I am curious to know if ALL factory rods are wrapped on motorized wrappers or do they hand wrap? Also what wrappers do they use? Are these available for sale or do they make their own. I figured somebody here would have been to a factory and seen it done in person.

Take a look at the home page for flex coat. Great picture of the St Croix factory. Many of your questions will be answered.
[flexcoat.com]

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Also on the Seeker rods website they have a video of a rod being built from blank to finished rod.

[www.seekerrods.com]

Look on the main menu (to the left) and under the media section you'll see a link to "Video"

The St. Croix picture amazed me the first time I saw it. Neat how so many different people can make the exact same rod.
Cool video. Thanks for sharing.

Actually the majority of the rods that St.Croix sells are done locally (Park Falls,Wi.) by outwrappers. Independents who are paid by the piece and build at home.. (so I'll bet they can zing some guides on in a hurry) They've got inspectors that sign-off on the outwrappers work. When it comes to finishing, they do that at the factory. The Flex Coat photo is actually the environment controlled finishing room with all those massive drum dryers. All built by FlexCoat. I saw only a very few wrapping stations in the whole factory and they were idle. I believe the ladies' name was Irma at one of them. I believe she did mostly repairs and built for R&D. ....If you ever have an opportunity to visit them, do it. Super folks who really strive to build the best product they can.

Hi John,

Depends on the rod company, some rods can still be done by hand easier for most out-wrappers. Most companies utilize the out-wrapping system. I saw the St. Croix photo which looked to have finish machines shown only.

Going back a few years,,,, I ran a rod production facility and we used out-wrappers. When I started they wrapped by hand, in fact they were old Fenwick out-wrappers and boy were they fast. They were paid by the "stop" and could switch colors and add stripes in a blink of an eye. They would roll the rods on rollers with their forearms and had a ring on their hand with a blade for cutting the thread quickly. The funny thing was they thought they could wrap faster then me on my machine, of course I could always beat them with the longer base wraps on the saltwater rods. I think they slowly switched over to powered machines though.

Best Regards,

Darrin Heim
American Tackle Company

Any production wrapper worth their salt. uses some type of power wrapper. What most do not use is a thread tension device. The ones I know hold the thread in their hand, when it comes to a single color wrap

Good Wraps Bob