Thanks again everyone for the help. Things are going great . The real seat and grip are in place and I'm practicing wrapping. Ok, whats the best way to wrap the tip top wrap? How do you support it in the jig. The tip top is kind of in the way for spinning the rod and and it just hangs out there with little support from the jig. I know this must be easy so let me in on it. Thanks Tom.

I have left some w/out a wrap at all but I think it looks a little funny. For the rest I use a hand held bobbin like you would use for tying flies or I employ child labor and have my kid give me an extra hand.

Thats a great idea Andrew! Should of thought of it myself. Thanks Tom.

I just let it hang off the end of my rod rest. My thread tensioner is on a separate board and I just let the rod bend and place the tensioner board at a 90 degree angle from the bend that the thread tension imparts on the rod; it's always very near where the tensioner board was at when wrapping the last guide before the tip top.

Putter

i rest the tip section coming from the left, with the tip directly above, unsupported, above the two thread holders, which are mounted on the base below. on a four piece, i combine the tip section and the second section to add weight and tension from the left.

using my left hand, i both hold/turn the section, pulling up just a little to keep extra tension and keep a finger from the left hand on the thread wrap. the right hand i keep free for holding the very tip and helping rotate the section, cutting the thread near the end of the process, long enough to finish wrapping, sometimes just wrapping it round and round the last few turns instead of rotation the rod section.

so far works for me.

eric
fresno, ca.

No worries Tom, hope it helps. The child labor thing started when I was wrapping a couple trolling rods for my neighbors father's Bday. I still manually turn my rods when wrapping so one day when one of my neighbor's kids was watching me wrap he asked if he could help build grandpa's rod. I put him to work turning for me and it was awesome. "forward ... faster ...slow down .... faster .... sloooowww ... stop! " He got a kick out of "helping" and it was great hearing him tell grandpa how he helped me. Once I got to the tip top guide I really realized how much it helped having an extra hand. As soon as the child labor runs out i might have to break down and buy a power wrapper but until then I get a kick out of letting them help.