We are currently rearranging my home and dealing with the small space that I have to begin with.

In the course of cleaning and organizing the piles of junk we have in storage containers in a small room off the basement, my wife suggested we clean it completely out and make it into a rustic cabin themed room for which I can use to build rods, tie flies, post pictures, and generally get out of my wife's hair when involved with my obscession.

So, with that winded intro, here's my question?

The room is approximately 9.5' long by 8.5 wide. Do you think that this is enough space to build rods in? I would elect to turn cork handles and reelseats in the garage (when I get around to doing it), so it'll mainly be used for wrapping via homemade jigs, tieing up flies, and storage for much of my gear.

I don't own a powerwrapper and usually wrap my rods in two pieces anyway.

Tell me your thoughts.

ALSO IF YOU HAVE PICTURES OF YOUR ROD BUILDING AREA AND ARE IN SIMILIAR SITUATION REGARDINGS SPACE, I'd love to see them!

Defjam@core.com

Thanks,
Domenic

Dominic,

That's enough room for a nice set up. You might consider putting counter space along 2 walls. What I did was buy a couple of inexpensive narrow kitchen base cabinets(about $25 each) and set an 8 foot formica counter top (less than $50) with a cabinet under each end. This makes a nice looking, easy to clean workstation that is the perfect height. You could do the same thing on 2 walls and that would give you a great L-shaped area with plenty of room for rod building, fly tying, computer stuff or whenever you just want to hibernate!! You can always add additional cabinets to give your self as much drawer space as you want.



Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

Since you are going to clean every thing out , Paint the complete room with some thing that will not let dust stick to it Oil, Water base ??
Parts drowers for thread and guides. Maybe wall charts to show colors and types of guides so you can pick them by numbers easy.
Good vacumn cleaner to keep it dust free.
I like the idea of two walls of counter space - a good height and a good chare .
Places to stack the blanks, ceiling, walls ??
Maybe a devider for the finish area, a certain ??
PLENTY of light and a GOOD type.

I have No Room and that sounds like heaven !! Of course a place to read your RodMaker. And a place for the computer.

Go to Lowes or Home Depot and get a sheet of 3/4 PLYWOOD and have them split it in half Long ways and Glue and screw it together.use a 1X6 for a back splash if you are going to do two walls in a "L" get two sheets. if you want a duable top surface grab a sheet of 1/4 inch Hardened Masonite and have that cut also. SCREW it to the top of the PLY NO GLUE(so you can replace it later) Base cabinets are nice,Get drawer units and Regular Cabinets . Plenty of good lighting (see posts)

I build on the edge of my 6 FT desk with Brackets made on "C" clamps , works fine!

If you have to cut a hole in the Wall for longer work! LOL


OH AND YOU OWE YOU GREAT WIFE A NICE DINNER!!

Dominic,

You should feel good, my wife just keeps having babies so I would have to do my rod building in the garage. I haven't told her I have a bottle of rum hidden out there. Wondered why my epoxy was wavey.

Menards has a nice cabinet setup for garages, but also looks very nice in the house. I purchased two cabinets over the weekend and have them now installed in a spare bedroom we have. Plenty of room in those cabinets for the time being (first time rod builder 7 months now) maybe latter i'll have to expand them. Just having a hard time figuring out how to store the rod blanks I haven't built yet.

Look around your area and look for people re doing there homes. may find some good kitchen cabinets ?? And lumber.

Guyz,

I really appreciate the responses filled with great ideas. It seem to get some of you going and others felt depressed about realizing their reality! LOL!

My wife is awesome, I must admit...But, she gets enough good dinners outta me. This is payback, in a sense, for all the gratuities that I've dished out. Of course, I am a smart man and would never repeat that publicly in her presence!!!


Thanks Again,

Domenic

Alan H.--- How about cutting up some PVC conduit into 2-3" lengths. Gauge the diameter size based on the quantity of rods you need to store. Use the Heavy duty schedule 40 stuff and mount it to your wall up high so that the rods can be store length wise . Put a cut piece every 10 inches or so with a slot in it so that you can get the rods into the holder. Need a pic...email me Defjam@core.com

A good set up and arranged work space makes it easyer and more fun to build.
Do it right.

Alan,

A piece of vinyl gutter trough with matching hangers cut to whatever lengt/lengths that you want and mounted on a wall work real nice and are surprisingly inexpensive!! They can be picked up pretty cheap at Lowes, Home Depot, etc.

Mike

There are also large hooks cover with vinal that have threads on them and can be screwed up into the ceiling to hold rods or blanks.

Wow...what timeing!

Believe it or not, I am in the process of moving my son into a new downstairs room I built for him and his older/smaller room will be my new rodvuilding room, (this is the weird part-is about the SAME size as Domenic's!) and all the ideas are wonderful!!!

Thanks ALL :)


DR

I would also say that I would turn blank wall into a storage area for fly tying components. Place a piece of peg board on the wall and get hangers for it and just hang everything up just like it is in the fly shops. Makes finding those things you need so much easier and looks good to boot.