Calstar continues mission to build the best
“Calstar’s primary mission is to build the finest saltwater fishing rods and blanks available on this planet”, as articulated by Calstar Tackle CEO/owner, Chris Yamada in a recent interview with WON. To that end, Calstar purchased its own building, just to enable the many key investments required to enable their mission to be the best. In this article, we will highlight a few aspects of their new facility, and in our next issue, we will cover the new products being introduced at PCS.
Because Calstar is not open to the public, visits to their building are limited to Dealers who are there to conduct business. However, with permission, WON has limited photos of their facility and work areas to share with our readers. In a testament to its heritage of over 40 years, Calstar is still in Gardena, CA, and committed to American jobs and USA production.
Natural light and skylight LEDs throughout
When you walk throughout the building, its light and bright everywhere – with skylights across the building – filled in with sunlight LEDs. All of the flooring is epoxy-coated, like you find in aerospace production areas. Lighting in the common work areas and office area is motion controlled, automatically shutting off if there is no one present for 10 minutes. 3 of the production work areas – the Blank room, Oven room and Clean room have large banks of switch controlled sunlight LEDs. The vast amount of natural light entering the building was a positive factor in selecting this building, according to Yamada.
Clean room dedicated to rod wrapping and finish
At Calstar, every rod is wrapped and finished in the clean room – Calstar does not use “home” or outside wrappers, so you can be sure your Calstar was not wrapped in someone’s garage or bedroom, or on their dining room table. During our visit, we met Martha – a rod-wrapping veteran with 45 years of experience, happily wrapping new Grafighters in the climate controlled cleanroom along with her teammates who perform rod wrapping or applying finish to the guide wraps. 2 large, 50-rod drying drums operate on a timer to provide a smooth level finish – complementing 6 rod wrapping stations. Clear vinyl walls help team members see and communicate with each other, while effectively keeping the climate maintained and the dust out.
Calstar does not wish to publish photos of its other production areas but these have all benefited from significant investment – new and rebuilt machinery, and redundant/backup capability. Where new USA equipment was not the best or not available, Calstar chose to have its heritage equipment rebuilt – performing better than new in every instance. Their original (built in San Diego in the 1980s) rolling table – where the blank patterns are rolled under pressure onto the stainless steel mandrels – was rebuilt last summer and sits beside another freshly rebuilt, USA made rolling table.
Environmental responsibility is important to Calstar – and it goes beyond that. WON was reminded that there is a critical benefit to solar and the backup batteries – that any Calstar process cannot be interrupted due to a power outage – Calstar’s building and machines will be energized for many hours, ensuring that finish doesnt drip and blanks are always fully cured – just another little step to be sure they are building the finest saltwater rods and blanks built on this planet.
