I have purchased a Pac Bay Rod Wrapper and need some advice. I have been doing a 6 to 9 inch A thread underwrap on popping rods manually using a home made spool tensioning thread device with single thread inlays. I use nylon A and J Metallic thread. During manual wrapping I use quite a bit of tension and a fairly deep angle to minimize the amount of packing. I am trying to learn to use the maching to ease the pain in my hands and to speed up my work product. The thread tension adjustment screw and the small wire spring on the machine are causing me some problems. When I get enough tension to do a wrap without the thread jumping back over previously wrapped areas I do not get too far until the J Metallic starts to fray and I have to start over. The thread damage is started by the wire spring peeling back the metal covering. Can anyone provide a few tips in using this thing with the metallics or do I need to change out the purchased tensioner and spring with a spool tensioner.

If someone with Pac Bay reads this post - a small ceramic oversleeve mounted on the wire spring with a groove for the thread might be helpful in solving this problem. The chuck upgrade really works a lot better than the plastic one that comes with the machine. The customers that have come by my shop in the past couple of days seem to think that they will be getting better rods now that I have something else in my shop other than a plastic milk crate with a homemade thread system.

Thanks to Thomas Thornhill who has given me some encouragement on using the power wrapper to do the guide wraps as well as the underwrapping. He wraps more rods in a week than I do in a year! Maybe Tom can talk him to coming to Charlotte in 2006 and putting on a "out wrapper for hire" demo.

Gon Fishn

A spool tentioner, like the @#$%& thread tensioning device, might help. Although to me it sounds like you may be applying too much tension to begin with.

Jay

Bill,
I have watched a number of the out wrappers and most do not use thread tensioners they use their fingers to control the tension and the angle.

Bill,

I too have a Pac Bay wrapper. I have modified the thread station to eliminate the sandwich tensioner with a 3.5 in. long x 0.25 diameter bolt. Apply tension to the spool with a spring and a few nylon washers. I had to enlarge one of the thread post to accomodate the bolt. I also used a small eye bolt. Like what Ken Preston had done to his. I got the idea when I saw his at Charlotte. I think Pac Bay is working on a modified thread station. Saw some signs of it at Charlotte. I'll take a picture and e-mail it to you tomorrow. The factory thread station is murder on metallic thread. I still use my hand wrapper alot. The power wrapper is still too fast for me on small diameter wraps.

Ed

Bill,
I removed the pacbay tensioner which I found was to harsh, especially the extra wire spring. I replaced it with two Flexcoat tensioner's which seemed to have fixed the problem as they are a lot less harsh and more adjustable. My next project is to modify the thread carriage to utilize a section of rod blank and tip so as to feed the thread onto the blank at 90 degrees to the blank and from the rear.

Ed, If it's not too much trouble, E mail me a picture also
Thanks, Gil

It is fixed! Check out the Photo Board.

Mr. Buky specially for you!!

Gon Fishn

Bill,

Looks good. I just e-mailed you the pictures of mine. Slight differences but same principal.

Ed