Hello all. I bought a pac bay rodsmith RW-3L at the west coast show, and I havent been able to put it together yet. I recently moved into a new place and I dont have room for it yet. Anyway, in the past I used a grizzly hobby lathe to turn my handles, then I glued everything up and hand wrapped. With the new power wrapper can I forgo the hobby lathe and turn the cork on the rod using the power wrapper? It would save me some room in the new cramped space. Or, would I have needed to buy the rw-3XL with the upgraded chuck in order to turn in the wrapper?

Thanks guys.

It may do OK, but the chuck upgrade wouldn't hurt. You may find you can do it, but you can't be as aggressive when rough shaping.

the rw-3l will do fine for shaping cork.. but has marc mentioned, the chuck upgrade wouldnt hurt as it's more 'steady' to me with less tendency to wobble ..(you could just buy the chuck alone, rather than the rw-3xl. i dont have access to hobby lathes, so i do the shaping on the lathe... though you will need to clean up the rw-3l prior to wrapping

-
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day..
Teach a man to fish, he'll be broke!

If you still have the hobby lathe stick with it for turning grips, and use your wrapper just for wrapping...you'll thank yourself later when the dust doesnt end up in your finish (I learned that one the hard way)

Thats what I figured. I was just curious because it would save space.

I use my PacBay for both wrapping and doing cork. To keep the cork dust down I modified a old shop Vac. to collect all my cork shavings and dust. Also if you have the old PackBay chuck. You well find out that the handle well want to creap out. What I have done to eliminate this problem is I took a Auto screw type water hos clamp and clamped the jaws. I fyou have no clamp. I wrap masking tape over the jaws and the handle. I weave the tape back an forth.

Good Wraps Bob