Fluorocarbon Leader

Michael Smith

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Aren't some strings sold literally fluorocarbon fishing leader right off the roll. I'm opening this thread to talk about brands of leader and weights you may have tried. There is at least one quite accomplished builder in my area who swears by fishing leader. And although good leader is not that cheap you do get 50 yards at a whack.
 
Seaguar leader, red label. 40-80-60-30 lbs for gCEA tuning. Very handy to have the rolls in the shop.

Edit: I used their blue label leader first, until I sussed that it had a softer outer layer to facilitate knotting. I thought the more homogenous red label variety would be better for strings, but to be honest I didn't notice any difference at all. The red was a bit cheaper though. It was hard to get to Sweden, so I got some mules in the states to buy it for me. Now I have another brand on my watch list on ebay. If my memory is stronger than the beer I just had it's not clear but dark in color. I might try that just because I like the look of dark strings, but if it's s** I'll have 50 yards of each turd...
 
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Well. I might as well confess then - I use it on all sizes, from piccolo (280 mm) to tenor (430 mm). They're a bit floppy on the piccolos but that's alright for my playing. Comparing Seaguar red label with the extremely similar re-entrant Living water strings (concert=LWC, tenor=LWT, soprano=LWS) I see the following:

Code:
   Seaguar    LWC    LWT    LWS
G   0.57      0.57   0.62   0.57
C   0.81      0.74   0.74   0.74
E   0.74      0.66   0.66   0.66
A   0.52      0.52   0.57   0.52

If anyone fancy trying a set, email me at sven.arkitekt(at)gmail.com and I might be able to remember sending out some, depending on how much I have left. Pm:s will be lost in the inbox.
 
What weight would be correct for low G? Would the same weight be right for all sizes up to tenor?
 
Living water low G is 0.91 mm for concert and tenor. Seaguar red label stops at 0.81, but 0.91 mm can be found in their pink label and their "big game" blue label. That'd be 90 lbs breaking test.

Have a look, but remember there are other brands of fishing line / leader as well.
http://seaguar.com/saltwater/fluorocarbon.html

And for comparision, here's the link for Living water strings. They are very good and the postage is cheap.
http://www.kenmiddleton.co.uk/pages/lws.aspx

Cheers / Sven
 
Keep those questions coming, I'll do the googling for all of us. Let's see... orange label is for catching goldfish.
 
I just ordered a several different test weights of Berkley Pro Spec 100% fluorocarbon leader, which is available in Tanic Brown color:

http://www.berkley-fishing.com/Berk...ro-Leader-Mat/1290572,default,pd.html#start=5

Keep us updated my mom lives a half mile from the Berkley factory. I meant to stop in their shop located across the street over Christmas to see what they had but family stuff distracted me. I hear Berkley's son (maybe grandson) is now making guitars in Colorado. (the more you know)
 
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seaguar130-350.jpg
Seaguar orange label is my favorite. Better than Worth CT I've been told.
 
Ha ha, good catch man. Monster label would be some fugly color. With horns.

Maybe for that, one could use barbed-wire?
 
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