My wrapper will be just for wrapping. I have separate lathes for all other duties.

How much clearance height from the base to the rod blank? Is 4 inches enough? That would seem a comfortable hand held height for me.

Looking at the blank, mounted in the wrapper, do I want the rotation to be top of the blank coming at me or top of the blank rotating away? Top rotating away seems right to me.

If just for wrapping, what is the rough RPM range? I will operate a variable spped control. Condisering about 150 RPM as tops but wide open to suggestions. I will be doing some under wraps for big rods.

Thanks again for your comments.

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Dan,
With respect to your wrapper questions.
I have built a number of powered wrappers and have made the following conclusions:
1. The wrapper needs to be able to run a maximum of 300 rpm. i.e. rod speed. It seems that 300 rpm is about as fast as you can have a rod spin, and still keep up with the thread for big butt wraps.

2. A soft start with perfect control is mandantory and one of the most difficult things to achieve with a wrapper. i.e. you want to be able to turn the rod so slowly, that it is barely able to be observed turning. You need this very slow speed, when starting your wraps.

3. You want 100% smooth control for every speed from 0 rpm to 300 rpm.

4. You want the wrapper to be bi directional. i.e. you want the wrapper to be able to turn in both directions.

5. You want the wrapper to be tight in both directions, with no backup when the motor stops. With a tight clutch or drive mechanism, the threads will stay tight, if you stop for any reason. You want the wrapper to be able to turn in both directions so that if a mistake is made, the wrapper can be backed up with the touch of a pedal, and correct the mistakes.

6. A couple of choices that have worked out very well for me.
a. Dayton right angle gear motor with reversible motor. This is a 110 volt ac motor - that is similar to the typical sewing machine motor drive systems with the exception that both armature and commutator leads are brought outside the motor to make direction changing easy to implement with a single switch. This motor incorporates a gear system so that the motor is geared down without any added spools or reduction gearing. The speed is easy to control with a conventional resistor type sewing machine foot pedal, or a solid state speed controller. The only real down side to this motor is that the right angle gears are somewhat noisy and slightly irritating.

b. The wrappers that I just built are meeing all of my expectations. These wrappers use Pitman 11:1 24 volt dc gear motors. These are parallel gear motors so that there is little to no gear noise from the motors. Since they are dc, the direction of the motors is easily controlled by reversing the leads via a switch. The speed is easily controlled by varying the voltage to the motor. So, the system that I built uses a 30 volt - variable voltage 0-30 volts power supply. The voltage is varied by the use of a variable resistor that is contained in a musicians guitar wow - wow foot pedal - with a different value resistor installed. The direction is controlled by the use of a cross wired double pole douple pole switch. The motor drives a Taig Lathe chuck which is held in a Taig head stock assembly.

If you have furthers questions or would like pictures drop me an e-mail.

Take care
Roger

You need enough "swing" (lathe center-point height) so that you can clear the largest guide you intend to ever wrap on a rod on your lathe. Overall lathe height can be adjusted by making the bench height higher or lower.

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