Tips on improvising lightweight travel casing for travel rod please

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Lush

Forager
Apr 22, 2007
231
0
52
Netherlands
Hi all,

Ater buying a good quality shimano travelrod (shimano exage spinning)
I found out it comes with a mighty heavy travel casing (430 grams casing).
Way to heavy for me on a long trip.

What are your solutions for carrying something fragile like a fishing rod.
Especially the way luggage is handeled when flying worries me. This is why
I need to have a solid casing. I will also carry my 24 inch sawblades in the
casing so hand luggage will not be a good idear.

The rod is 60 cm (24 inches) in length btw.

Any tips?!
thanks,
Lush
 
Last edited:
Yep, just type fishing rod tubes into ebay. Ypou can get black plastic ones with red end caps for under a fiver.
 
I carry my bows in my car in the insulation foam pipes available at plumber's merchants. They are very cheap but totally effective. If however you need a hard case for your rod, then I would suggest a piece of plastic drainpipe with a pair of caps. These items are also available at builder's merchants. If you cant get the caps, you can improvise with pieces of wood. For the ideal hard carry case, I would suggest that you put the rod inside a piece pf the pipe insulation, and then the whole thing inside a piece of platic drainpipe with caps on.
 
Drainpipe works - you can get plastic end caps that screw on and off. Stuff some foam in the ends. Make both ends unscrewable and customs/security at airports will be happy.
 
Carrying something fragile like a fishing rod.
Especially the way luggage is handeled when flying worries me.

If you are flying with it and looking for light weight then you have a problem and a 2 stage solution might be best.

I quite often travel with fishing rods in metal or even steel tubes. I've had the baggage handlers destroy a steel tube by bending it! I couldn't have achieved the same end result with a sledge hammer, JCB and half an hour, they did it to something made of steel but marked as fragile in about 35 seconds.

So if you want to fly with it then put it in the strongest and most heavy duty metal tube you can source and hope for the best.

Perhaps you could manage to get a smaller diameter and much lighter tube that would fit inside the steel one that you could use when walking? In other words put everything in the heavy duty tube for the flight and then leave the heavy metal tube somewhere and only use the lightweight one while walking about.

My guess is that a long and thin object like a rod tube can easily get wedged into the mechanism of the various baggage handling type machinery and there they are left until the various gears, levers and blokes with crowbars completely destroy them. They can also roll and fall off the back of the little trolleys they use for driving the stuff out to the plane and at that point airport regulations require that all vehicles on the airport apron, including the aircraft, must drive over them at least 3 times before any further aircraft are allowed to take off or land.

To add to the fun if you are flying with many of our carriers they will charge you about £30 per flight extra for this service but you will find that this additional charge also absolves the of responsibility for any damage they might cause to your fishing gear.
 
If you are flying with it and looking for light weight then you have a problem and a 2 stage solution might be best.

I quite often travel with fishing rods in metal or even steel tubes. I've had the baggage handlers destroy a steel tube by bending it! I couldn't have achieved the same end result with a sledge hammer, JCB and half an hour, they did it to something made of steel but marked as fragile in about 35 seconds.

So if you want to fly with it then put it in the strongest and most heavy duty metal tube you can source and hope for the best.

Perhaps you could manage to get a smaller diameter and much lighter tube that would fit inside the steel one that you could use when walking? In other words put everything in the heavy duty tube for the flight and then leave the heavy metal tube somewhere and only use the lightweight one while walking about.

My guess is that a long and thin object like a rod tube can easily get wedged into the mechanism of the various baggage handling type machinery and there they are left until the various gears, levers and blokes with crowbars completely destroy them. They can also roll and fall off the back of the little trolleys they use for driving the stuff out to the plane and at that point airport regulations require that all vehicles on the airport apron, including the aircraft, must drive over them at least 3 times before any further aircraft are allowed to take off or land.

To add to the fun if you are flying with many of our carriers they will charge you about £30 per flight extra for this service but you will find that this additional charge also absolves the of responsibility for any damage they might cause to your fishing gear.

Sorry - I assumed as it's a travel rod it would also be in a suitcase?
 
If you are flying with it and looking for light weight then you have a problem and a 2 stage solution might be best.

I quite often travel with fishing rods in metal or even steel tubes. I've had the baggage handlers destroy a steel tube by bending it! I couldn't have achieved the same end result with a sledge hammer, JCB and half an hour, they did it to something made of steel but marked as fragile in about 35 seconds.

So if you want to fly with it then put it in the strongest and most heavy duty metal tube you can source and hope for the best.

Perhaps you could manage to get a smaller diameter and much lighter tube that would fit inside the steel one that you could use when walking? In other words put everything in the heavy duty tube for the flight and then leave the heavy metal tube somewhere and only use the lightweight one while walking about.

My guess is that a long and thin object like a rod tube can easily get wedged into the mechanism of the various baggage handling type machinery and there they are left until the various gears, levers and blokes with crowbars completely destroy them. They can also roll and fall off the back of the little trolleys they use for driving the stuff out to the plane and at that point airport regulations require that all vehicles on the airport apron, including the aircraft, must drive over them at least 3 times before any further aircraft are allowed to take off or land.

To add to the fun if you are flying with many of our carriers they will charge you about £30 per flight extra for this service but you will find that this additional charge also absolves the of responsibility for any damage they might cause to your fishing gear.

Wow, good solution! Indeed, the problem is that I like to have a light
tube for the walking part and a very very strong one for the flying
part. You are totally right!

I alway's get my backpack wrapped in plastic. The rod will also be
wrapped to the outside of my backpack (too large to put inside).
This gives me some extra protection. I might use two different sizes
of plastic drain pipe nested. If that isn't strong enough I can never
blame myself. Steel is going to be so heavy I can not afford that
much extra weight (will have to pay extra for my luggage then).

So I will leave the outer tubing at the company that rents me a
canoe. Perfect.
Good tip :)
 
You can get many types of plastic tube with different wall thickness, if it doesnt state the wall thickness in the specification see if it says anything about what pressure it's rated to

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