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Hello
I moved the Waco-kids question to the blog where we can go into great depth.

Great question kid one I am very happy to answer.
First I would like to say that I in no way copied the St Croix foam filled process.

I came to create my Infused Flex Enhancement Process out of necessity working with early Graphite blanks back in the 80's.
My background is that of the Plastic Industry where I worked for over 20 years in Research and Development as a Process Engineer.
I was involved with developing and adding chemical compounds to enhance materials in given applications for our customers very often this involved what is known a blowing agents.
Blowing agents put simply add structural strength and mass to a molded piece.

I found that the early Graphite rods and blanks had inherent problems.
First was the material was prone to breakage due to it's brittle nature.
Second was that when casting the rods vibrated and this caused inaccuracy and this also robed the power from the casting stroke.
I also found the Graphite rods to be devoid of that Cane feel that to that point so many of the Fiberglass rod manufacturers were trying to duplicate with Fiberglass.

I lived in Vermont at the time and was the Plant Manager of Vermont Industrial Plastics in Rutland.
So I had quite a nice shop at my disposal for Moonlight experiments.
I had an employee that was a former employee of a rod maker that made early Graphite Rods.
He had some friends that still worked for the rod maker and they got me some rejected blanks and pieces of blanks for my experiments from the rod shops dumpster.
You may be surprised what a trained Engineer can learn from rejects.
"Rejected Parts and Samples are the stepping stones to success" one of my professors used to say.
He was so right and that statement has stayed with me for life.

My first attempts were to extrude molten polypropylene into the hollow core of the blanks .
Next was Fiberglass Fortified Nylon.
And the list goes on.
At the time I was busy in my spare time Making Bamboo Fly Rods at my shop at home as well.

The Old Post and Beam House I had was very old and drafty to say the least.
I was working with Expandable Polyurethane Foam one fall to plug up some of the drafts and Bam the idea hit me.
Wow this is it this stuff has all the properties I am looking for and it's practically weightless.
It wasn't quite as simple as that though I needed to try and come up with a process that I could control and repeat.
So that's the short version of how I came to my Infused Flex Enhancement Process .

The version of the process I am showing here is the simple do it your self version for all you kitchen table rod builders.
I have a very controlled process that involves Gauges,Valves,Timers,Heaters,Water Baths,and Advanced Materials.
But when I am only doing one blank I do it the simple way as shown.

To explain the advantages of I.F.E. as I will refer to Infused Flex Enhancement as from here out.
I must first talk about the dynamics of a casting stroke as simply and a short as possible.
Simply put the rod is an extension of your arm when you stroke the rod forward and the rod flexes the energy applied by your Arm ,Hand and forward motion follows the flex curve of the blank to the line leader and then the fly and this transfer of energy is what propels the line and thus the fly to it's given target.
During this flex stroke the rod has to battle wind resistance that cause vibrations.
Vibrations rob the energy from the transfer of energy.
Vibrations also cause inaccurate casts.
I.F.E. Reduces these Vibrations and Dampens the casting stroke allowing more accurate casts and also greater distances with the same applied energy.

Another thing I.F.E. does is it adds hoop strength the the blank.
Hoop strength it the strength of the outside dimension of the round rod blank.
When you cast a non I.F.E. rod you cast to a certain point and then at that point the cast falls apart and you can cast no further.
When a blank is flexed to a certain point the blank becomes egg shaped at the point of the greatest stress.
When the blank becomes egg shaped the transfer of power is interrupted and the cast falls apart.
A blank with I.F.E. resists this natural fact or point in physics and allows the blank to keep its round shape and increases the transfer of energy.
This results in longer more controlled casts ,it also allows for shorter much more accurate cast with less energy.

Another thing I.F.E. does is it make the rod blank stronger and less apt to break under extreme conditions it also has greater impact strength.

So that's it put as simply as I can I could get all technical with this but it's better put in simple terms.

I hope I answered your questions .

Tight Lines and I.F.E. Loops
Andy M