I have several .055 and .063 stainless rods, so I decided to make a tube to hold them all. For fun, I decided to make it out of 1/2" copper tubing with soldered joints. Then I put a buffer wheel on the grinder and polished it. I like the way it polished, so I sprayed a coat of Duplicator 1K clear on it to help preserve the shine. The bottom tube is 11 inches, so the rods hang out an inch, making them easy to grab. The overall length with the cap is 12.5 inches. The loop on the top is a piece of 12ga electrical wire wrapped around a piece of pipe to form a circle. The loop isn't necessary--you can grab the top piece and wiggle it off. The copper tolerances are perfect--coupler has just enough "grab" that you have to wiggle and twist to get it off. Happy with how it turned out. Might do a longer one for my 3ft rods I use for model rocket launches with the kids. If you can solder a copper pipe, you can do this project. Polish is nice but not necessary. This should be able to take years of abuse.
