DIY Rod Storage Part 1 – Homemade Quintrex Hornet Fishing Rod Locker

Unfortunately for us the Quintrex Hornet trophy we purchased did not have a locking rod locker or somewhere for us to store our fishing rods while traveling and or parked in public.

Quintrex do a factory fishing rod locker as an option so i knew they had the room to have one installed, and I urge anyone who is buying a new boat to make sure they get one or have the room to retrofit one, fishing rod storage is a important thing in all boats.

We decided a DIY approach was what we needed and got the materials together to make our own. With some info and inspiration from some other DIY rod lockers we set about making one for our Quintrex hornet trophy and thought we ‘d show you how we did it.

Here is a bit of a description and some photos on out DIY fishing rod locker build.

Step 1 –  Cut the Wall and lid panels the size you want the rod locker. We used 18mm marine ply, and remember that if you are going to carpet it, that this will add 4 -5 mm to the overall size depending on carpet choice.

Step 2 – Carpet the wall and lid with your choice of marine carpet, I use selley’s quick grip as the adhesive and it seems to work fine.

Step 3 – Mark where your wall is going to go and then mark out where you want to have your pvc tube going under your casting deck. Best to unscrew the casting deck and see what sort of room you have behind it for the pvc tubes to be located. You can always drill a few pilot holes from the front side to see exactly where they come out on the back side and take some measurements from that.

Step 4 – Once your happy with the location of your tubes, use a hole saw to cut out the required size needed for your pvc tubes and flanges. I used some pvc floor flanges and 50mm pvc pipe for my my tubes, the flanges cover the hole in the aluminium nicely.

Step 5 – Glue your flanges and pvc pipe together, cut the pipe to the length that will fit up under your casting deck, then mount into the holes you cut wight he hole saw, securing with  stainless screws. Its easier to do this before your wall goes in due to lack of room.

Step 6 – Mount your wall in the desired location using some stainless steel or aluminium angle cut to the height you want, secure with pop rivets or stainless screws.

Step 7 – Now comes the lid. some stainless steel hinges are required, and some more bits of angle for the lid to rest on, making it strong enough to stand on.
Mount the hinges on the lid first, and then onto the wall trying to line it all up as best as possible. This can take a few attempts until it all looks nice and flush. The bits of angle then need to be mounted at each end of the locker and along the sides where the lid will close down onto. these need to be mounted so that when he lid shuts it is sitting on them and is level, taking all the weight on the pieces of angle.
In a factory install all these bits of angle would be welded, but as we don’t have access to a MIG welder for aluminium screws are the next best thing.

Step 8 – The locker should all be installed now with a hinging lid that is strong enough to stand on. Our finishing touches are a stainless bolt to be able to lock the lid, and a handle which consists of some nylon strap screwed under the lid to give something to grab when opening the lid.

We are really happy with our fishing Rod locker build, and I am sure there is numerous different and better ways to go about building a rod locker, but hopefully this info and pictures can help if you decide to go down the DIY road like we did.

Now if You have a small boat or a narrow boat and don’t think you have room for a full locking rod locker, then there are still some rod storage solutions for you.