Light Rod Tube
Home-made For Backpackers

by

July 2003

Most rod tubes seem to be on the unecessarily heavy side for backpacking. On the other hand, the true-believing lightweight backpacking types would likly scorn any rod tube at all. However the cost of the higher quality fly rods and the fact that fishing is my main motivation to go into the wilderness left me looking for some form of lightweight protection. What I came up with uses 1.5-inch schedule 200 PVC pipe. The first thing to know is that "1.5-inch" pipe is actually closer to 2 inches in diameter. That they are larger than the nominal size is true in general of pipe sizes. This is irrigtion pipe, which has a considerably thinner wall than the schedule 40 used for household plumbing. It may take a bit of looking to find it. It's sold typically in ten-foot lengths and it's quite cheap.. To close the ends one could just use the standard PVC slip-on caps, but we are trying to save weight here. I came up with a way of closing the ends using blue foam pad material. This is the stuff the tougher backpackers use for sleeping pads. It's available at REI. Other items needed are contact cement (I recommend Barge Cement), PVC pipe cement, and some Velcro(R).

Step 1

saw, miter box, pvc pipe
The first thing to do is cut the tube to length. The length you need is the length of rod in its sock, + 0.75" for the bottom plug + 1.5" for the top cap. Also cut a 0.5" piece of PVC pipe for the top cap ring. The tubing cuts easily with a hacksaw. I used a plastic miter box to get the cuts straight.

Step 2

blue foam, pvc ring template, marked circle
Using the 0.5" piece cut for the top cap, mark a circle on the foam by drawing around the outside of the cap. Do this a second time and cut the out disks of foam with scissors. The cut diameter should be about equal to the outside diameter of the tube.

Step 3

barge cement, two blue foam disks
Coat the two disks with Barge cement, let them dry until tacky and then stick them together.

Step 4

pvc cement, pvc pipe, glued-together blue foam disks
Coat the inside of one end of the tube with PVC pipe cement, and force the laminated disks in flush with the end of the tube. Because they are cut equal to the outside diameter of the tube, they are under a little compression when put in place, making a better bond. It may be useful to have a stick on hand in case you push the plug in too far to push it back flush with the end. The PVC cement sets pretty fast so you don't have a lot of working time.

Step 5

2-inch wide strip of blue foam rolled, 1-inch high ring of pvc pipe
Take a 2" wide strip of foam and roll it up as tightly as you can until it's a bit larger than the diameter of the tube.

Step 6

using pvc ring to size the rolled strip of blue foam
Cut it so that when it is inserted in the top cap ring it looks about like this.

Step 7

blue foam, glued and rolled to mark
Mark it as shown with a pen. Coat all of one side of the foam with Barge cement and the part of the other side that you marked with the pen from the center up to the mark. This way there won't be any glue on the outside of the cylinder that you form. After the cement has dried to the tacky stage, roll the strip up tightly to make a cylinder. Coat the inside to the PVC ring with PVC pipe cement and force it onto the cylinder. Wipe off any excess glue and force the other end of the cylinder into the main tube. Let it set and cure for several hours or overnight.

Step 8

rod tube with cap partly inserted, showing velcor strips on cap and top of tube
The final step is to glue Velcro strips around the cap and the end of the tube. A strip of the other sex of Velcro (not shown) wrapped around the cap and tube will secure the cap in place.