Announcing Composite Forge: FORGING A NEW PATH

From Composite Forge:

Composite Forge, LLC is a “Made in the USA” production option available to all domestic fishing rod brands. The company’s founder, Frank-Paul King, commented “we want American companies to have the choice of using American manufacturing in the production of their fishing rod products and for that option to be on a cost competitive basis.” King is jointed on the company’s management team by Bob Penicka who until 2020 was a partner and the general manager of the largest fishing rod factory in North America: Mexico-based Axiom North America.

King is President of rod brand TFO and he started to seriously think about onshoring his company’s fishing rod production in 2020. However, the desire to mitigate rising transportation costs and the opportunity to create manufacturing jobs ultimately led he and Penicka to the idea of building a high-volume fishing rod and blank facility that would be available to all brands. For this reason, Composite Forge was formed as an entirely new company, with separate ownership and the commitment that all customers, including TFO, would be treated equally in all regards. Penicka affirmed “ultimately our customers will decide, but our goal is to earn their trust as a partner genuinely committed to their success.”

To achieve the goal of offering a cost effective, “Made in the USA” product option, the company is finishing a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Grand Prairie, Texas. Every element of the new facility is engineered to rapidly respond to customer’s unique product specifications in a highly cost-conscious and time-sensitive manner. For prototyping it uses a proprietary digital blank design process and in production it incorporated innovative finished rod assembly materials and methods. Multiple process improvements like these result in dramatically improved efficiency and thus a reduction in time from customer ideation to product delivery. King said, “from a transportation standpoint, our central location will reduce new product turnaround from months to days.” And Penicka added “the factory will continue to scale up in size as customer demand dictates; however, under no circumstances will we out pace our high-quality standards.”

A “Made in the USA” production option available for consideration by every American fishing rod brand. A simple idea now being realized.