Bought a pac bay deluxe chuck and rod wrapper at the expo. After 14 rods the chuck is slipping something awful. I can't even get one side of double footed guide down without having to re tighten the chuck. Did I just get a bad one or have others experienced this as well?

Try putting some painter's tape on the butt of the rod you are working on AND making sure your rod is level ... butt to tip. Check each support to make sure it is properly supporting the rod. You are almost assuredly out of alignment, which is causing your dilemma.

I like my old one better. The new chuck has given me problems. I contacted PacBay and they said to secure it with rubberbands - that's what they do in their shop. Are you kidding me? Later they offered to replace it, but with the same product. Bottom line... they slip, though not as bad as you describe.

I had taped the butt may not have been 100% level though. I'll try that next time. If the leveling doesn't fix it, I'm throwing it in the trash and going back to the stock one.

The real key is to make sure that the rod is 100% level and secure. If it has a tapered but cap, there will be a tendence to work it's way out as it isn't completely gripped by the chuck Wrap the butt with tape and tighten down

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!!

Here is what you might try, after you are sure it is level. If the chuck is slipping because it is itself too loose in the mechanism then a piece of tape across the two plates so it can't slip (it shouldn't be so loose that it will slip) Next as previously mentioned when the butt cap is tapered you are gripping on a very narrow line around the butt cap and the slighted movement will be towards a smaller diameter of the butt cap and thus continue to work free even though the chuck itself isn't slipping. So you need to make a surface where the chuck sinks in at the larger diameter untill it makes contact on the narrow portion of the butt cap hence the suggestion above of putting "painter tape" on the butt cap. It will need to be thick enough to "dent in the tape" until contact with the narrow end. the tape will also keep the butt cap from being dented, deformed or scratched. Since I am sometimes called away from my rod building for a while, I have to take care so I don't have tape residue to clean off so I did something a little different. I got some very long rubber bands used for news paper bundles and wrap it on the butt cap. Then I sock the chuck down hard on the bubber band surface. For tip sections I use a scrap piece of blank for a mandrel and put a large thick wrap of tape on the butt end of the mandrel. After it is chucked, the tape will take on a triangle shape so it won't slip anymore. The rubber bands are also handy in making a clamp to pull the grips/seat together when epoxing it all together.
Kerry

Craig, Wrap a rubber band around the blank or butt. Even a Renzetti chuck slips when it is used with a butt that has a gymbal or a hard butt cap. The rubber band acts as a cushin, allowing you to put pressure against the surface of the blank without crushing the walls.
You can also make arbors out of champane corks. Drill out the cork to fit your blank so that it fits snug, and then you can tighten the chuck all you want and it wont hurt the blank. The rubber bands will do the trick, I,m sure of it! Try it. Dennis J. Danku
(Sayreville,NJ)

Thanks for the tips. Just something in my head about having to put rubber bands or tape on the mechanism of a almost $100 product. I will try what was suggested. If that doesn't work I'll just throw it in the trash and go back to the original chuck. Heck, maybe I'll win the renzetti at the 2010 rod expo and won't have to worry anymore!!!!

Craig Freeman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If that doesn't work I'll
> just throw it in the trash and go back to the
> original chuck.


IF you two don't work out your differences, I can send you a box and label to "recycle" that chuck ... I can always use a spare.

The chuck on the Renzetti will do the same thing. They aren't really designed to work with hard plastic butt caps or blank butts. You have to have some means of compression which a few wraps of tape or a rubber band provide.

.............

Craig -
The PacBay upgrade chuck MUST be level with the rod supports. The chuck itself has very coarse internal spiral adjustment gears (platens I think is the correct term). What I did: I removed the rubber feet that came with the chuck and applied cork tape (as is used in rod handle construction) to the aluminum feet of the chuck to provide a compression area between the blank and the chuck that seems to have solved the problem of the chuck slipping. Loosening (as in jaws moving apart/separating) I believe is caused when the blank is not level with the chuck opening. Prior to "discovering* that I tried a lot of other things (drilling tightening holes in the outside of the chuck; putting thin rubber pads between the inner and outer chuck wheels; reversing the chuck jaws). The thing that seemed to work was the simplest - leveling the rod blank.
I still wish Backlash would come up with a chuck that is compatible with the PacBay chuck support mechanism (a "real" lathe chuck) but that would likely cost in the +100.00 range in addition to the cost of the support.

Dennis,
Like many builders using the Pac Bay, Batson, or American Tackle Power Wrappers, I had slippage trouble with the chuck. I tried all of the tape fixes and even the rubber bands. I finally remembered my "trigger Finger" operation on my hand. The surgical prep included using a flat latex tubing to push most of the blood from my hand.

I decided to try a piece of this flat tubing. It is called a Penrose Drain. It comes in a variety of widths. I find the 5/8 and 3/4 inch widths work best for me. The way I use it is to place the section of rod in the power wrapper, tighten the chuck down as tight as I can get it, and then hold one end of the Penrose drain against one of the chuck jaws and then tightly wrap several wraps of the tubing around the chuck. On the last wrap, I insert a finger under the tubing and then insert a loop in the space by my finger. This loop makes it easy to remove when you are finished. I have had no slippage since I started using these a year ago. I use them on both the butt and tip sections. On the butt I always shape the space for the butt cap or in the case of a fly rod I remove the nuts and movable hood before wrapping the Penrose drain. You still need to level your rod before you wrap the tubing. I obtained my Penrose Drains from a physician friend, but they can be obtained at a medical supply store as well. They can be used many times and I find them far easier to use than tape and you don't have the waste.

Good Luck,

Mike Blomme

I use a hose clamp and have had great luck beating slippage problems-before that I used a number of curse words!

Craig

The rubber band or tape is for the rod blank whether the chuck itself slips or not. I have a different brand of power wrapper which has a chuck that it quite stiff and absolutely does not back off, but I still use a very long rubber band on the butt cap area or tape on the mandrel to keep it from slipping in the chuck because of the taper. Finally as I said before you are also protecting the surface of the blank/butt cap. End of story!

Folks I think my problem is in the actual mechanism of the chuck. I have using masking tape on the butt section of every rod I wrapped, so I don't think that is the problem. When I tighten all the way down ( no rod in chuck) and then back off, it gets real rough and hard to turn just over half way to full loose. I can almost feel the grab or lack of grab as I turn the wheels. While wrapping, the chuck even slips when I do not use the pedal and just try to turn the rod by hand. There seems to be a problem in the mechanism itself. I have noticed this problem usually occurs when wrapping larger rods like inshore and offshore trolling rods. Not as bad with the smaller stuff, but still need to re tighten with them occasionally while wrapping.

Craig -
unhide your email .........

Not quite sure how to do that, but here you go cfreeman@sbo.hampton.k12.va.us

Craig
Check your email.

In addition to the other suggestions, you might try a different chuck.
For the majority of my rod building, where I am building the entire rod - I will do all of my wrapping etc. before applying the butt cap.
For a chuck, I use a standard keyless industrial chuck on the head stand.
I will chuck in a piece of solid rod - steel, graphite, or ? into the chuck, and then simply push the end of the solid rod into the end of the butt.
I use a piece that is either tapered to match the inside diameter of the chuck, and or a straight section with a tape build up to give a friction fit to the rod. I have yet to ever have a tapered rod slip for me on a wrapping procedure.

As the other comments have suggested, I use a Taig industrial chuck with aluminum jaws. To solve the slipping with those jaws, I have lined the jaws with cork tape and have largely solved the problem. However, if the rod has a tapered butt cap, even that will not solve all of the slipping problems. There is no problem at all with the chuck changing its adjustment, it is the simple fact that a tapered butt cap will eventually slip out of nearly any chuck. The suggestion to put a bunch of tape on the butt cap to essentially remove the taper will certainly take care of the slipping problem.

--
For my particular case, I have several different head stocks with different chuck and motor setups to handle the particular rod that I am building.

However, just give the standard 1/2 inch drill chuck a try on your head stock for the bulk of your rod wrapping without a butt cap and your problems will be solved.


Good luck
Roger

Any self centering chuck that uses "tommy bars" for tightening is going to come loose every so often. Fact of life.

The better self centering chucks are "scroll chucks" and use a geared key for tightening. These stay tight but will cost you twice as much as the chuck you have now.