Build your own rod - Basic tools and materials

Building your own rod has something special, like creating something for yourself after your very own desire.

I've been building rods for several years now, but wouldn't call me a professional in rod building. There are so much guys out there doing this as a full time job and they create pure pieces of art.

My rods are more or less functional based, I think because I don't have that much patience on doing the fancy stuff.

But what I learned from talking to other guys about rod building is, that a lot of fisher man are aware of starting to build their own rod because of the quite overwhelming topic on how to start and what you need to build a rod. I always say that it's not that complicated and with a little bit of skill you will manage to build a rod with that you can catch fish.

Sure the first one doesn't look like a piece of art, but the more you practice, the better the result will become.

For that reason I will show you in a series of posts how to start rod building and you might get a little bit addicted to it.

First things first, a short overview of basic tools and materials you should have on hand to make your rod building start easier.

Some of them are easy to get, you might have them already in your house, like these:

- sharp scissors for cutting the thread

- masking tape to wrap underneath the reel seat and place the guides

- plastic shot glasses as mixing cups for the epoxy finish

- some sticks to mix the epoxy

- aluminum foil

- a lighter

Some other stuff you might have already or you have to buy:

- synthetic paint brush

- thinner or denatured alcohol(99.9%)

- 2k epoxy

- disposable syringe for rod finish

And some stuff you will have to buy in the rod building shop:

- 2K rod building finish

- bobbin for thread

- packing tool to pack the thread wraps

And as a last thing, you will need a wrapping bench. This doesn't need to be a professional wrapping bench for a few hundred euros. As I built my very first rod, I wrapped some old bottles with tape together and started wrapping. The second was built with a longer wood panel and some old tires of my skateboard. This I was using for two or three years.

But you can also build a wrapping bench out of paper like this one.

Or you can buy one from as shop, so it's up to you how you get started.

If you get all these things together, you can start with rod building. The next step is to choose the blank for you rod, which will be handled in the next post.