Or maybe I should say - how wide/long......

trying to determine where I can stake claim in the house as I get into the hobby, and wanted to get some advice for what is considered the "minimum" width to be working with to reasonably, and ideally efficiently, wrap/finish rods.

Assume for sake of argument, that I'd be doing primarily 7-8' rods......


I guess the minimum then is just a bit more than 7-8;, but from a practical perspective, and working with a wrapper, etc - do you ideally stay center and move the rod left/right, or do you move your butt left & right :)

maybe a stupid question I know... but trying to determine what turf I need to go fight for ;)

I (we) live in a condo in FL - limited room.
I have a portable wrapping table that I can work with either siting on the couch watching TV - or - placing it on the granite eating bar.
I do all my gluing of bushings, seats and cork on the granite kitchen counter or eating bar - or both.
I do my thread epoxying on the same granite counter tops.
The Condo has a small work room where I turn all my grips on my cork lathe that I store in the trunk of my car.

Sooooo - no one should complain about a lack of space.

And - yes - my wife is an angle to put up with that. But I do clean up very well.
Herb

I'm lucky in that I have an entire room in my house that I use for fishing related items. The room is 10' x 11'. I have a power wrapper set up on an 8' long table along one wall. I keep most of my supplies in Plano 3700 boxes that I keep on the table itself. Other supplies (sandpapers, clamps, heat guns n such I keep in a 3 drawer filing cabinet in the room. I have a small 10 rod, rod rack that I keep rods that I am or will be working on (eventually lol) in. I keep my reamers along with extra fishing equipment. Baits, line, live well chemicals n such in the rooms closet. The other half of the room is where my computer desk is.

My house has hardwood floors throughout which really makes it easier keeping and cleaning the room so that it is free of dust, when it comes time to finish wraps.

I have a spare room in the basement that is the size of a bedroom, but not a bedroom because no windows...it’s like 12x12...ish

In it I have an 8 foot folding table. On the table I have some plastic drawers, thread racks, desk lamp, and equipment.

I wrap with a hand wrapper and move my butt along the lengths of the table as I wrap. I swap out the wrapper with a dryer when I’m finishing, but that’s super simple since my wrapper is the HWS from CRB.

I can comfortably do all the work on my 7 ft and below single pieces and everything longer than that has been two piece, so that’s super easy as well.

My stuff is allowed to “creep” out of my room since the basement is finished, has a huge open family room, and as long as my stuff stays down there I don’t get yelled at.

I have a room that is 15x18 for use as a rod building room.
I have benches around the entire perimeter of the room for working.
This is my clean room for doing all of my rod work that does not entail dirt, dust or particles.

For the dirty work, I use the outside shop that is 20x20.

I have a 15 foot work bench along the front wall that I do all of my lathe work, turning, shaping and sanding. Then, another 15 feet of bench down the center of the shop for room to spread out for long builds packing etc.

When I clean this shop, everything is first swept, then vacuumed, than the doors are opened, and high pressure air is used to blow all of the dust off of all of the shelves, ceilings walls, floor and all out the door to be gone with the wind.

That way, the shop is virtually dust free when the next job needs to be done.

But, if it has been a while before using the outside shop, before starting the job, high pressure air and a long blow gun wand is used to blow every particle of dust off of every surface, including the floor and out the doors before starting the job.

Just like a surgeon. He never starts operating, unless everything is sterile, every spec of anything has been removed and everything is prepared and ready. the same goes with the shop as well as the rod shop.

Everything has a place and everything is in its place before starting -- whenever possible.

take care

QUick shop tour, changed it a bit sinc eI took this video a few years ago [www.youtube.com]

In my home office. 10x12 room. It's cramped in here since I work from home out of said office. One corner is largely occupied by 4x 27" monitors and 2x 24" monitors, my work and gaming PC's. Another corner is for building custom water cooled gaming PC's. Then I keep a folding 8' table that I set up for doing rods.

The wife doesn't mind....until I start applying finish. lol

Interesting question and I look forward to hearing the responses too. I have two rooms that I use for rod building. Actually the room is 11x17 and under it is the same size in the basement 11x17. In my main room is where I have a 12ft table that hosts the rod lathe and under it is storage for all the components. Across from that is another table dedicated to drying (curing) rods once in epoxy and can handle 6 rods at a time. At the end of the room is where I have several rod racks to accommodate work in progress and completed builds. There is another area on that wall for up to 25 or more rods to be repaired. And yes there is room for the dog who watches all day from the lazy boy!

In the basement shop besides benches for working on rods I have two lathes, table saw, band saw, floor model drill press and a large disc/ belt sander. This is what Roger calls the dirty room and is used for turning grips, reaming cork and various cutting and drilling required in the rod process. This room is far and away from the building room which I try to keep dust free. Roger is an inspiration on cleanliness !!

Tom

tomscustomrods.com

If you have head room, these rod stands that I use, will hold a dozen rods and or blanks at a time for easy access and compact storage.

I have about 6 of these, to allow for the storage of a lot of rods in progress as well as blanks and rods in for repair.

Of course, if the rod length exceeds the head room, then I use the horizontal storage that I have on one wall.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

These stands were made from the finished new stool tops obtained from the junk store for $1 each. Then, appropriately sized holes were drilled part way through the wood with a clean cutting fostner bit. The pvc tube was chopped to length and then insereted into the wood.

I also have a couple with the pvc tubes a touch loose, so that I can take with me on fishing triops knocked down for easy transport to hold rods in the cabin when not using a rod, or at night, when rods are brought in for rerigging.

I also use the same concept, except in an in line configuration. This in-line configuration works well to use as on the ice storage when ice fishing. To expedite the use of such a stand, I make one hole smaller to take a 1/2 inch dowel about the same length as my ice fishing rods that I use as a handle. I cross drill a hole near the top end of the dowel, to form a lanyard to slip over my wrist when tracking across the ice and snow to the spot for fishing.


But the same storage works well in the shop with its narrow foot print to hold multiple rods or blanks without taking up much floor space in the shop.

Best wishes.

I have never seen a shop that was built big enough.

Flex Coat Company
Professional Rod Building Supplies
www.flexcoat.com

Myself an my girlfriend living in my 4 bedroom house. I have an entire bedroom, 15' X 10' with a walk in closet for my room.

My machine is mounted on a table I made on one of the 15' walls, 14' feet long, 24 inches deep.

I have all kinds of rolling carts with drawers for all my goodies as well as rod holders on the ceiling.

... and yet at times, it seems like its still not enough room .....

My shop space is about half of the 20 X 20ft garage. Extending 32in into the space, the left wall has a metal workbench, floor drill press (soon to be a drill/mill), large shelf area, washer/dryer and my smoker. The BMW 2002 I bought new in 1972 is stored on the east side. Up against the car in the middle of the “shop” is a 24 X 48 X 39 composite curing oven, two 30 X 30 X 39 thin-drawer cabinets to store cut composite fabric and a 12 ton press. My heated rod curing cabinet is set on top of the oven and two cabinets. With the stuff stored on the north wall, the remaining floor space is approximately 6.5 X 16ft. Within the remaining floor space is a 24 X 24 X 4in granite surface plate mounted on top of a steel frame (39in total height) and a 24 X 24 X 39in horizontal grinder (20in dia). My rod wrapper/lathe is set on top of the surface plate and grinder. The oven, cabinets, surface plate and grinder are mounted on wheels. With only 6.5ft of width and the wrapper setting on top of two 2 X 2ft units in the middle of that, it should be understandable that I have limited/restricted space. But I make do!

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

I only have a 12 ft. by 10 1/2 ft. small bedroom with walk in closet in half of one 12 ft side. Made my countertop out of some old bifold doors that were hanging around, I made it the full 12 ft. long by cutting the ends off the doors, cleaned out the corrugated cardboard filler and installed a 2X4 insert in the ends that is screwed and glued in. It all sets on a short kids dresser drawers and 2x4's attached to the walls, since I don't pound on the top, it's worked well. It's a corner room so two sides are windows on the north and east sides of the house along and on the right side of the rod bench. Tru-light bulbed fluorescent fixtures reside exactly over the rod wrapper, with another Teed across the center of the room the other direction.

I am really lucky. My wife and I bought the house next door a few years back. Just a small little house and the price was too good to pass up. So she has the upper floor for her art studio. I have the basement. The basement is about 24X28. I use one half for my wood working shop, the other half is split in half. One half is planned for a small metal working shop. Have the tools, but need to do the construction. The other half (this half includes the furnace and water heater) is for rod building and fly tying. So that is 12X14. I have a rod wrapping jig set up on an 8-10 foot bench. All threads and most tools are on the wall over the bench on sewing thread racks. Components are in coffee cans (the plastic kind) that I salvage from the house. I keep blanks in large PVC pipes along one wall. Different pipes for different type blanks all of which are tagged with type, and other specifics. The one thing I found was in a basement with small windows I had to add some significant lighting. I put a 12' florescent light directly over the bench. I am in the process of converting that light to all leds. I find they are very bright and I can use 12V power supplies from old computers to power them. I use a Cabela's lighted magnifier on a reticulated arm fixed to the bench for direct lighting and magnification when needed. I added a coffee pot, small college room type fridg, DVD player and TV to the mix. Only thing I need to add is an easy chair to use when the frustration level gets too high.
I think every hobby has an immutable law. "The space used by the hobby will expand to use all available space". So any space will work as long as you have room to work on the largest blank section you may wrap. I've even wrapped rods in my easy chair in the living room while watching TV.

Have fun and enjoy the

Hello All.

I'm down to two 14X12 rooms at my new (new to me) place.

Before Florence I had two 12X10 rooms and a 20X40 shop all went under.


Tight Wraps & Tighter Lines.

Bob,

New Bern, NC.