3d Printed Fishing Rod Rest

	3d Printed Boarded Peg Fishing Rod Rest www.mgcsoft.com

My 3d Printed Boarded Peg Rod Rest
Hi. This page has been put up partly to introduce the wonders of 3d printing to a wider audience and partly to show off the coolest, most exclusive rod rest in the world :-). The quest really started after once getting a long rest stuck in the mud. It took a lot of heaving and pulling at arms length to get it out with a high probability of us both ending up in the lake. By and large I float fish and like to be comfortable when I'm fishing so use a chair rather than a seat box. Occasionally I'll fish the quiver tip which moves every time I do if the rest is attached to the chair. I wanted something that had a single point fixing to a boarded peg but there was nothing available. This is the result. It's possibly the most expensive rod rest ever made but at least I got what I wanted. No more leaning over the front of the peg with the contents of my top pocket ending up in the water. No more getting stuck in the mud - wonderful. It's seriously expensive to make, about £480. Definitely in ballistic wife territory. It's a registered design (UK No 6005997) but if you just want to make one for yourself no one's going to come knocking on your door. The cost can be reduced somewhat by dispensing with the shock absorber and articulated rest mounts. See the bottom of the page for an example of the butt rest mounted this way. The bulk of the cost is in the base. With 3d printing the price is largely determined by the bounding box of the model. There are other factors but generally big items are expensive, small items quite reasonable. The pinch screws for holding the rest into the mount are about £3. This might sound a lot for a plastic screw but for a one off exactly to your design it's very reasonable IMHO. The base could possibly be machined aluminium but as a one off you probably wouldn't save much unless you're able to do it yourself. The rest attaches to the peg with a sprung loaded wire loop which goes through the gaps between the boards and rotates 90° to anchor the rest down. The anchor pins are 2.5mm spring hard stainless steel and the loop is small enough to go through the chicken wire that is sometimes on pegs. There's sure to be a peg somewhere where the gaps are too narrow but as yet it hasn't happened. There are five lengths of pin and one reserved for custom but I've only ever used two. There are pegs around made of really thick timber so I'm prepared for them should the need arise. The wire 'bail' at the front is to lift the front up when there's a rail across the front of the peg. There are pegs with high boards at the front so it's limited to pegs with front rails less than about 75mm if the front rest is over the water and about 150mm if the front rest is behind the board. The further away from the board you are the higher it can be. The precise height of the front rest is adjustable via the thumbscrew on the base which is easily reached from a seated position. The angle of the back rest is also adjustable in small steps. The butt shock absorber is there to minimise the bang when you first strike as the rod tends to rotate before it rises when striking upwards. At least it does when I strike! The shot dispenser in the picture has also been 3d printed. It has the gram weights embossed on the top, AAA, BB etc. around the sides. I've never used an SSG in my life but do use No10s so had the special dispenser 3d printed. I originally started the design for a blind person that goes fishing. I was going to put the weights in Braille until I had the slap head moment that blind people probably don't do a lot of float fishing… Plastic parts except the carbon fibre stay tubing have been 3d SLS printed; where rigidity is important in carbon fibre reinforced nylon or graphite reinforced nylon otherwise (graphite is cheaper). The whole unit weighs just 430g. The models were created with Wings3d a free 3d modeling program. If you're thinking of giving Wings3d a try it's advisable to install the free ManifoldLab plugins. The ManifoldLab boolean operation tools in particular make life much easier.
Section of the butt shock absorber: The spring in the one shown wasn't strong enough at 1.25mm dia and 5 turns. It tended to move a little when just resting your hand on the rod. I've since redesigned it for a 1.5mm dia 5T spring which should be OK. The shock absorber isn't absolutely necessary. It's just me getting carried away - probably ;-).
Exploded view of the butt shock absorber: The angle of the back rest stay is adjustable. The worm gear allows you to keep the rest itself at the right angle while retaining the shock absorbing.
The rests themselves: The rests don't screw in the way conventional rests do. They're pushed in and a half turn on the pinch screw retains them. I can use a conventional rest if I need to, it clamps the thread just the same. The front rest shown is 79mm from tip to tip. It could do with being a bit wider, say 100mm. At 79mm you have to be a little bit careful when putting the rod down to avoid the line going underneath the fork.
One of the anchor pins: One of the five numbered anchor pins but two would cover 95% of pegs (a guess). Edit: I've only ever used one.
Anchor pin section: Just a section showing how the pin is anchored into the knob. This is something you can 3d print that you probably couldn't mold. It's almost impossible for the pin to come out of the knob. We don't want it ending up in the bottom of the lake do we:)
Simplified rest and mount: This is a cheaper way of mounting the rests to the stays. The disadvantage is that you can't use conventional rests and the rests themselves need to be removed in order for the unit to pack away properly. This approach hasn't been tested. With the rest central to the stay there's no tendency for the rest to rotate about the stay axis. With the above approach it might when striking - but probably not. The reel handle will also catch the stay at lower stay settings. It's preferable to have the rear stay at something less than 45° to the vertical otherwise it tends to feel a bit springy when resting your hand on it. At these sort of angles the reel handle catching the stay shouldn't be an issue.

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