Breaking Down A Rod Rack: How To Do It Yourself

Today I had a little bit of free time on my hands so I have been thinking about creating a rod rack for quite some time as a cool weekend project but also because my SIMAX Rods need a good place to lay. Leading rod racks are upwards of 100$. Me and my friend love building things like this and with his help we were able to make this project happen. In order to make a high quality rod rack you must have the proper tools in order to make it sturdy and professional looking. The tools we used to make this was a Jig Saw, Table Saw, Nail Gun, Sand Paper, Drill, Level, Wood Glue, and roughly 3 hours of time. We started off by making the ends with 2 sheets of 2' by 4' high MDF Plywood 1/2in thick. PICTURE 1 shows our lines that we wanted to cut and then inserted a little design as seen in PICTURE 2. We used the Jig Saw to cut out that little design first and the Table Saw to cut off the pieces leading up to the little cut out we did again as seen in PICTURE 2. The finished product was 2 pieces that look identical as seen in PICTURE 3, which will be used for the end pieces. Its really important to sand down all the edges and corners of where the cuts were made. We then went and decided the middle pieces would be 30in long which would make the stand 30in wide. We then went ahead and began making the pieces that would go inbetween the two end pieces as seen in PICTURE 3. We started off with the top piece that would hold the middle blank of the SIMAX Rods. We cut out a 30in piece of 6in wide Pine wood. We used 30 because we could get 2 sides of 9 holes evenly which would allow for 18 rods. We took a measuring tape and measured where all the holes would go, which was every 3in. We used a 1in bit to cut the holes into the wood and we spaced each centre of the hole ¾ of an inch from the edge so that we wouldn't break the wood. If you look at PICTURE 4 you can see the aftermath of the drilling of the holes. After we did this we took the jig saw to do the cutouts leading to the holes as you will see in PICTURE 5 which is the finished product. We then went on and created the base which was the same concept as above except we didn't want it cut out and we were using a 12in x 30in piece of pine wood. This would be for the bottom or landing where the but end of the rod will sit. We used 2 pieces of this. The first piece we aligned the 9 holes on either side and drilled eighteen 2in holes for the butt ends of the rods to go through and onto the bottom landing. You can see this concept in which I am trying to explain in PICTURE 6. So we had all our pieces made and ready to assemble, now comes the fun but tricky part, which is putting the pieces together properly. Make sure to use very good wood glue and we used 1in nails for the nail gun. Also when connecting the pieces make sure to measure out the centres and the exact spot your nailing the wood in so that both sides are even and level. That is a very important step in making your rod rack look professional and sturdy. We put in a T connection piece as you can see in PICTURE 7 which gives this rod rack its stability and support. Once all is said and done your left with the remaining pictures to show you the finished product that cost me less than 40$ if you have all the proper tools. As you can see I definatly needed this rack to support all the SIMAX Rods I had. Make sure everyone is extremely carefull with the tools being used for this project as it is heavy machinery. It always good to have someone help you with these kinds of projects. Hope everyone likes my finished product, I am going to put a nice stain on in and she will be in my basement holding my SIMAX. Any questions or comments about making this rod rack feel free to send me a message anytime.