Standards
What the markings actually record
Almost everything on this shelf carries a figure, and almost every figure gets read as a promise. None of them is. A test curve records the load needed to bend a rod, not the fish it can land; a casting weight records the band a blank works in, and includes the bait; a reel size records a spool capacity for a stated diameter; a newton rating records what a buoyancy aid is designed to do, and gets read as a grade. Each is exact, each is real, and not one of them says what will happen on your own water. One group here holds genuine published standards — flotation — and everything else this trade calls a standard is a convention with no publisher at all, which is the single most important thing to know about this collection. Each page says which it is, in four parts: what the document or the convention fixes, what it does not promise, what it works alongside, and which families on this site depend on it.
Flotation
The only real published standard on this site. How buoyancy is split into numbered parts and newton classes, what each class is designed to do, and what none of them promises.
Line and hooks
A hook scale that runs backwards and then reverses, a diameter that means nothing without its breaking strain, the PE grade, the strand count, and how a steel trace is built.
- The hook size scale — where 12 is smaller than 8, and 1/0 is bigger than 1 Convention
- Diameter and breaking strain — one figure in two halves Convention
- The PE number — a Japanese line grade used across Europe Convention
- The strand count — four, eight or twelve fibres in one line Convention
- 1x7, 7x7 and 1x1 — how a wire trace is built, and what each build gives up Convention
Rods and reels
A test curve with no published method, a casting weight in grams, a reel size that is a spool capacity, and the one fly line rule that admits no approximation.
- The test curve — a weight in pounds that is not about the fish Convention
- The casting weight — a range in grams, and the rod’s real specification Convention
- Reel sizes — 1000 to 10000, and what the number actually holds Convention
- Fly line weight — the one number a rod, a line and a reel must share Standard
Classes and weighing
The line classes a records body publishes and the tolerance they impose, the tare a wet sling demands, and the printed tape that saves the second lift.
Materials and markings
An IP code that describes an enclosure and not always the part in the water, a lead-free marking, solid fluorocarbon against coated, and what a stainless grade adds.
- The IP code — two digits that describe dust and water, and nothing else Standard
- The lead-free marking — a maker’s claim, and a material change with consequences Claim
- 100 % fluorocarbon against fluorocarbon-coated — two products, one word Claim
- Rubberised and knotless mesh — the claim the fish is affected by Claim
- Stainless grade against carbon steel — the choice salt water makes for you Claim