Sunday, February 13, 2011

PVC Rod Cases Revisited

For the better part of the last 30 years, I’ve been using standard 1 ½” PVC pipe to construct rod cases. PVC has many advantages, it readily available, cheap, easy to work and very strong. The 1 ½” diameter was just the right size for a two piece fly rod. The primary disadvantage, it’s heavy.

Since I had some shorter pieces of standard PVC pipe lying around, I used it to make cases for some of my Tenkara rods as well. Other than the weight, it worked fine.

Since I had a need to make a number of cases, I had to purchase some more PVC. As I thought about it, Tenkara rods do a pretty good job of protecting their tips when the rods are collapsed. Plus the collapsed rods we short, so they were less likely to get slammed in a car door or meet some other disastrous fate. They were also one piece and had no guides, so I wondered if they may fit into a narrower diameter pipe.

Once at the big box store, I took a look at 1 ¼” PVC. I notice it came not only in the standard wall thickness, but also a thin wall version. I ended up buying the thin wall, and it worked great, still providing protection, but at a reduced weight.

From the picture, you can see the difference in wall thickness between the 1 ½” and 1 ¼” PVC.

Once I built a few cases, I weighed a 1 ½” case and a 1 ¼” case

The 1 ½” case weighed in at 1 lb 5 oz while the 1 ¼’ thin wall case (gray cap) weighed in at 9 oz.

I like this rod case the best, only problem, it requires a level of skill to make -