I have been knocking around the idea of building a new powered rod wrapper.
I have a few ideas that I was wondering if anyone has maybe already tried, or maybe might see a problem with.

I came across several sets of high end inline skate wheels that are about 1/2" wide and made of a clear urethane type compound. They have dual preloaded precision sealed bearings.
Are there any disadvantages to a larger wheel versus the normal 1" 'o'ring type wheels found on most comercial power wrappers?

I also have several motor drive options, one is a motor from a wire wrapper which was used to wind electric motor armatures, it has it's own speed control and a variable speed clutch/variator which is part of the motor assembly.
It even has a cool rubber finger collet style, quick on/off chuck that looks perfect for holding rods. My concern is that there will be no slippage, and it will be a lot more powerful than a normal wrapping motor. I also considered maybe making a dedicated handle lathe with this one?

I also have several other motors but all are more or less just larger sewing maching motors and would use a belt drive. My thinking is that with a larger motor, I will have better rpm control at slower speeds. The small sewing machine type motors used on most wrappers are a bit touchy and seem to struggle a bit with heavy or large diameter rods.

Another idea was to build a lathe in which the rod is driven by a set of rollers rather than a chuck and motor?

The lathe I started with worked this way, the motor was in the center to the rear and it drove a set rod rollers which were made of black rubber which were in turn rotated by a friction roller against the motor. The driven wheel also acted as a flywheel to some extent, as it would spin freely for some time after letting off the pedal, there was a separate brake which was applied by rocking the pedal the other way to slow or stop the drive wheel. The pedal was fixed to the bench and operated two rods, one for the brake and one for the motor position or speed. Picture a turntable, with a rubber wheel driving it and a in turn another wheel that rides on the rod blank itself.

It worked pretty well, and I was told that it came from a rod factory years ago. The drive rollers on that were rubber and the speed control was mechanical, a lower driven wheel had a rubber side surface and the motor was moved in and out on the wheel. The motor ran continuously and was activated by a micro switch once the pedal was pushed only slightly. It worked good, but the rod supports were crude and used only wood stands with felt pads. It was also built onto a huge oak bench, which weighed about 400 lbs and sat really high. I was told that it was made in the late 50's or early 60's. What was best about this set up was that all you had to do was lay the rod on the lathe and lower the tension arm onto the blank at the center, the supports slid along a dovetail slide. The handle always hung out in the open with no support. I guess it was designed with the old casting rods in mind, with the cast type of reel seat. No matter what type of handle, the rod alway ran true since it didn't depend on the handle being centered in a chuck. My idea would be to build on this idea and use modern materials to make it less offensive to the rod finish. If it were all roller supported and driven by a soft clear no marring roller it may be an idea to consider? Most of what I do is repairs, and casting rod that use either a pistol grip, recessed seat, or two handed handle are a problem to chuck up, as well as dry.
I usually end up turning those by hand now.

I'm not in any hurry to build this, just thinking about it and have acquired many of the parts it would take. I am not replacing my current lathe, just adding another, maybe more veratile one. mostly for the heavier saltwater rods and casting rods.
Any suggestions? Ideas?

found personally that the hassle involved in making one didnt compare to the miniscual charge for one spent six months trying to build one spent 9 days waiting for delivery from the usa to uk IMHO no comparrison if you have a lathe buy one (much easier)


allen

I am currently working on one. Might even take some pics of it if I can get past the little things the perfectionist in me would rather hide :-)
Sounded to me like most people don't actually use the power wrap for that high a % of their work. So I thought to design for hand wrapping first, with ease to add motor options easily. And I'm too cheap to pop for $300+ on a factory built model,,, especially after seeing what you get going that route.

Basically, I'm using a piece of the 1" x 5.5" composite material. dado'ed for a .5" x .75" slotted track. That composite decking is inert stuff compared to wood, and cleanable. At 1" thick, a .5" depth dado still leaves enough material for some strength. It is also heavy enough that it isn't going to be moving around on me. Slotted track makes it easy to adjust and plug-n-play with uprights and motor options.

Uprights I made from Tap plastics bargain bin ends of cutting board material. Each with 2 static bearings for the rolling bed, and one bearing mounted on a simple swingarm above. I had thought to use the full inline skate wheels as you mention. But the spinning mass of all those wheels would add up to more than the mass in the rod blank. And driving all that mass by friction against the rod didn't seem like a good idea to me. I also wanted the support wheels to overlap each other a bit in case I ever did really thin rod sections. Ended up going with these: [] . The extended flange let me easily mount one flange up and one flange down on the same side of the upright and get a little overlap. Standard 7/8" ID o-rings made for garden hose pop over them just fine, and yield a 1 1/16" OD.

For this application, I lean towards low mass, large diameter, easily turned, and axial rigidity (no wobble). Lots of tradeoffs between those parms and durability. Whichever wheel/bearing choice you go with, make sure you get bearings with removable side shields. That's because the grease in most of the bearings is not only questionable in quality, but also too thick to allow for easy turning. I removed the sheilds, cleaned out the grease with carb cleaner, blew them out with compressed air, relubed with much lighter good grease (Superlube), and reassembled. Spin much easier after that. If relubed with oil rather than grease, will spin even easier, but I worried that oil might eventually work itself out of the assemblies onto the rod,,, so I stuck with grease.

For power, I still have 2 uprights to build. One with a simple, cheap low RPM timing motor and chuck, The other just a chuck with 1/4" rod sticking out that I can chuck into a captive drill, and use a foot speed controller to run.

From your motor choices, sounds you you are contemplating a SERIOUS animal. Much more lathe than wrapper. While I think I could do some light lathe work with mine, a dedicated real lathe would be the ticket. For example, Grizzly has some cheap variable speed controlled lathes.. And while the bed length is short on them, note that tfor some bed is just steel tubes. Replace them with longer tubes and you get a longer bed, or build/buy dedicated ouboard supports for lengths off the end of the bed.

Personally, I wish I had bought a Conover lathe some years back when they were still in production. Any length bed you want, just supply the wooden beam. Variable speed DC motor had consistent torque through the speed range, and the weight of the things really dampened vibration.

What got me thinking about building one was just that I have most everything here to build one, and maybe make it better than what I can buy.
There's no sense in buying one, the one I use now looks like the current Rodsmith wrapper. The only problems I've had with that have been a few cracked roller wheels, and all of them will most likely need to be replaced soon, they've turned yellow and one by one they are cracking and separating from their hubs. I got it used and I think it was set up in direct sunlight or something. There's no name on this one, but several out there all look to be nearly the same. I've also replaced a few motors, and the drying motor on the wrapper has given up years ago.

One thing that got me thinking about building one was that I picked up a pretty nice hand built hand wrapper fixture which is milled out of hardwood into a double sided dovetail bed, one for the rod and rollers and the rea carries the thread carraige. The roller uprights are well made but they are bulky, so I was thinking of cutting them down and making either nylon or aluminum stands to attach the what someone has already made. They went so far as to inlay bronze ways and to mount rollers so that the dove tail slides move easily and never wear into the wood. However, they used what looks like cheap furniture wheels for rollers that aren't even very round. I would no way chance running blank over them, there's no padding and they are not offset, so a very small blank could pass though.

As far as weight, the wheels are pretty light, I haven't weighed them but they feel super light, the only weight is the ceramic bearings. They must have been pretty high end, they are packaged individually and were marked $29 each. They are narrower than most inline skate wheels too, and the surface is smooth and perfectly round, so they would run true without any vibration. I spun one up to about 5000 rpm and they run smooth and quiet. I had originally bought them since the bearings that come with them were a size I needed for another project, but I have about 30 of them left here. If nothing else, I will use them to make some new drying supports.
My biggest concern with the wheels isn't the diameter, but the width, each support would end up being about 2" wide since each wheel is roughly 3/4" wide at the hub, they narrow at the tire area and the contact area on the blank would be less than 1/4". The best part is that the bearings are such high quality, there is no measurable axial play and they spin freely with almost no resistance. I agree that the ideal wheel would be a large diameter and very narrow wheel, but all of the ones I've seen are pretty wobbly. The best part about these wheels is that they will be permanent, and rock solid. I doubt I could ever wear them out or damage them wrapping rods. I have left one of the ones from which I stole the bearing from sitting out in the sun for over a year now with no signs of deterioration and I even soaked that wheel in paint thinner, gasoline, and acetone for 12 hours each (all at separate times), and nothing has done any damage. I was afraid that maybe the clear tire part would crack or split, but nothing has changed it so far. The hub portion of the wheel appears to be some sort of composite, it looks like carbon fiber, but I can't say whether it is or not. The tire portion is moulded over the entire hub, not just pressed on the rim. What concerned me was that when I had the instructions on the package translated, ( they were in Japanese only), it read for indoor use only. But I guess that has more to do with how hard the tire part is.

I agree I am not fond of driving the blank by friction, but the on my old wrapper, it never did any damage, but would leave a rubber mark that you had to rub off sometimes on light colored blanks. It did have a smooth stop plate on the left side to keep the rod from walking away from the big end due to the taper. The only time I wish I still had that set up is when I have to wrap a pistol grip rod where the handle won't center in a normal chuck.
My fear was that it would eventually burn or score the blank where it rode, you had to be careful on start up, if you tried to start too fast it would slip on the blank, I usually rolled the blank a bit by hand to get it started.

Motor wise, I am thinking that the motor or drive should have some slippage or failsafe to prevent damage to a blank? I'd rather a belt slip rather than have the chuck tear up a handle if something happened. I am thinking that the DC motor and a speed control and belt drive is the best way to go there, I would retain the foot pedal electronic speed control and also have a dial to control top speed. The larger motor would also allow a very reliable speed control, work load would have little effect on the rpms. The little sewing machine motors like whats on mine now are too weak, and don't seem to last long, I get maybe a year or two out them, and the one I have on now is getting weak. They are cheap, but they are all made in China these days. It's getting to the point were if I am wrapping a large diameter blank and apply nearly any resistance, I have to max out the pedal to keep it turning, and I'm not really applying all that much pressure. The problem is that the gear ratio is too high for that size motor and it doesn't make any torque at all. Even a new motor can be stopped with two fingers. I just never liked this drive set up.

I could also redesign the drive end of this wrapper, and make a few experimental roller stands too.
I was also thinking about not making this on a one pice carraige but to leave it as separate supports and a power head, this would allow me to set up and arrange it nearly anywhere when needed. I also wouldn't bother to add a drying motor to the power head. (I plan to build a larger drying box if I ever get some more room here. Right now I am limited to bench top quad stand a several single rod driers. I am trying to conserve work area here, one problem with the Rodsmith type wrapper is that it takes up space when its not on the bench as well, and due to my lack of space, I have to be able to move it out of the way when not in use. I have also considered making it ride on a track which would attach to the front or lower edge of the bench, so nothing would be in the way when the pieces are removed.
I have about 15 feet of extruded aluminum track for which I have a few ideas as well.

I do have two wood lathes here, one is a 30" and is belt driven. It's out of the 50's but works fine, and a larger import lathe which has more power, but rarely gets used. I also have an older Atlas 36" metal lathe with a 1.5hp motor, Set-Tru chuck and a 12" swing, but I never have needed that for rod repair. I also have my own milling machine, drill press, and full metal shop set up to build or weld anything I may need. I've done serious fabrication in the past, so making anything I need is no problem. I could actually build a pretty trick looking wrapper if I wanted to I guess, but there's no purpose in an all billet rod wrapper. I like the idea of wood simply because it doesn't leave me with any sharp edges to damage rods on, which is bound to happen sooner or later if I use all aluminum. My material of choice anywhere that may contact the rod is white nylon or 'cutting board" plastic. A buddy gave me a good size length of that stuff in 1" x 6" to work with, so the sky's the limit there and it machines very easily. Many shops use it to do trial runs to save wear on tooling.

I suppose I'll severely over engineer this, but I just don't want to engineer in any problems. I like to build things that will last forever.
I also actually enjoy building things like this, it's like a vacation to get away and do something different for a few days. It will make a good project for one of those windy days in March when it's too windy to fish.

My my. Sounds like you have all the toys I don't, and the skills to use them. I have never worked or welded metal in any meaningful way. I've a garage full of wood tools so I worked from that base. Plastics, composites, and some off the shelf hardware. I think my main design limitation was in my 90 degree angles that attach and slide in a t-slot track on the horizontal, and are slotted on the vertical so I have vertical adjusment for slab containing the rollers. The only thing I found at the hardware store was called a truss bracket, and it is a bit lighter gauge than I wish. Could have used your toys and skills there!

There are several slight variations on the support rollers that I've seen. Nothing special in any of them. Spring loaded self adjust would be nice, so that the supports between the extreme ends adjust to the blank.

What I am not happy with are the thread holding/feeding mechanisms I see available. Tension on the spool seems the best way, but then you either have to build several tension mechanisms for multiple spools, or go back and forth loading spools.. Plus, as you use thread off a spool, the tension on the thread increases. The sewing machine type tension rollers that tension the thread inline get around those problems, but then they still need adjustment back and forth as you change diameters and are unfriendly to things like ribbon. I have a feeling I want both systems, for different uses. And none of them have a feed mechanism I like. I'm going to try and put together an adjustable angle feeder from a piece of limber rod tip tomorrow. Any interesting ideas in the thread mgmt area?

I was thinking of making an arbor that rotated on a shaft, and them come up with a way to use drag washers or something similar to tension the spool more evenly. I sort of figured that I'd make a universal type of thread carrage, allowing me to use which ever works at the time.
I do prefer the spool tension set up, and maybe a simple long shaft and an assortment of spacers may be the simplest answer. It would allow any size spool, the tension would be preset by the spindle and washers, and the spool would bolt right to the spindle with wing nuts. Sort of picture a rear drag set up on a spinning reel. The spool is an independent part that is simply secured to the shaft. I am sure I could come up with something.
The biggest adantage is that the rotational force would never have to change, and the changes that occur while wrapping one rod are very minimal. You could even stagger several spindles on the carraige on either side. You would need a through bushing in which the spindle would rotate, a spindle with a center stop, or even a washer and roll pin if you don't have the means to fabricate a special part. Then a surface washer on the oposite side, and alternating nylong friction discs and a wingnut or knob. The spools would simply slide onto the spindle which I would make long enough to fit the largest spools. I would make a shim and spacer set out of wood or plastic to adapt the larger spools and space the smaller ones quickly. (To understand what I mean take a look at a brake lathe at your local repair shop, that will give an idea of what I mean by spacers and adapters.
For me, thread changes would be simpler since most of my spools are in only 2 sizes, I have the normal thread spools and then the full size cones. I think they are 8oz. The carraige will have to be large enough and offset rearward enough to make room for the larger spool bases as well. I was also considering a steady rest of some sort that would alloy my hand to rest on the same platform that holds the thread carraige at all times.

For the support rollers, I would most likely make the uprights out of aluminum, and offset the wheels by mounted one on each side and then have a spring loaded or weight adjusted arm to hold the upper roller. I do think I want it to hinge downward and not slide up and down on a slot, this will make up for any irregular shaped rods or imperfections with out any vibration. The uprights would be milled and drilled all together to assure they are all identical, and I would make several extras, like a few dozen. The same stand could be used for a drier support as well and one would be kept for a pattern.

The metal part is the easy part, the hard part is getting everything right the first time, thinking it all though and trying several different ideas first.
I don't really want the first one to be a prototype that gets abandoned or severely modified later.
For me, I'm leaning towards not using a track type base or channel, I like the idea of locating everything off the edge of the bench, so each support and the power head would have a lip on the closest edge to locate it in line with the others. I would mount a t-slot channel on the outer edge of the bench and each piece would simply have knob to secure it in place. I think that would be the simplest and most universal way. That way the fixtures could even be extended beyond their initial design length wise to accomedate super long one piece rods. If a support needed to be moved even beyond the bench, it could still be clamped down to the next bench or table as needed.

I would shoot for a 15' max length, but right now my work area won't allow more than 12' and that's a hassle since the last two guides get wrapped while leaning over the end of my 'L' shaped bench near the wall.

My main concern is the power head, that's were the thinking has to be done. I simply am not satisfied with the little sewing machine motors, they don't make enough torque for me. I have a motor set up in mind and would probably adapt the tower and chuch set up from a Rodsmith wrapper to begin with. I was toying with the idea of building a flaoting powerhead for one of my hand wrappers first just to try a few ideas. Then build the main unit with which ever motor works the best. I suppose it will be the Xerox Copier motor. I have two of them and they use a common cog belt pulley already, so the belt and pullleys won't have to be bought or made, and the driven pulley would adapt to the rear of the Rodsmith chuck stand. The motor is about 4.5 inches in diameter and about 6 inches long and makes 1/4 hp. it's a 110 volt ac/dc motor which would take nicely to a foot pedal speed control and a dc power tool converter circuit likeis used for an electric die grinder or router. The controller could be mounted or remote. On advantage of the dc motor would be that it won't accidently reverse if stopped like a sewing machine motor can, so no auto reverse surprises. (on mine with the current motor, if you stop the blank by hand, and it takes very little force, it will reverse itself each time, it will also start in the opposite direction each time it starts as well). The DC motor will only reverse if polarity is reversed.

I want to keep the whole thing as simple as I can, I want to keep any custom moving parts to a minumum, and use as many off the shelf components or parts as I can. I don't want to ever have to scramble to the machine shop to make a new part.
I was considering a simple motor upgrade to my current wrapper, but it would take too much modification and theres no room on the factory track or channel. I would have to mount the motor on it's own mount and then come up with a custom belt configuration which would be more trouble than it's worth.

With respect to a power wrapper and handle lathe:
1. I use the same rod supports for both tools. They are made as follows. I use a piece of aluminum about 7 inches by 3 inches by 1/4 inch thick for the base. I use 3/16th steel rod for vertical support posts. I thread the lower 1/2 inch of rod, so that it and a locking nut can be screwed into the base for each support.
2. The rod supports themselves are made of another piece of aluminum about 7 inches long by 1 1/5 inches wide. I drill vertical holes in each end to support the pieces. I drill and thread holes in the ends to support a wing nut to tighten onto the vertical rods to hold in place. Then, on the lower support, I drill and tap 2-5/16th holes to support the rollers. ON the upper support, I drill a single 5/16th hole. In each of these holes is mounted a standard inexpensive skate board wheel bearing. These bearings mare very good rod supports, and they will run fast and are quite inexpensive.
3. For the handle turning lathe motor, I use an extended shaft 3600 rpm 110volt - fixed speed 1/2 hp motor that is normally used for a buffing motor. The motor is simply mounted to the end of a center slotted board. In the center slots, I mount the three rod holding stands.
When I make handles, I make them from individual cork rings, and reel seat and clamp them together. When I turn the handle, I turn the entire rod, complete with the glued up handle and reel seat. So, I turn everything together to insure a perfect fit. Obviously turning at 3600 rpm, requires assurance that there is no whip or harmonic destruction of the rod blank. I also put a layer of masking tape in each area where the bearing rollers will run, to avoid marking the blank.

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For the power wrapper, I use a 300 rpm 24 volt pittman gear motor. I use a one to one pully arrangement to drive the chuck, which is held in a standard Taig lathe head stock assembly. Again, I use standard Taig pulleys and belts to couple the drive motor and head stock assembly. For the chuck, I use the "Penn" mini lathe chuck, with the soft extended aluminum jaws. For speed adjustment, I use a 24 volt power supply that I built myself which voltage can be adjusted from 0-25 volts. I control the voltage using a commercial Line Master industrial foot pedal. I modified the foot pedal to contain a micro switch to turn off the incoming AC if there is no pressure on the foot pedal. Thus no need for a seprate on and off switch. In the control box, I also added a douple pole double pole rocker switch that is wired in the output of the power supply. Since the motor is DC, a simple flip of the DC polarity will reverse the direction of the motor. Hence, I have a variable speed (0-300 rpm) motor that is also bi directional to take care of any mistakes.

Another nice thing that I like about this unit, is that it is virtually silent. No noise to irritate the senses while winding.

Take care
Roger Wilson