Fishing Pole Rack

I was tasked with building some fishing pole storage that could be kept on a pallet.

My plan was to make three racks that could be used separately, or could be set side by side and screwed down to a pallet. They would be an A-frame with holes in the base to hold the fishing pole handles and notches at the top to secure the rods.

It took two sheets of 3/4" plywood. The racks would be four feet long, so I could cross cut the plywood and just cut my strips to width.

I started by using a forstner bit to drill the holes the handles would sit in. I staggered the holes on each side to give the reels a little more room. I also offset the holes across from each other so that the poles wouldn't collide at the top of the A-frame.

I kept the same hole spacing for the notches at the top of the racks. It probably wasn't necessary to stagger them here, but I thought it would help to keep track of which notch went with which hole. I used a band saw and a hand saw to cut the notches.

At first I was going to make the tops with the notches one straight sheet, but deiced to make them in this Z shape. This way if the poles had different eyelet spacing there would be some height options.

I had six sides to make. A smarter person would have just made a simple tapering jig for their table saw, but I used the band saw. I took my time with the first one, cutting close to the line, then using the belt sander to sneak up on it. I used it as a template to trace the lines onto the other five. Those I also cut on the band saw, then clamped to the original and used a flush trim router bit to trim off the excess.

Once everything was cut, I used a round-over bit on my palm router to round-over all the exposed edges. It was then time for assembly!

I used a combination of wood glue, brads, and screws to hold everything together.

It was a pain to get the top piece lined up and held in place without an extra set of hands. I should have spent five minutes to make some sort of box or stand to hold it up. Instead I opted for a liberal use of brad nails and swear words to keep everything in place until I was able to zip some screws in.

I sealed them with a couple coats of polyurethane, and let them dry in the sun.

Since these were to be screwed down to a pallet, it wasn't inconceivable that they would get moved around with a forklift. I figured it would be a good idea to put some sort of latch across the top notches to keep the poles from falling out. At first I was going to pick up some simple gate latches, but I needed 69 of them and that would add up quickly. Instead I made these out of some 1/8" steel rod.

I installed them with a screw and washer. I put a slight bend in them so that they would act kind of like a leaf spring, and secure with a nice friction fit. You can tighten or loosen the screw to adjust the tension.

The customer was only able to fit two of them in their car at a time, so here are the first two in action!

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This project was completed August 3, 2018.