I've just completed prepping a bunch of strips and am ready to start planing tapers. I have yet to do all the staggering and grouping for rod sections but will do that in the next couple days. I plan on soaking prior to planing and am wondering about what other's processes are like, for soaking, what sort of soak tank/tray and processes for keeping groups together as they are removed soaking for planing, etc.
I've been in frequent contact with Steve Yasgur on my whole prep process, making tooling for both of us, etc. I have been soading in vertially setup PVC pipe. This works, but it is modestly annoying to try pulling individual strips out and it isn't really possible to select them. Steve uses a length of rain gutter horizontal on a bench. We've discussed a similar arrangement using 4" PVC pipe opened lengthwise with caps on the end. I like this idea even though it requires significantly more space that the vertical pipe tanks.
I'm also curious how others are staging additional groups in the soak tank while working on planing strip from any given group. It seems necessary to have some in the tank soaking for a while so they are ready when the first group is completed.
I'm interested to hear from folks,
Rick