I'm still doing some research on equipment. I've seen 6, 18, and I also see that Flexcoat makes a 200RPM finisher. If you start out with a hand wrapper then you would be finishing by hand as well. I guess I'm just looking for some insight. As someone just looking at what is needed to get started, this can be confusing. If an all in one power wrapper was a choice, what speed do they offer for finishing? The suggestion of starting out with a hand wrapper does make sense. I would think a dryer would be important when starting out as well, unless you want to dry by end, which does not sound fun. I'm thinking that eventually I would want a lathe as well, which I've already posted and received good info on. It almost seems worth it to just buy an all in one type lathe and be done. By the time you bought all the equipment separately you could've spent a little more or less in some cases and have a Renzetti. From what I've read, it looks like a Renzetti will do everything.

If you're new to rodbuilding, a Renzetti is pretty steep investment. The first 5 rods I built, I wrapped by hand and used a cardboard box to hold the rod after I put the finish on the wraps, turned it hand about every 20-30 minutes for a few hours. I finally built a dryer, but still wrap by hand and probably always will. I have a Jet lathe on which I can turn grips, reel seat inserts, pens, bowls, candlesticks, etc. The Renzetti will do what you need for rodbuiding, but I don't think it's worth much beyond that. I think anyone just starting out should learn how to do the wrapping and finishing by hand. It gives you a better understanding of the process and the investment, beyond components, is almost nothing.

Don,


The 6 and 18 rpm motors are too slow for applying finish...they are for just drying.

200 rpm is enough for finishing...though you dont really need one.

IMO I would get a drying motor first....beats the 7734 out of babysitting the rod for an hour or two.

Do the higher dollar power wrappers turn at that speed for finishing as well?

The power wrappers (usually) have a foot control that excedes 200rpm.

All it take is one sneeze and epoxy is flyin around all over the place.

Its a bad idea to take a 200+rpm motor and have it dry a rod at 6rpm...sure way to burn one up.

In addition, if you eventually want to turn reel seats, I don't think the 1/0th hp motor on the Renzetti will do it, in fact they you need the $150 motor in order to do that. I paid $199 for my jet and with the right chuck it'll take wood up to 12" in diameter. I bought my dryer motor from Edmund Scientific, I think it was around $10.00 and it works just fine.

The problem with the drying motor on the lathe/wrapper is that you can only wrap OR dry, not both. Most use separate drying set ups which can be had relatively cheap and can be made really cheap. Do a search here and type in drer motors and you should get a ton of info I have numerous ranging from about 2 to 30 rpm and I probably do just as many totally by hand.

Mike