When my wife and I moved from Northern California to Kentucky over a year ago, we built a house and I was very fortunate to be able to build a detached garage for a boat and for rod building.
I posted some pictures of my shop, wrapping room and office. There is still work to do on the shop, but I will work on it between building rods.
The wife said that I had to clean every thing up before I can take pictures, so we spent all one day cleaning and this is the best the shop has looked since we moved.

Lynn

Lynn,
There is no way that you can build rods in a shop that is as clean and uncluttered and well organized as that. Seriously, that is really an impressive shop.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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!!

It's too clean, it looks like a doctors office.

One question; Those benches look pretty close to the wall on the righ side of the lathes. What's the longest blank you can wrap?

One of the biggest problems I had when I layed out my wrapping area was to make sure I could handle at least a 12' 1 pc surf rod.
I have a fold down section of bench that connects the benches here, it allows me to wrap up to a 12' if I have to, but it's tight.
I've had to get out the old hand wrapping jig for a few wraps on some longer rods.

I have seen ORs that are dirtier.

Clean, clinical and efficient! It would be a serious challenge but I'll bet in two weeks time I could make it homey and lived in! Seriously it almost makes me feel ashamed when I look at my own.

Stan Grace
Helena, MT
"Our best is none too good"

Joe
I’m sure that it won’t stay clean long like I said earlier my wife and I clean all day Sunday.
I can wrap rods up 11 foot like the benches are now. The benches are not permanently mounted to the floor so they can be moved for longer rods.

To be honest there is not a lot of calls for surf rods here in Kentucky!

Lynn

I was going to envite him over to Bowling Green, but now I don't want him to see my shop.
Lynn, you are set up.That's a fantastic shop.

JBH

I think you may just have the BEST home rod building shop in the USA! We could have a contest to see who has the best shop, but I think Billy would want to enter it and be the judge too (LOL)!

PS; When I went to bed tonight, I thought I had a pretty cool rod building room, but after seeing yours, now I'm depresed. Nice going Lynn!! Back to therapy...............(LOL).

Rich Matranga
Folsom, California

man, looks fab!.. kept thinking it was a shop , until i re-read the post and realised its as the house!

-
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day..
Teach a man to fish, he'll be broke!

Lynn,

You will have to repost some pics in a year or so, after it's really got that 'worked in' look.
I had my shop all organized for a while, it lasted about a week, but that was years ago.

I guess the heaviest rods you see there in Kentucky are for catfish?

I'm near the shore here, so I get lots of surf rods, in fact, probably nearly half of what I do are surf rods,
but mostly repairs. Lucky for me not many people these days want a one piece rod. But I do see a few every now and then.
I have a few waiting for my attention as we speak, and two drying on the rack. Even though I sort of set up to allow for a one piece surf rod, they still wreak havoc since they usually take both benches.
I also get all kinds of rods here since I get repairs from a guy that does closeouts. Since he sells worldwide, I see lots of rods that would never sell around here.

I like the idea of multiple work stations, I have only two benches that are more like one split in two, and they're always pretty cluttered. I try to do rods in one area and reels in another and not to mix the two in any one day. The problem is that parts get the reels backed up and the rods spill onto that bench too often. My thread and guides are in cabinets on the walls, while reels and parts are shelved, but I'm out of room on the shelves too.
I usually wrap as many as I can dry at one time, then I set up the drying rack and let it run while I'm out, or overnight. I had it set up on a separate bench, but I needed that space for shelving and storage. When I walk into my shop it's like a forest of rods that form a maze leading to my bench area. I like the wall mounted drier set up but I ran out of wall space a long time ago. Most of all my work here is repairs, with only an occasional custom rod, but they usually have to wait for when I have time.

My problem here is simply a lack of space, since my rod shop is in a spare room upstairs, I'm limited to about half of the upper level of the house. It works since the other half is my office space so I am close to my desk for ordering parts. It's temp controlled so that worked out
great, but the worst part is that I have a low ceiling, which makes the one piece surf rods interesting. Lately the shop area has been spilling over into my office area in the next room. I still consider this a hobby, but it's really getting to the point of being a full time job.
My ideal shop would be a new building with 12' ceilings and lots of room plus an upstairs storage area, but that's not going to be for a while yet.


Joe

Lynn,

You are lucky! It took me over a week to clean up my shop. Now I am out of the rodbuilding business for awhile. (tempory). Will not build any rods while I've gone fishing on the Gulf Coast of Alabama! However, I will be back in time for High Point then the mess starts all over!

Ed Smith

WOW. I used to think of my work area as a regular rathole. After seeing your shop, I am now forced to apologize to rats everywhere for insulting their fine homes.

Nice setup!

Great looking shop Lynn...its just weird clean. Looking at the pictures I had a flashback to a dentist office, grabbing the arms of the chair as the dental tool goes "WWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE".....and a voice saying "open wider"

"2001: A Rodbuilding Space Oddity"