Is the result of several interviews by phone and mail with vince borges, owner of Phenix, a lot of interresting things, thank you again to him.
Rodhouse : Hi Vince, Can you please present Phenix quickly ? Tell us about Phenix's history, key people ?
Vince Borges (Phenix) : Phenix Rods was started in 1974 by a gentleman named Larry Howard. It was for the most part a West Coast product here in the United States based out of Southern California. Its primary focus in the early years was freshwater bass rods, with a small mix of trout and light saltwater rods. They did not manufacture there own blanks at the time, it was more of a "assembled" type of product, utilizing many different blank manufactures. The most used at the time was Shikari blanks. Back in the days it was a highly sought after series that branded some of the biggest names in our Bass Fishing history here in the USA. Some of which now live on in our Sport Fishing Hall of Fame.
In the Late 90's Mr. Howard started to suffer from health issues and made the hard choice of selling the Phenix Brand to his Foreman at the time. Unfortunately, the new owners decided to experiment with many different brands and qualities of blanks and manufactures. This led to a lot of quality issues that by 2002 had pretty much put Phenix under. They couldn't keep up with warranties and sales pretty much plummeted. Like the name and the bird "Phenix" implies, in 2006 Phenix rose from the ashes when it was purchased by a long time fishing rod enthusiast and engineer Jeff Tseng. Phenix is now comprised of 4 different owners/partners, myself included, and has become the fastest growing rod manufacture in the world with sales and distribution in 18 different countries to date. We now manufacture over 400 different rods for pretty much any type of fishing you would want to do, from ultra light pan-fish to heavy offshore saltwater fishing and everything in between.
Rodhouse : What is it that sets Phenix apart from the other manufacturers ? How are you different ?
Vince Borges : The one thing that sets Phenix apart from many other big name brands in the industry is that Phenix owns there own factory. We are not manufactured from a large plant that carries 100s of different brand names under there roof. What this allows us to do is manufacture rods and blanks using the highest grade raw materials and scrim from top manufactures like Mitsubishi and Toray. This also allows our own factory to be able to concentrate on smaller batch sizes and insure the strictest quality controls. Giving us an edge that we are allowed to pass down to our customers and end users. What this means to our customers world wide is rather than deal with a large manufacture that requires 1000+ piece minimums, we are able to OEM rods and blanks to meet our customers needs in batches as small as 50 pieces. We also carry and manufacture many of our own components and accessories for the custom rod building industry like Sic Guides, Reel seats, Rod Grips etc.. On our factory Phenix Rods we use nothing but top quality components by Phenix, Fuji, Alps, Essex and other leading name manufactures. And best of all, All Phenix Rods and Blanks come with a Lifetime Warranty
Rodhouse : How do you develop and test your products ? What are the ideas behind a new product at Phenix ? Do you do field testing ? Do you have a competition team ?
Vince Borges : As mentioned before Jeff Tseng, our engineer and product developer is what most would call an extremist when it comes to rod design and engineering. His passion for the industry and building the most technologically advanced fishing rods is a 24 hr a day job, his creativity and ideas never stop.
Once he has an idea for a new product line, or maybe even just a make over and upgrades to an existing line, he passes the idea on to us other partners. We than agree or disagree to start making samples. Once the samples are made we either move forward in making changes to add the new line, or scratch them all together. If its a new line we plan on moving forward with, the total time from sample date, to testing, to offering for sale is about 1-1.5 years.
We have many Pro-Staff anglers that fish the Elites and Tour level Bass Tournaments here in the US as well as many Captains and charter boats that put our products through an extreme daily test on the water. There input is very valuable to us, and we take the time to listen to each and every one of them
Rodhouse : We saw that some of your blanks sport "Nanotubes" on them. Can you tell us more about the use of nanotechnologies and specific use of nanotubes in your blanks ?
Vince Borges : Many of the terms used by rod manufactures today are made up jargons to make the construction of there rods sound more high tech than they really are.
It seems to be appealing to the end user, though they know nothing really about what the heck the definition of the words used by the manufacture actually mean. Nano resins, and nano technology are actually real and being used in many processes throughout the world today. The way it is used in the fishing rod industry is pretty simple to understand and explain. Nano Resins are used mostly on carbon fiber rods more so than glass.
If you were to take you fingers and interlock them, that is kinda how a weave pattern is on carbon fiber scrim used to make rods. The resins used on the scrim is the glue that bonds it all together. Without resins it would be one big hairy mess of fibers. Now lets explain what Nano is. Nano means small or microscopic, one billionth. So everything in life is made up of molecules, including paints and resin. Heck, even water! If you were to hold up a sheet of carbon fiber, you would see tiny holes of light in it. The cheaper the carbon fiber, the bigger the holes
So when the carbon fiber is wrapped in multiple layers around the mandrel, "the metal rod that is used to give fishing rods there long, hollow shape and taper", it leaves many of those microscopic holes as little air pockets. A regular resin which is comprised of bigger molecules would take more resin to flow into and try and fill those tiny air pockets. Thus making a blank thicker and heavier, but not necessarily stronger, after all, its just more resin. And to many air pockets that don't get filed means a weak spot in the blank. The Nano resins, being composed of much smaller molecules, allows the resins to flow through the fibers to fill all the tiny air pockets without having to use to much resin to accomplish this.
Here is a brief example let say you take a jar, and fill it with golf balls, once the jar was full you would see all the air and space around them, similar to the microscopic holes in the carbon fiber sheets. Now lets fill the jar with sand to the top and pretend that it is a normal resin. It would fill all the gaps between the golf balls and would appear to have taken all the volume of the jar. But here is how Nano resins work, lets pretend that water now represents Nano resins. Though the jar looks full with no room left, you can still poor lots of water into the jar of sand! Why? Because the water is comprised of smaller molecules than the sand, therefore filling even the voids of air pockets you cant see, but know are there in the sand.
So how does this help achieve a better blank and rod? Because it allows the manufacture to use less resins in the rod build, making it lighter in weight, more sensitive, yet stronger and more durable. That is the technology we use in our M1 Nanotube rods. Its allowed us to build a super light, super sensitive rod with incredible balance and durability.
Rodhouse : Are there projects you can talk about ? What would be the ultimate objective for Phenix in terms of product development ?
Vince Borges : As mentioned, at Phenix, we can never leave well enough alone. Where some manufactures have created some great products, we are striving to improve upon them daily. One key project that we have been working on is the super popular K2 blank. It is one of, if not thee lightest blank on the market today. The K2 is comprised mostly of 46 ton carbon fiber, which is used by several other high end manufactures today, but we made it even better.
Let me first explain something about carbon fiber and how its quality is rated. Carbon fiber in the rod industry is rated by the TON or TOW. The higher the TON, the more strands of fibers there are per square inch of sheeting. So the more fibers means a tighter weave and crisper filling blank. But also means the more brittle the materials are. After all, a rod has to bend and flex those fibers yet return. So the more fibers used means less flex, meaning more breakage. Carbon fiber is rated on a U scale. On one end of the scale you have 52 ton carbon fiber, which is the highest quality, and most expensive, but way to brittle to build a fishing rod with. Than you have 46T,40T,36T,30T, and then 24T being at the bottom of the U in the scale. But then it starts the climb again in quality and price, 20T,16T,12T 8T and then 6T. The lower the Ton rating from 52T-6T the more durable the rod will be. This is because the less fibers, the more flex or in fishing rod terms, hoop strength, the rod will have.
But remember when I mentioned earlier the cheaper the carbon fiber, the bigger the holes in it? What that means is more resins are needed to fill those voids, meaning a much heavier rod, and also less sensitive, because resins are deadening to sensitivity when compared to carbon fiber strands. So the more resins needed, the less sensitive a rod becomes. Hence the fantastic qualities that Nano resins bring to the Rod building industry!
So what we have done at Phenix to make our K2 blanks even better than the other high end 46 ton rods and blanks on the market, is we've utilized multiple scrims to achieve the desired light weight and sensitivity of other 46 ton blanks, and added the durability factor that others are lacking.
The exact configurations and resins I cannot share as they are obviously proprietary and highly sought after by our competition. But to finish off on what projects we are currently working on, now that we have mastered the K2 Blank, we will be introducing a cutting edge factory rod that will be available in early 2015. But for you Custom rod builders, the blanks are available today.
I think our main objective at Phenix is to manufacture the most technologically advanced fishing rods on the market. To continue to grow the brand awareness world wide. And though we are leading the way in new technology and advancements, never loose the small company fill that our customers have grown to love!
