Was just reading Bass Masters mag. Some one had sent in a suggestion were they took a mouse trap and had nailed it to the front of their rod wrapper. Cut the left side of the arm off leaving the front and right side. They were putting their thread spools on the front piece and using the spring tension of the trap to create the resistance they needed on the thread. Has any one tried this?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2006 11:00PM by Steve Gardner.

i hope this works good because i def need a better tensioner than a book lol

I saw that one too. I think there is great potential for bass rod builders- considering we usually have about a dozen on the deck at any one time. I built two fly rods already and my next one will probably be a bass rod.

This is too funny. I saw the article also and have been using the mouse trap for the past few days on the second rod I'm building. It works great. I wrapped a rubber band around the whole trap and the now bobbin arm for added tension. I mean it, it works way better than the book, especially with metalic thread.

Let's fish,
Chris

I haven't seen the article but my initial reaction is that I would be concerned with the spring creating too much thread tension. Maybe the springs on the traps I have are unusually strong but I have a sense that they would be too powerful as a thread tensioner if I tried to incorporate one of them into my rod wrapper. I may be overly skeptical but I would certainly look at it from that perspective before I made very many wraps that set up.

Sam Stoner

Will someone post a pic of this?? I can't quite picture it. Where does the cheese go??

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

what size trap are you using? the small ones or the big ones?

Go to "flyanglersonline.com" and on the home page click on the search blank to put your cursor there. Type in "mouse fly" and then click search, then click on item number 2. Note, in all of the above, when actually entering something leave off the quoation marks.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2006 05:14PM by Jim Williams.

Jon,
I'm using the small mouse traps.

Let's fish,
Chris

I never thought to use a mouse trap...that is ingenious. the tread tensioner i first used was built out of a half of a clothes pin. the one arm put tension on the spool that was on a piece of coathanger stretched across my wrapper.

i though ti was a genious...but i was still in highschool. and my first rod was made for 23 dollars and i wrapped it with sewing thread from walmart and finished it with 5 min epoxy.