the manufacture of the
Mackenzie FX1 blank is in the form of multi-walled carbon nanotubes - 1 atom thick sheets of hexagonally bonded carbon formed into tubes and added to a state of the art resin. Being 32 times stiffer than steel per unit mass. The sub-microscopic cylinders of carbon on a weight-for-weight basis are at least 120, and up to 300 times stronger than steel and 30 times stronger than Kevlar!
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Scanning Tunnel Electron Micrograph of Graphene Nanotubes - red dots are carbon atoms!
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Approximately 1/50,000th the width of a human hair, Graphene nanotubes can stretch considerably rather like plasticine before breaking, up to 14 percent of their normal length. Their aspect ratio (length/diameter) can be up to 130,000,000:1. To illustrate this, if we think of a carbon nanotube as a piece of spaghetti (typically 2mm in diameter) then, at this scale, the tube would be 66km long!
The
Mackenzie FX1 rod blank is impregnated with this resin incorporating a weave of this new Graphene nanotube material. The rod flexes deeply during the cast and recovers quickly and powerfully. This fast recovery makes it easier to cast further with little effort, yet retains the 'feel' that is so important in a fly rod, especially if your casting is not on top form.
The new additions to the
Mackenzie FX1 range will be available from late December and will initially include 9' #5, 9' #6, 9'6'' #6, 10' #6, 10' #7 models, covering almost any situation the Salmon angler will find in the UK and abroad. The rods have been designed to handle all types of lines, from longer traditional Spey lines to short Scandi and Skagit style shooting-heads. The rods themselves feature the very best craftsmanship and fittings money can buy! Top grade Portuguese cork handles have been specially chosen and are made to a length and style to allow casters of all styles and abilities to use the rod in comfort.
Genuine Fuji SiC stripper rings with an ultra hard, ultra smooth, silicon carbide coating that will never wear and Titanium recoil snake guides that spring back into shape if knocked or bent grace the blank with smart orange tipped, gloss black whippings. A unique custom made ALPS reel seat keeps your favourite reel securely in place. The finish on the FX1 Graphene blank itself features a self healing PTFE silicon coating meaning any scratches can simply be rubbed smooth, and with the addition of the Graphene resin system to the blank, you wont find a better, stronger blank on the market today!
Come and see the new FX1 rods for yourself at Glasgow Angling Centre and Edinburgh Angling Centre or buy online from
www.fishingmegastore.com
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