I have a very small shop for making rods, so when I setup for sharpening, I'm setup for sharpening. When I setup for roughing out, I'm setup for roughing out. No room for setting up jigs all over the place. What I need advice on is how to handle preparing for mistakes. After setting up the nodal spacing and cutting to working length anything that necessitates discarding a strip and going back to use another strip (depending on how far along the process) means breaking down the current setup and resetting up for processing another strip to get the nodal spacing right. Should I just setup two sets of butt strips and 3 sets of tips to cover any potential problems? What would be a good way to handle this?  (Bill Walters)

I know the struggles that a small shop presents.  My own shop is 6' x 16', and I share it with a lawnmower and chest type freezer.  At least being in the shop gets me out of the way of SWMBO.

One suggestion:  When you're roughing out, why not make seven strips for each section?  That's what I do.  I leave one strip full length, and use it as a spare if I mess something up.  Straighten the nodes, rough plane it, and heat treat it.  Bind together the six strips you intend to use,  then just lash this one to the bundle.  Since it's full length, you can use it anywhere in that rod section.

Gotta admit that I've been lucky lately.  I've got about 8 or 10 of those leftover spare strips that I haven't needed.  One of these days I'll make a franken-rod out of all those spare strips....(Harry Boyd)