As Carbon Fibers' superior performances, high specific tensile strength and specific modulus modulus, become familiar, sporting goods manufacturers have endeavored to make use of the fibers for basic material of their final products. In 1970s, fishing rods, golf club shafts and tennis rackets began to be made of the fibers. In an introductory period, only limited number of sports maniac welcomed the goods due to high price. As price goes down, vast number of people suddenly started to buy those high performance goods and now Carbon Fibers are an indispensable basic material of sporting goods. Further on, the manufacturers have been developing various sporting/leisure goods made of the fibers. JCMA is proud to illustrate below a list of those goods.
Usage | Special Feature of Carbon Fiber Utilized | |||
Fishing Goods | Fishing Rods, Reels | Light in Weight | Rigidity | Sensitivity |
Sensitivity | Golf Club Shafts, Club Heads, Face Plate | Light in Weight | Rigidity | Sensitivity |
Rackets | Tennis Rackets, Badminton Rackets, Squash Rackets | Light in Weight | Rigidity | Vibration Stability |
Marine | Yachts, Sail Boats, Cruisers, Athletic Rowing Boats, Canoes, Sail Masts | Light in Weight | Rigidity | - |
Bicycle | Bicycle Frame, Front Fork, Bicycle Rims | Light in Weight | Rigidity | - |
Others | Baseball Bats, Skis, Hockey Sticks, Ski Stocks, Bamboo Swords, Japanese Type Bows, Archery Bows, Radio-control Cars, Table Tennis, Billiards, Gate-balls | Light in Weight | Rigidity | - |
This is one of the application items in which you can make the most of the special features of
Carbon Fibers (light weight, high rigidity, high sensitivity).
Started with fishing rods
for ayu, use of Carbon Fibers expanded to fishing rods for small size fishes with very sensitive
strikes. On account of high rigidity (stiffness) Carbon Fiber rods, as something like extension
of one's arms, give fishers the feeling of even more subtle strikes.
This is one of
successful examples of Carbon Fibers applied to daily used gears.
As golf shafts made of Carbon Fibers (carbon shafts) are far lighter than those made of metal, the swing speed with a given power becomes higher with carbon shafts than with metal shafts. In the beginning, carbon shafts became popular among senior players and ladies as an effective way to increase driving distance of them. Now carbon shafts golf clubs are commonly used by most of professional and amateur golf players.
Tennis is a hard sport requiring big quantity of motion. Rackets that use Carbon Fibers can be
by far lighter than those that use wood or metal and can reduce burden on players. This is the
reason why they have become popular drastically. (Improvements in racket design such as enlarged
sweet spot also contributed to the popularization.)
It seems that they are more attractive
to players also because of their longer service life than wooden rackets'.
By the use of Carbon Fibers, canoes have become light enough to be able to be transported by
passenger cars. By this, canoe population seems to have increased.
Speed is most important
for racing canoes. It is, therefore, advantageous to use Carbon Fibers to attain higher speed by
reducing weight.
Furthermore, Carbon Fiber canoes can cope with shooting down the rapids
due to their toughness.
Carbon Fiber bats have gained public favor mainly in amateur baseball.
The reasons for it
are that the numbness of hands when hitting balls can be reduced, speed of balls hit is higher
and the flying distance becomes longer, as well as that the hitting sound and hitting feeling
are similar to those of wooden bats.
Due to Health and Environmental Problem, Bicycle is accepted more favorable spotrs in the world. Carbonfiber is adopted with main frame materials of Bicycle in stead of Aluminum, so that the Bicycle is succeeded to reduce weight.