Garbolino was created in 1945 by owner Henri Garbolino located just outside of Paris creating the world’s best alloy fishing poles. During this time the poles which they created to the fisherman of this time these poles looked like something from out of this world.
Despite there odd appearance there industrial methods used by Garbolino enabled them to manufacture their poles. Garbolino because a limited company in 1957 with a work force of 35 strong.
Glass fiber first made an appearance in 1960 which allowed Garbolino to incorporate this manufacturing process into there Garbolino poles. The use of resin and glass which was impregnated was also used in there poles.
During 1965 Garbolino scrapped the use of using metal within there production process and concentrated on fiber glass. The factory was later transferred 4 years later moving in between Bordeaux, the site was conveniently close to the road network to make product shipment easy
Henri Garbolino who created the company retired in 1974 and sold his holding to a company who specialized in production of hooks known and the mighty VMC
The first carbon fiber rod and poles were brought to the market in 1977 which was a very important year for Garbolino. High end technology and usage of synthetic fibers made the manufacturing process revolutionary. With the creation of this new material allows fishing poles to go that one step further allowing lighter, slimmer and longer poles to be created by Garbolino.
Far eastern European imports in the 1980’s was starting to effect Garbolino. A lot of companies suffered as a result as the market was flooded by cheap low end carbon fiber poles and match fishing rods. Garbolino could no longer cope and a re structure was required. In 1981 the 183 employees Garbolino had only 75 were remaining in 1988.During this hard time Garbolino had to find new areas of businesses other then the creation of poles, this is when Garbolino started to create such products as masts, oars,canoes,skis and bicycles.
Paul Henri Viellard who was a previous member of VMC who was a member holding company of Garbolino purchased the company in 1988. The viper process was developed which was a major break through for Garbolino. The process was no longer using large sheets for carbon fiber but actual strands of fiber weaved in and criss cross method. The manufacture of the poles in this was allowed them to be extremely durable and strong. Control of the viper process was automated and controlled by computer.
Garbolino has started to breakthrough the top end of competition pole market by 1999 utilizing top quality carbon THM & THMS using a machine which was created to transform carbon fiber strands into carbon fiber sheet. The extremely high end technology ISO9001 – 2000 allowed Garbolino to produce there own carbon fiber impregnated sheet of various standards and weights in the creation of competition poles from 11.5 meters to 16 meters in length for use all over Europe.
