Hey guys, my best friend is a regular contributor here (Scott H), and from seeing the beautiful rods he has built me, to spending time in his shop, has given me the big to do some custom rod building myself.

I’m currently in the process of finishing the small basement room that will become my man cave/tackle tinker room/rod building area, and am planning on putting in a workspace for this purpose. I’ll have just over 8 feet of laminate countertop on top of some oak cabinets I bought front a cabinet company that was changing displays in their showroom. I’m planning on adequate lighting, installing half a dozen outlets spread around the bench, and currently planning to install a small dust collector outside and hard plumb it, with an inlet in the wall behind the bench. My idea is that this can be a permanent mounted shop vac of sorts to collect cork dust, etc, and could also use it to move air for ventilation purposes if needed with painting, etc.

Given the opportunity to build your perfect rod bench, what would you build?

Jim,
In reality, the typical rod bench can be about 18 to 24 inches in width. Normally not much reason to have more width.
I like to have the full length of the under bench area open. Rather than use legs or cabinets or cupboards under the rod bench, use L brackets bolted to the wall to support the bench. That way, one can just sit on a chair or wheel stool and roll down the full length of the bench.

I would not put a vacuum system in the rod room, nor have any sanding or carving going on in the rod building room. Doing sanding or carving puts dust in the air, which gets in the rest of the house, as well as on your rod. Rather, do your sanding, and or carving or other dirty work in some other building - like a garage or similar out building. That way, the dirt and dust from such activities stay out of the house.


However, my current bench, is a 10 foot piece of cupboard laminate counter top that works well for me. It is sitting on top of two folding tables that do the job just fine.
When I finished off this room, I put in 20 outlets at a combination of standard 15 inches off the floor and at chest high level or typical standard kitchen counter top outlet level. That way, whether you are connecting power to an item on the floor of the shop or on the bench top, you have a convenient outlet.

I also make a power wrapper with rollers and brakes on the underside of the wrapper. This allows me to stay in one spot on my bench and roll the wrapper and rod by my work station, so that I don't have to move lights and tools as I wrap and finish a rod. I stay put and the work rolls by me.

This was part of my evolution of the wrapper. I started with separate rod bench sections with a roller stand between the sections of rod bench. Then, the wrapper base could roll on the roller stands.
[www.rodbuilding.org]

After I had the one piece 10 foot bench, I modified the wrapper base by adding rollers and a brake to the bottom of the wrapper base. The wrapper base is made with a single piece of 2x4 aluminum channel, with a slot milled down the center of the channel for roller rod rest attachment.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Picture of the lathe, chop saw, drill press, band saw etc. in the separate building where all of the "dirty work" is done. I have dust collectors, but when the work is finished for the day, and the collectors cleaned, the doors are opened and a final clean up is done with high pressure air that blows any residual dust that is anywhere up and out the door so that the place is always free of dust and not ever into the house.

[www.rodbuilding.org]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2017 01:47PM by roger wilson.

2X no cork/wood turning and sanding in the same location you will be doing wraps and and finishing!

The place your doing your layouts,wraps,finishing and assembly of handles to blank should be just for that and when doing the finishing at least 70 degrees in temp if you need to heat the space I recommend a radiant type of heater not one with a fan. You want to keep that space as dust free as possible. and if you want to vac up thread scraps don't take the motor and canister in to the room just the hose
assembling your cork rings do that where your going to turn them
turning the handles and any wood accents out side or in the garage.
most final finish problems arise from contamination in the room and floating the air.
You want to avoid this problem

The best day to be alive is always tomorrow !!
Think out side the box when all else fails !!!
Wi.

Jim

I can't add to the good advise above, but you did not mention a peg board, I recommend you consider one. Having the commonly used tools or expendables readily available is very important. During a critical operation you don't want to be searching for tools in draws or cabinets.
Also a peg board is a fluid thing as one gets more involved the board can be rearranged to need current needs.

Just a thought.

Good luck

John

There is a great article in an earlier Rod Maker magazine about a portable rod building station, it's also in the Special Tools CD on the Rod Maker site to the left, some great stuff there on getting a lot of use out of limited space. The dust collection is also included in the design as is some decent storage.

I would study your buddy's shop and make any improvements on that.

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



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2017 03:09PM by John Cates.

The buddy's shop is an absolute wreck and he shouldn't use it as a template. Upon moving to a new house in the spring, said shop will be rebuilt from scratch on the second floor of a 24'x32' garage. 2 rooms, one for dirty tools and one for wrapping and finishing. Just trying to get by til then!

Use a white floor so you can find the micros you drop. Even silver shows up on white.

Michael,
X10 on white.

My rod building bench is white, the rooms walls and ceilings are white, and the floor is white. Easy to see things. However, white is a color that is more difficult to keep clean.

However, I also have continuous lighting spread over the entire ceiling, so that there are no shadows or uneven lighting spots in the build room. In addition, I also use high intensity task lighting over the wraps being finished.

When one does intricate detailed work like rod wrapping, more light is better.

Note the following lighting chart:

[www.bristolite.com]

If you go down the chart, you need to have your overall room lighting level at about a level D or E.
But for the actual detailed wrapping you need the lighting to increase to about the level listed in H or I.

Extra bright lighting over your rod wraps make the job so much easier.

I have also found, that it works much better to have the super bright light close to the wrapping area, so that you can glance up from time to time to rest your eyes in the generally bright areas of the room, but not super brights.

A picture of the Halogen swing arm light that I use for the actual wrapping. The bulb is a 50 watt halogen that is very very bright and does an excellent job of providing the necessary illumination.

I have tried a dozen other lights over the years, but I keep coming back to this light for the best provider of the intense illumination that I prefer for the actual wrapping.

Built Mine on top of two 12" X16" Cheap cabinets raised up on 3" wood frames to give me a comfortable height for my roller stool. Built a full length pedal for control of the Motor 3/4" plywood top 12 ft. My Clemens was converted to DC power. The metal strip on the front ( black knobs) controls direction of rotation

[www.rodbuilding.org]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2017 12:55AM by Barry Thomas Sr.

Here's mine...may give you some ideas.

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