The building that the wife has graciously given me her blessing to use is 20' x 20' heated with air, It's completely empty and not attached to the house but is attached to the rear of a large double carport only steps from the house. It has a 3' front door with a window on either side of the door. It has a centered 8' x 7' rear insulated garage door. The walls are antique white painted OSB, concrete floor, high white reflective ceilings with fluorescent lights.

If you folks were to build a dream rod / lure / jig building private tackle shop what would you equip it with and how would you lay it out if starting from scratch?

As work progresses I'll post the pictures of your suggestions I use in the shop for advice and comment.

Tight Lines
Milt

She gave this to you. You are one lucky man.

Mike

Speaking from experience here, there is one thing that ANY shop I build will NEVER be without: a decent size skylight or three. The natural lighting, even on gray, overcast days, becomes a "must have" once you experience it. (IMHO) My eyes turn 59 on Tuesday, and the light through my shop skylights make a huge difference in terms of combating eye strain, evaluating colors, and wrapping/building in general.

You are a lucky man . It would be nice to section off an area to use specifically for wrapping and finishing in a dust free area. Paint the floor or maybe some glue down commercial tile in your wrapping room. Use a light color such as Tan .Then I would layout my work benches. For the work surface, they would all be regular Formica counter tops in solid white, or as white as I could get them. For rod wrapping and finishing they would 12 ft long even if I had to splice some together. Decide what kind of chair you are going to sit in and build the work bench frames to the height required. A lot of the Home Surplus Stores have damaged counter tops , or returned counter tops for sale at about half price. A lot of times the damaged ones are chipped on the ends, you can cut that off and butt another one up against it. White Formica tops are out of style, you can probably get them cheap anyway . A regular counter top is 25 inches wide including the back splash and bull nose. I would have one long enough to accommodate all my small power tools such as grinders, belt sanders, drill press , etc. I would be nice to have some cabinets underneath the work bench for storage and support.
That 's enough for now. When you get that done we can start the next phase.

J.B.Hunt
Bowling Green, KY

J.B.,

Why White instead of a dark color that would show less dirt and smudges?

Milt

This is a pic of a shop abotu the same sie as yours, and it's laid put PERFECTLY for rod building: [www.rodbuilding.org]. The shop owner is PAul Rimbeck.

TEHre's a REnzetti lathe on one side, a 13' drying box, shelving units for thread, tools, etc,under cabinet storage for grips more tools, more etc. The other side of teh shop has a bandsaw, belt sander, wood lathe, drill press set up, for doin grips. HE also has a roll out 6' table that he can put in the middle of teh shop to do glue up of multiple grips, and when he hosts NERBs gatherings 2-3 times a year, we' can put teh lathe on this and have everyone stand around and actully see what's goign on insteda of peeking over my shoulder. Probably the best feature of this shop is the fully loaded, and I mean FULLY LOADED - beer refridgerator.

I would suggest a section for the Dirty Stuff. The shaping , painting, and all dirty operations with a way to exhast the dust in the air out of the room.

Billy that you with the mug LOL

Bill - willierods.com

Hide-A-Bed, Port-A-Potty and Wet Bar!. You May Never Leave!

Bill,

Hide-A-Bed. (NO)

Port-A-Potty. (NO) I actually suggested to the better half that a small 3' x 4' enclosed bathroom should be installed. I got one of those gimme a break looks as she pointed out that it only 25' to the house. A friend suggested a funnel with a tube through the wall. That didn't go over to good either!

Wet Bar. Sort Of! Small fridge/freezer, coffee pot, sink and double 24" wall oven unit.

Now for a question.

I had planned to build a full run of enclosed cabinets (20') under the 20' counter top that the rod wrapper will be set up on. Looking through some pictures I noticed that some have some folks have open space under their wrapping counter and some have enclosed ( cabinets ) under theirs.

What are the pros and con's off each setup and what would you guy's suggest???

Milt

Milt;
In my opinion, you need the white to increase the lighting in the work area. You also need to see the dust and dirt so you can clean it up. It is also hard to find tiny guides on a dark surface when you drop them.

J.B.Hunt
Bowling Green, KY

Add enough electrical outlets as possible, maybe separate circuits. and plenty of lighting.

I go along with the painted floor and white benches.

Bill

Ohio Rod Builders

Canton, Ohio

Milt,
With respect to cabinets under any bench.
The answer to this question is simple.
Are you going to stand at the bench or are you going to sit at the bench.
If you are going to stand at the bench, you don't keed any knee room and you can have cabinets to within a few inches of the edge of the bench.

If you are going to sit at the bench, you want to sit down at a prospective bench, sit on the chair that you plan to use and then see how far under the bench, your knees and legs go. That is the extent that you want to have your cabinets extend out from the wall.

I know that folks say that you can use dust removal equipment to keep dust down and keep dust from getting in other parts of the shop - i.e. have a lathe next to a dryer if you have a good dust removal system . If you can get the system and are happy with it - good luck.
I have tried this over the years and never came to a happy solution, until I completely separated the clean and dusty areas of the shop into separate buildings. Then, when working in the dusty area, after getting everything cleaned up, I use the air compressor, open the door and blow any uncleaned dust out the door and down the street never to be seen again on a drying rod.

If it were my shop, I personally would divide it in half so that you would have two tenn foot wide shops with a clean shop in one half of the shop and a dirty half in the other half, where you keep saws, grinders, lathes etc.
Then, the clean side would be devoted only to wrapping finishing and drying.


In the interest of saving space, I think it makes sense to have a wall mounted drying system to get the rods up and away from the bench, wrapping and finishing area. I also think it is a good idea to enclose the dryer in a cabinet of some sort, with heat lights in the cabinet to maintain the temperature. Possibly, also add a low speed fan on one end and an air filter on the other end to keep air moving through the cabinet and to also insure that all dust is kept out of the cabinet.


I would also go with a white bench. Much better to see things. Sure, white is tougher to clean, but conversely, the smudges and dirt are easy to see and easy to remove. If you go with a laminate counter top, the stains and smudeges are easy to remove.
I will say that in my shop, I keep a good supply of cardboard around from broken down cardboard boxes. I keep the finishing bench covered with cardboard. Spills, and drips are inevitible in the finish area. With the use of cardboard on the bench, it is only necessary to blot up the worst of the spills and let the rest simply dry up and get hard. If the "buiild up" gets too great, simply remove the cardboard, and replace it with another piece of cardboard.

Lighting. Ceiling mounted florescent lighting is great and is fine for general lighting. But in addition to the florescent ceiling lighting - if that is where it is mounted, you will likely do a better job with additional task lighting.
Rod wrapping and rod finishing is very very highly detailed work. If you look in all of the various lighting guidelines in the industry, you will find that for highly detailed and or inspection work the lighting requirements are two to three times the requirements for general shop or assembly lighting.

In a recent picture on Rodbuilding - I noticed a picture of a great work area where the builder had mounted wall mounted magnifying inspection lights above the bench and behind the bench. The long swing arms of these lights allowed the light to be swung to cover a good amount of the rod building area and the use of the wall mounts kept the light up off the work bench and kept it clean for other work.
I obtained a good swing arm halogen light and have been very well pleased with its excellent performance.

Whether you choose to go with a magnifier in the light, or whether you choose to go with a head band mounted magnifier; it is up to you. But if you end up doing much rod building and especially if you get into quite detailed work, you will certainly the improved work that you can do, as well as easing the strain on your eyes, by using some sort of magnifying system as you work.

Good luck
Roger

Here is an example of a well layed out shop.
[www.rodbuilding.org]

J.B.Hunt
Bowling Green, KY

Nice shop !!! Now that's a serious builder.

Bill - willierods.com

Thanks guys!!!

That's good info and suggestions to get started!!!

I'm sure I'll have more questions later and will also post photos as work progresses.

Thanks again,
Milt

That shop set up is great unless you have to wrap a rod longer than 7'6. unless there is 12' worth of bed there.

Billy,

The front bench has a 2 foot fold down extension that can be folded up to make the bench 10 foot long and I have another 3 foot section that can be added to my Renzzetti Lathe that would make the lathe 12 foot long to accommodate a 12 foot rod if needed.

Lynn Williams

Milt,

For the floor, I would suggest covering it. Standing on concrete can get you fatigued quickly, which will limit the time that you get to actually enjoy your hobby.

Fine Woodworking magazine had an article in their annual "Tools & Shop" issue a few years ago (around January 2004 or January 2005), and it dealt with covering a concrete floor to make the space warmer and more comfortable. What they author did was to lay down a vapor barrier, and then something like 1"x2" boards on the floor. These boards had notches in them, so that he could also run electrical wire under the boards to get power to where he needed. The boards were spaced either 16" or 24" apart, and in between he put down rigid foam insulation. He then covered the boards and insulation with 3/4" plywood that he screwed down, and that became his subfloor. If I remember correctly, that is all that he did to his shop, but you could certainly cover the plywood with tile, linoleum, paint, etc.

I would also go with a light color on the floor, since as someone already said, it will be much easier to find guides and such that you will drop than if you went with a darker colored floor.

Only suggestion I would offer is to consider using laminate flooring for the workbench surfaces. It cleans super easy (even epoxy drips); is very durable (can even lightly hammer on it); is impervious to rod building chemicals (alcohol etc). It's relatively inexpensive and easy to install - glue down "click-lock" flooring.

Lynn - that's nice to have that feature built in. Someone looking at that pic might not realize or think about something like that, I know I certrainly didn't.