hey guys i have made the step up to using a rod wrapping machine with the motor and all. it makes life easy in most cases, i have the pac bay RW 3XL i got it for my birthday in the early november i have made 2 rods with it and just started work on a third rod. the problem is when i start wrapping the rod will fall out of the chucks. they are the RW/DELUXE CHUCKS i was wondering if anyone had this same problem and what i can do to fix this. i started to do my under wraps and could not get trough the first one, a 4in wrap the rod must have fell of 15 times i finally gave up on it i emailed pac bay. i build rods for fun when im yelling it the rod wrapper not fun so i quit to come seek advise from you guys here. PLEASE HELP



thanks
Brian

I assume you're chucking the bare butt end of the rod blank. Try wrapping a half dozen winds of masking tape around the blank butt where you chuck. This usually provides just enough cushion to give the chuck jaws something to bite into.

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

tom thanks, i forgot to mention that i do already do that and i have also tried putting some tape around the chucks as well as a zip tie and nothing seems to work.

I wish I could offer more help but I've not had any practical experience with that particular chuck.

...........

Make a couple of winds with masking tape then turn the tape inside out and make a few more winds with the sticky side out--kind of like double-sided tape--this will hold your rod in the chuck.

I had the same happening to me untill I made sure the rod stands are at the right height . I think it's 4 9/16", you can measure yours.
Also you don't want to tighten the rod support rollers to tight....................Bob

I believe what is happening is like a ring & pinion effect. The rollers are trying to climb upwards on the taper of the rod, causing it to pull out of the chuck. As Bob said
I believe not clamping down on the rollers should fix the problem. I do not use that chuck, just a drill chuck. I can spin the rod not in the chuck with the rollers tight
and it will climb. I have had it climb onto the finish because I was not paying attention.

guys thanks a lot im going to try in the morning again. someone else told me i could use a hose clamp to hold it too so i have a bunch of things to try. if the heights on all the stands are good i will be pretty upset my fiance spent 350+ on this thing and i feel like i shouldn't have to go through all this to get it to work properly. and its called the deluxe chucks my local tackle shop says its supposed to be better then the old one but i just don't want to know i have a piece of junk. in which case i will sell it for a better one. i just hope something works tomorrow i just got started with my new rod that i would like to use a week from tomorrow blackfishing... again thanks for the advise and time from everyone its very appreciated.


brian



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2009 10:03PM by Tom Kirkman.

Like others said, The rod has to be as level as possible to keep it from "walking roght out of the chuck

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!!

95% chance it's the support height as already mentioned. When mike mentioned "level", that means level down the blank's centerline, not "put a level" on top...

Bob mentioned 4-9/16", I think both of mine are 4-5/8"... That's the centerline measurement of the chuck's drive shaft off the bottom of the bed extrusion. All you need to do is measure yours and make sure that the CENTER of the rod's tip is at the same height, then adjust the two inboard supports (closest to the chuck) to support the blank without it sagging. the top supports should just rest on top of the blank before tightening. Don't push down on them before tightening, as mentioned above.

I have both RW-3L and RW-3XL machines and have probably done a hundred rods on each since figuring out the "leveling" issue and I haven't dropped one since.

Mark Griffin
[]
C&M Custom Tackle
San Dimas, California

Brian,
With a problem like this - try the following.
Use double sided tape to glue on a thin piece of cork to each chuck.
I find that the addition of the cork to the jaws seem to provide the necessary cushion and support to greatly aid in stopping the rod from working out of the chuck.

Another thing - is the end of your rod but straight - or is it tapered. If it is tapered, it is tougher to get the chuck to hold. If you are wrapping a rod that has a significant taper on the end of the rod butt - you might try wrapping masking tape around the butt of the rod, until the taper is eliminated. i.e. use narrow - like 1/4 inch wide - masking tape. Then, put this wrap around the extreme end of the rod butt and built it up until you have either eliminated the taper or actually increased the diameter of the rod butt so that the rod butt actually swells toward the extreme butt of the rod. Then, when you tighten the chuck, you compress the tape just a bit and everything levels out very nicely.

Take care
Roger

Brian

I had the same problem with my Alps rod wrapper . The solution I used was to couple two rubber bands together & wrap then around the blank securing the two ends around the ends of the chuck jaws . Prior to doing this I tried all of the above solutions & found this easier to use & setup .

Also as mentioned above make sure your blank center line of the blank is parallel to the wrapper bed .


Regards

Barry

Here is all you need to do and it will avoid tape residue on the butt cap. Get a long large rubber band 1/4" wide and without cutting it wrap it on the butt cap with half hitches until you get it all on the butt cap. It will make a blob, but will take care of that butt cap taper and then tighten your chuch on it. It will be springy so it will keep pressure on the chuck so it won't walk out of the chuck, It is still important to level the center line of the blank and not the top surface. In past posts I described a device I made to do that. For tip sections I use a scrap piece of blank to push up inside the tip section and put a good amount of tape on the end of this arbor so that the chuck has something to grip (with a three jaw chuck it will form this tape into a triangle which you will beable to use on future blank sections of the same size. You may need to put a few bands of tape on it so it will fit tight with the inside of your blank.

After all that if you find that the chuck mechanism moves so as to loosen the chuck then in my humble opinion you got a piece of junk for a chuck. You should never have to use a hose clamp or tape on the chuck to keep it from moving. I have NEVER had to do that with my chuck on my wrapper that I paid a fair amount more than yours and that was almost 20 years ago.

You get what you paid for.

Hopes this helps.

Kerry

kerry i am going to give this a shot but your right i shouldnt have to put anything on it to make it work and i have seen the old chucks they give with it as well and they look to be better they have a a locking system on that looks to be more effective. im new to rod building i have been doing it now for a little over a year do you think in your opinion 350 is still on the cheap side of a good lathe? im only looking to make better creative rods for my self and some friends. im going to give it a shot soon i wanted to work on in this morning but were snowed in and i got to shovel not fun.


thanks everyone

Good self centering chucks often cost $200 to $300, or more, by themselves. Granted, what we're doing in regards to fishing rods isn't that demanding. I'd try some of the tips offered here and see how things go.

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

will do thanks

ok guys again thanks a million. i think i have figured out my problem, i think i have got all everything level and it didnt fix my problem i took the row out again to mess with everything and realized that the problem is not with the lathe or the chucks. my rod is 7ft 6in and in the last 24 inches the rod tapers down a bit and thats what i think is making the rod walk out of the chucks. the butt end of the rod while in the wrapper wobbles so i just need to set the stands to work with the taper and not against it. it took me most of the afternoon to come up with this answer, is it safe to say thats the problem?


thanks
brian

Brian,
To check if you have the problem - open up the rod rests so that the rod is simply resting on the bottom rollers.
The rod should run just fine without any pressure down from the top roller.

But actually, the chuck should hold the rod, whether the rod is level, angled up or angled down.

If you haven't already - try Kerry's suggestion on wrapping the butt of the rod with a rubber band or rubber bands and see if this gives you a long term solution.

Take care
Roger

Brian

I have a Custom Power Wrapper that I bought from Anglers Workshop before they bought the design rights. I an not saying it is the best, but it is what I use because I wanted a good one and at the time there was the clemens model which is basically the same as the current Rensetti and the one that I have. These were the main ones out there at the time that I know of. The Clemens unit wrapped the rod with the thread coming from the back and mine wrapped with the thread coming from the front which I was used to from using a non power wrapper that I built. It is all about what a person is used too. If a person is planning a long term use of the unit then I don't understand having to put up with problems over that long period. Buy the best "one time" rather than buying several different machine during that period, ultimately spending more money than the single one buy and what is ease of use and no frustations worth?
when I bought mine they offered it with a wrapper in parallel with a dryer setup on the same base. I chose not to have the combination unit because I wanted the dryer further away from my wrapping than 6 or so inches and I also wanted to put the dryer in the enclosed plexiglas dryer setup I have so I can control the heat as well as the contaminents.

As for cost I think Tom answered that.

The rubber band that I spoke of Is a quite long one used for news paper bundles which I was able to get a few and which I also used in my tip top removal method I described on this site.

I learned many many years ago the hard way about buying quality. In the very early 60s while going to college trying to feed a wife and son and having to work on my car instead of having it done I bought cheap Japanese tools which at that time they were and poorly made. I wore out many of them and had the skinned knuckles and frustations to go with it. What I should have done is bought some good Craftsman tools, I would have been money, time, and frustations ahead and the tools would have been still going strong and Craftsman would have replaced any of them with out question if they ever failed. I try to buy the best for me based on my needs.

Kerry

roger wilson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
"But actually, the chuck should hold the rod, whether the rod is level, angled up or angled down. "



Not to start an argument here, but think about what you're saying... If the rod is angled down, the lowest jaw is going to be gripping more at its front and less at the back. The upper jaw(s) will be gripping from the back more than from the front. Now angle the rod up and you have just the opposite effect. Either way, you don't have consistant pressure on the jaws. When rod is out of level and the chuck begins to turn under power, the pressure points on the jaws change several times with every revolution and in effect are never really tight if the blank's on an angle. You're talking about inexpensive "hand tightened" chucks here, not a scroll or machine chuck with a gear assisted tightening system and a key. Cork tape, masking tape, rubber bands, etc... simply mask the problem by adding some cushion and taking up some of the slack when the rod rotates and the pressure points change.

Cork tape, masking tape, rubber bands, etc... , DO help the chuck hold a rod that's not straight, is out of balance from heavy roller guides, etc..., but are not needed on the vast majority of rods if the machine's set up properly.

Off the top of my head, I'd guess that we sell 300-400 "chucks" per year when you count the five machines that we ship with them installed, upgrade chucks and replacement chucks. Of those machines, we may get a 2% call back rate (which is pretty high) with "THIS CHUCK'S DEFECTIVE, it keeps dropping my rods!" Want to guess what our deffective return rate is? ZERO. I'll go through the steps of leveling the rod, counter balancing if nessessary, changing the stand tension on a blank that's not straight or has a lot of taper and often hear "I did all that and it STILL drops rods!", yet when I ask them to set it up from scratch and call me back if it fails, I never get a call back...

Table top quad dryers are probably the worst offenders because you only have a small amount of up/down adjustment and if you've got rods with greatly different tapers & diameters, one of them's not going to be right. To compound the problem, if the support stand isn't properly aligned left to right with the chucks, it causes the same problem that the rod not being leveled on it's centerline will.

Pac Bay only added "hooks" to hold rubber bands on the jaws of their 1L and 3L chucks to help compensate for bent blanks and bad adjustments, not because they inherently drop rods...

Mark Griffin
[]
C&M Custom Tackle
San Dimas, California



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/2009 12:38AM by Mark Griffin.