Hi all, I recently moved and with that lost my basement shop. Good news, I now have a 24x10 building with a storage loft that will be dedicated to rod building, tackle, rigging etc. It’s sectioned off and the larger 13x10 will be the rod shop. Plan is wrapping bench on one wall, finishing bench on the other. Part of me things this will kill a lot of space in the middle. Other idea is central bench with each side serving a purpose. Also have to sneak my small bench lathe in there. I have an 8 dryer setup that will be mounted in an elevated box. Any ideas or insights would be great. Trying to keep things clean and concise.

Sounds like a nice setup!

Keep your outfit for turning cork and other materials in a different room from the finishing area. (the issue is dust)

Use white for the floor color to facilitate finding dropped micro guides.

Note that there are now 8000 lumen LED "garage lights" with adjustability that mount into a regular light socket and provide gobs of light. And they are not that expensive, about $15 apiece.

Dan,
Actually a 2 1/2 foot wide rod bench on one side and a 2 1/2 finishing bench on the other side, and a 2 foot wide bench in the middle would be perfect.

White ceiling. White floor. White walls.

Lights everywhere.

Also dedicated task lighting for the particular guide you are wrapping or applying finish. The dedicated task lighting should be only a foot or so away from the rod to give very very very bright light and no shadows from the person doing the work.

You want at least 20 outlets in the room to have convenience. High outlets, low outlets and outlets in the middle makes for a perfect setup.

Please - no sanding or turning in the rod shop. Do that in another building to keep all dust out of the clean shop!

Also, be sure to obtain and use a 1.5x, 2x and 3x head band mounted magnifier. This combination of magnification, along with very bright lights makes your rod wrapping child's play - so to speak.

Best wishe and good luck.

I routinely sand and shape on the same lathe I wrap and finish rods on. The key is to not do both at the same time. Dust itself isn't an issue. Airborne dust is. If you're worried about this sort of thing, make an inexpensive dust collector from a box fan faced with a furnace filter.

...........

I have also been shaping on my only rod lathe, but have been dreading the day I would regret that decision. I have considered moving my shaping to the garage but haven't made the investment in a second lathe. I like the air filter idea Tom. I think I will get to work on that this weekend.

I have also been shaping on my only rod lathe, but have been dreading the day I would regret that decision. I have considered moving my shaping to the garage but haven't made the investment in a second lathe. I like the air filter idea Tom. I think I will get to work on that this weekend.

If you stand at your bench and wrap like I do, a higher working surface will be more comfortable. My bench top is 45" tall which allows me to stand erect without leaning forward.Prevents neck and back pain. Also more storage room under the bench.

Dennis J. Danku
(Sayreville,NJ)

I have found that dust on a surface easily becomes airborne.

Can you include a heat tent that can drop down to facilitate better curing time, should the nights get cold? If it were me, I'd use a center bench, with wrapper/late on one side, and multi-pole dryer on the other, On another wall, have a bench for other, sometimes required tools, such as sander, Dremel rotary tool, Allen wrenches, etc. I'd also put my fly tying tools on that bench. And I agree, white everywhere, and good lighting. I also find that a magnet, on a telescoping rod to be very handy for finding dropped guides, pins, set screws, etc.

Tight Lies and frisky fish

RJF

It's good set up but I think if you apply your finish on your rod wrapper then move them to set on wall mounted dryers above your wrapper it will save you a lot of space. I would set up a small lathe on the opposite wall to turn grips. For color on the walls I would use a light green color to suppress reflection from the walls and use direct lighting where needed. Those long power strips that you can mount anywhere are the ticket and will only need a few actual sockets without having to run a bunch of gang boxes everywhere. Two outlets in the ceiling and an outlet on each wall. You can probably get a lot of ideas from other people of things you may haven't thought of and this is a great forum for it. I am jealous, sounds like cool project.

Lance,
Yes you are right about using the long outlet strips that plug in to serve the shop.

However, I dislike extension cords of any type.

As a result, when I built my work shop to be used for what ever - I used 250 feet of 12 gauge wire to put multiple outlets on every wall, the ceiling and both at chest level as well as the standard 2 foot levels above the floor.

If starting from scratch, it is simple to do, and makes set up a snap.

I also ran a 60 amp power feed to the work shop and installed a separate breaker box in the shop to take care of the electrical chores. I ran 6 gauge wire from the main breaker box to the sub panel in the work shop.

I use the workshop for a myriad of uses. But, I do no grinding or sanding in this area. I do that out in the garage work shop - where I do all of my dirty work.

In spite of posts to the contrary - if dust and grit is developed in a room, it will inevitably settle into a clean spot in the shop and potentially cause issues.

At a large local rod building business, they have one very large room to handle all of their building chores, wrapping, prepping etc. Then, in adjacent room - with its own supplies they grip making equipment with saws, sanders, lathes etc. The door is equipped with a dust proof air seal and the large building area maintains a higher room pressure than the grip building room which maintains negative air pressure to keep any :stuff: from the grinding/sanding shop to drift into the clean room environment

With the care and expense spent, they are clearly demonstrating that they very much care about potential dust, grime, and shaping scrap from drifting into the clean rod building room.

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Years ago, I used my current work shop for wood work and other dust and grime generating stuff. Before ripping the room apart and rebuilding the room into my new shop and potentially spare bedroom, I told my wife that I was vowing to never again do dust and dirt generating tasks in that room, since it invariably would spread through the rest of the house through the home ventilation, heating and cooling systems in the house. Many years later - that fact is still true. Dirty work -- another building with space separating the buildings and a chance to walk off any dust and dirt before entering our main home.

Note:
I also appreciate Robert's comment about the use of a larger two sided bench in the middle of the room. I have been in shops that utilize such a concept and I have found that it works very well.

When appropriate, I also use my rod shop to do large sewing tasks with big industrial sewing machines. In this case, I do all of the main work sewing machines etc. in the center of the room. A great concept, since one can access the work from all sides without having to move the fabric. Then, I just use the side tables for storing supplies as I use the center of the room for the machines and the large projects that I do from time to time.

Dan,
All the above are very good considerations. While an “island” bench in the middle may solve “...will kill a lot of space in the middle”, you would then need two walkways rather than just one which also kills space. It may also ultimately reduce a lot of floor and wall space.
Obviously, a separate room for turning, shaping and sanding is optimum. Although it would be preferred, I do not have the space luxury in my shop, ½ of a 2-car garage. I use my rod lathe for shaping grips, wrapping and applying finish. After a shaping operation, I use a shop vac, compressed air and a chip brush to clean the lathe. One beneficial aspect of my shop is that I can open the front garage door as well as the rear walk-in door for flow-through air flow while blowing with compressed air. I then wait for 30 minutes before performing any wrapping or finishing. I have not had any dust issues.
To emphasize comments above, if you figure needing 4 light fixtures, get 8!!! Additionally, if you figure needing 6 power outlets, get 12!!!
One more thing to consider. Just about everything is on rollers in my shop, cabinets, shelves, granite surface plate, surface grinder, even the milling machine. This facilitates moving each unit where it is needed or out of the way, easier cleaning of the shop, and access to that micro guide which fell off the back of the bench.

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

Since you have the wall space, you may want to consider making an area for CCS'ing rods. Consider leaving enough space at the butt end of the rods to adjust the rod to the length where you want to measure the blank. I made a set up where I can adjust the rod holder, a Backlash Device, up and down along a vertical track. I added a tape measure along the track to easily measure 1/3rd distance and a fixed point at the bottom (comfortably above the floor) so the 1/3rd deflection ends at the fixed point. I made a horizontal line along the whole length of the area at that fixed point. My thought was 1/3rd of a four foot, 48 inch, rod is 16 inches. 1/3rd of a 12 foot rod is four feet. So the range is 16" to four feet (above that horizontal reference line) to measure anything from 4' to 12' long. You can make the range bigger to fit your needs.

Thanks for all the ideas. Definitely going to have the lathe in the second half of the shop. In addition I have a nice dust collector that I mount directly to the bed of the lathe. Between that and a ceiling mounted air filter, I was able to keep my basement shop pretty clean.

I'm a HUGE fan of the linkable LED shop lights. I have them everywhere and plan on lighting this place up like the sun.

I moved forward with a 2 bench setup utilizing both 13' walls. Originally I liked the idea of wrapping and being able to transfer the rod over a single bench to the finishing area. I realized more often than not, I'm wrapping several rods then finishing several rods. The wrapping bench has room to hold 4 more rods or blanks above it. Finishing area is similar with my variable speed machine, room for 4 rods in the queue and 8 dryers. Need to rearrange the dryer setup and build a finishing box in the future.

Two additions I really like. I mounted my rod wrapper on roller tracks so when I'm building anything 7' or less I can stay in the same place and the wrapper will slide. When building larger single piece surf rods, I have to lock the bed and add my extension. I also built a little shelf under the main wrapper bench that is kind of a 'catch all'. I always find myself overloading the bench and wrapper with all my crap. This keeps it at hand, but out of the way and the main surface clean. Didn't really want a draw, because I feel that's where things go to die. I might be going crazy, but I'm liking the idea of a glass/plexi/lexan bench top that allows me to see everything in an open shelf underneath.