I'm curious! Approx. how much time are some of you more experienced builders putting in to your higher quality builds? I know you guys doing the fancy weaves have multiple hours in just the weaving alone but if you take weaving out of the equation, how much time are you putting into a nice build..... guides, wraps, handles, inlays, finish?!? Thanks

First of all, I am retired and have plenty of time on my hands. Because I work in spurts, it may take me a week to finish a rod or about twelve hours total time. Most of the time is spent in creating and doing a small weave. I have a second hobby of tieing flies so that also takes up some of my time. When I used to sell rods, I usually had three rods going at once. Thinking back, if I made between 40-50 rods a year that was a lot. I also had a full time job. Now if I make 12 rods a year I consider that a lot of rods since I am not getting paid. These rods are for my family members that I give as Christmas and birthday presents. I used to have a friend that made and sold around two hundred rods a year. He was a Pac Bay distributor and used all premade grips,put a small silhouette weave on a popping rod which he sold for $250. But he had a lady working for him to do the gluing and guide wrapping; he spent his time on weaves and some cross wraps plus managing an engineering business. His love was custom rod building. His clietele was old college buddies and he would pick up orders for about two dozen rods working boat and fishing shows. He and his assitant used to do 2 to 3 rods a day when he was not tending to his other business.. He worked slow and was very meticoulus about his work. I have heard that some fellows can turn out four times that many in a day if the rods are "plain jane" types with no frills.

I would say the answer to this question depends on how much equipment, fixtures and proficiency with them you have regarding the time it takes to build a rod. Its taken me quite a while to address many aspects of the rod making and each has saved me time in so doing. I recently make up a adjustable rubber band kit for holding on guides when tying them on. The kit also has a number of premade spiderwire braided 30#test / 6lb dia pull loops. I hand wrap guides and don't use a power wrapper which would save time once I was proficient at its use. Cork presses, Lathes, Writing ability on rounded surfaces, all have an effect on overall time spent along with a degree of expertise in using them. Glueing up used to be a more of a mess than it is now as I tape off reel seats and mating ends of cork grips and on the cork grips I 1st cover these exposed mating ends with clear ceran wrap so the masking tape does not pull out the fill. Removing glue within the 1st 24 hours is a time saver, Everything learned saves time, so you will get nothing but faster as you remedy obstackles by finding a new/better ways to skin the proverbal cat. It takes me about a 1/2 hour to make an old fenwick style hook keeper from a piece of brass "C" Channel. I put my time in, with some nice looking three color wraps, I over guide per rod length, bracket the label area, add a reinfocinmg wrap at the ferrule, so for me it takes about 10-12 hours if I have to glue up and turn a custom cork foregrip. SO its pretty much like your grand fathers underwear. It "Depends" its all relative, right now your probalby sitting on that hot stove top and time goes real slow.

Ellis – Thanks for that look from behind the curtain with some of the Wizards of RodZ. Here’s what I have seen from my own experience & conversations w/ other rod-builders:

For the careful rod-building hobbyist, ~ 10-20 hours of active time (pouring over component catalogs; at the design drawing board; or on the rod bench), over ~ 2 weeks of calendar time, would be a median (or typical) investment of time, in my estimation.

For the full-time rod-building professional, it seems that a HUGE increase in efficiency is required, if you expect to stay in business for more than a few weeks. In my estimation, about 2-5 hours of active time, over 2-7 calendar days, may be a median schedule for a busy rod-builder, who does all the work himself.

When you do the math on the bottom line for a full-time rod-builder, if a typical profit-on-labor margin is $100 per custom rod built, then you have to build an average of AT LEAST 4-5 RODS per WEEK in order to earn a PROFIT of $500 per week. A weekly profit of $500 / week is equivalent to an annual income of $25,000 per year. I think that most people in most regions of the USA would agree that an Annual Income of $25,000 is about as low as you can go and expect to maintain even the most ordinary lifestyle.

So, having worked out this math from a feasibility stand-point, a full-time rod builder had better find a way to generate an average of at least ONE COMPLETED ROD every day if he expects to survive. Better make that at least 2 rods per day, unless rod-building is solely a labor of love; or if he expects to build custom fishing rods for anything more than menial wages; or if the man has a family to support. That includes ALL the rod-building and business-related activities. Sales & advertising; customer interactions; ordering; shop work; shipping & receiving; and book-keeping duties, etc.

For a 10 hour work day (5 days a week), assuming you’re building 2 rods per day, this would make it mathematically impossible to spend more than 5 hours of TOTAL time per $100 of typical profit on a single typical fishing rod, without falling short of your required target for an Annual Income of $25,000 to $50,000 / yr. That’s 250+ rods / year.

If you accept the assumptions in my scenario as reasonable and realistic, then you may agree that a full-time professional custom rod-builder has to learn to crank out a typical simple custom fishing rod in at most 5 hours on a routine or continuous basis. And he may have to do so in as little as 2 hours if he ever wants to get ahead or fish as well.

You can schedule various work tasks in batches to improve efficiency. But most rod-builders would agree that it is no small feat to generate a sales order volume of at least 100 rods per year. And more like 250+ rods per year to be a self-supporting rod-builder. It seems that the only guys that make that quantum leap successfully do it from the stand-point of having built up a large clientele as a hobbyist rod-builder for several, if not many, years. Then they retire from their full-time careers, and do custom rod-building full-throttle, to continue feeding their addiction. “Welcome to the Club!” ... -Cliff Hall+++

Cliff, I'd say that about sums it up in this small, but interesting world of rodbuilding.

Regards......Doug@
TCRds

Once I have a design in mind, it takes me somewhere in the ballpark of 8 to 12 hours from start to finish, which includes a preformed grip, factory reelseat, guide layout and static testing, guide prep, trim and inlay bands on guides, basic diamond buttwrap and finishing. Obviously more time is spent if I'm making a grip or doing something a little more fancy on a buttwrap. Settling on a design can be several hours for me, making sketches and making up my mind.

Ditto!

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

Yup, nothing like some cold, hard numbers from the accounting & micro-economics department to put a sobering reality check on one’s dreams of being the next self-sustaining custom rod-builder! Getting 250 orders per year to earn $25,000 per year takes YEARS of reputation & client building. Rod-building is one passion that has to be bridled by reason, as far as career choices go.

As a hobby, it can be a viable & exciting source of supplemental income. But as a profession, it takes many skills & a lot of hard work to survive. … Hats off to those who operate at that level. ... But most of you are too busy actually BUILDING custom rods to read what we write ABOUT building custom rods!

Moral of the story – Build custom fishing rods to your hearts content! But don’t quit your day job until you can say, “I don’t have to, if I don’t want to, because I’m retired !” LOL, -Cliff Hall +++

I'm guessing that I spend around 14-18 hours on each rod (casting or spinning). But, I do all my own cork work, and I'm slow at it, so cork itself accounts for a couple hours.

For a fly rod, I'm guessing it's more like 20 hours, as the feather inlays take quite awhile.

Needless to say, I don't anticipate ever making any money at this hobby.

I wonder how many professionals supplement this income by selling rod components.......as do many of the sponsors on this page???

Just guessing but I don't think that there are that many people that have rodbuilding as an ONLY source of income. The number of $25,000 was thrown out there. but after taxes, paying for medical/life insurance/ pension plan, etc. you're down to poverty level building 200 arods a year (assuming that you can find that many people that are willing to pay for a custom rod. I don't think that there are that many builders that have the reputation to get the knd of money for their rods to make that kind of money. Most that I know that do any volume are doing "cookie cutter" rods, not true custom rods.

I must be really slow because I usually end up with more time in making the grips than a lot of the above spend in making a rod.

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!!

Thanks for all the feedback. I feel a lot better about still being very slow. The better I get the more I can tell when I'm doing a poor job and I just do that part over. I tell friends that if they want something in a hurry I will put together a rod that they can buy cheaper at Wally Woirld. If they want the fancy stuff it will be done in a steady, slow manner. Usually takes a couple of weeks cause it never seems that I'm working on just one rod. My wife says I spend too much time down in the rod cave, so I've decided to go fishing more in the next two weeks now that Mother's Day is over. Later!

Rule of thumb for a basic rod, labor charge is $75 to $150. I expect 3 to 4 hours at the bench for a one off project. If I did 3 similar/same rods as a batch, time savings per each will be 30%+. 6 rods in a batch, save 50% in time per each over a one off custom. That does not reduce the value of the product. That value is mine as a higher profit margin.

I designed and built my rod lathe specific to my requirements. Primary design criteria was for time savings over conventional equipment. I still consider myself a hobbyist, but my focus is to become a viable business, ie, PROFITABLE. If I can't do that, I am not in business. I plan to use the next 10 years to develop skills, clients and reputation to the point of supplimental profits to other profitable activities and products using the same investment in capital equipment.

Now, on the other hand, if I am buiding a rod for myself, it will be one off certainly, and I just might put 30 or 40 hours into it being extra finicky and not the least bit concerned with time/profit. I don't experiment with my clients products. But on my own stuff, that's where I work to improve skills, techniques, develop refinements to equipment, experiment, whoops, redo.

Tim Stephens - Several times you use a phrase or term which I have never heard used before - "one off". If you could explain further what you mean, I'd appreciate it. Thanks, -Cliff Hall+++

"... at the bench for a one off project." --- duplicate?

"... over a one off custom." --- 'one-of-a-kind'? ==> unique??

"... if I am buiding a rod for myself, it will be one off certainly, ..." --- prototype?

(Thank God for dictionaries and glossaries, ... ! ... B)- -CMH+++)

One off= custom. In other words, unique in design or just simply, one item from start to finish. Specifcally excludes two or more at once thereby saving some time in the process. Prototype is one example but a prototype is not designed for sale, but for testing of the design.

Tim Stephens - thank you for providing us
with your one off definition. -Cliff Hall+++