Thought I was getting the hang of this...until...I try wrapping those little no. 6 guides near the tip portion of the rod. My blank has a 5 tip and I keep losing tension and the wraps look terrible. I even had trouble with the underwraps without the guides. Any tips. how am I supposed to hold that small foot on the rod and wrap with such a thin rod area that keeps bouncing around ? So far I did the whole rod and it looks passable to a half blind man, but those tip guides..uggh :(

Yep, it's a problem for all of us. Put your stands as close to the area as possible to reduce whipping and don't keep the tension too tight. That will cause the rod tip to bend. Be careful not to overlay wraps. After tie off, don't cut off the excess thread until you are finished aligning the guide and smoothing the wrap. I use a narrow strip of masking tape to hold the guide on until I get the wrap started. I also tie a piece of thread through the eye of the guide so you can find it if you drop on the floor. I put Color Preserver on the thread before I start the next guide. Sometimes the wrapping of the next one will cause a finished one to unwind. You can also use a bobbin to wrap the tip guides. I find it a little easier to use a bobbin when wrapping thin tips.
Stay with it. I rewrap about every third small guide.
Hope this helps.

Backlash Tools sell a tip top support. You may want to look at it on the left.
You can also try cutting your tape into small widths. I have some small zip ties I'm going to try on my next rod with 4mm micro guides.
The best tip I've found is just simple practice. Steve Gardner says you just have to train you fingers. He wraps 2mm guides and smaller!

Sliced up latex tubing works well for #4 guides, just finished a rod with that size and initially thought I'd have an issue but they wrapped without a problem..

Ray Zarychta
Glastonbury, CT

I use small rubber bands, I get mine at Tractor Supply or Fleet Farm in the horse section. They are just small diameter thin rubber bands. I cut the rubber band so it isn't a ring any more. I wrap it around the blank twice then tie it using a granny knot. then slip the foot of the guide under the rubber band. It keeps enough tension to prevent the foot from slipping..

When wrapping my tips I adjust the tension on my thread to the point where when I start to wrap it starts to pull the tip down but not enough to pull the thread out. But not too tight. I do a few turns and as it starts to pull the tip down I adjust as needed.

Mike

Bob,
Several solutions to the problem.
1. Use the following to attach your guide.
a. Use 1/8th inch wide or narrower tape to adhere the guide to the blank.
b. Use sliced up rubber tubing, or readily available very small elastic bands to hold the guide in place. These very tiny binders are readily available and really make positioning the guide easy.
c. Before mounting your guide, be sure to have prepped the guide foot so that it has a very gradual taper from a very thin edge. This makes the wraps very easy and allows for an easy climb up the guide foot.

2. Get a better steady rest.
I use a set of ball bearing cantilivered steady rests for all of my wrapping. The extended arms n the rests allow for holding your hand under the rest if necessary to help with the wraps.

b. You can make a tip steady rest very easily. Simly take a solid pice of glass, carbon or wood of a size that is somewhat larger than the tip of the blank. Then, on one end of this piece of material make a slit, using a saw, or dremel tool to hold the rod tip.
Then, make a steady rest base out of piece of material, such that it can be mounted to your wrapper, or wrapping table. Have the height of the bottom of the slit in the vertical piece of rod at the same height as the typical rod being wrapped.

In use, you simply drop the tip of the rod into this slit, with the base of the vertical rod clamped down. Thus, your tip is very very stable and it makes it very easy to wrap. When using this type of steady rest, i.e. with the blank simply resting in a slot at about the same height of your normal wrapping, it is a good idea to have the thread coming to the rod at a low level. That way, the tension from the thread will tend to keep the blank tight to the bottom of the slot.
In contrast, if the thread comes to the blank at a high level, the tension of the thread will tend to pull the blank out of the slot.

3. Finally, and perhaps most importent, use a locking wrap when wrapping these small guides with short feet. Before I started using a locking wrap, I had several guides come loose after wrapping. i.e. they would slid out from under the wrap.
However, since using the locking wrap to wrap these small short footed guides, I have had no issues at all with guides slipping out of the wraps.

Roger



Below are a couple of pictures of different steady rests:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Bob here's my method. I have a simple homemade "V' groove wooden jig with a thread carriage.
Tape your guide on with about 2" of 1/8" wide masking tape.
Wrap around the middle of the foot leaving the front exposed so you can get a few wraps before coming to the tape.
At the end of the tape fold it over itself a bit to make it easier to find the end.
Start your wrap about 1/8" from the end of the guide. Make about 5 wraps, cut tag end and pack tight.
Now hold the blank with both hands, one on each side of the guide about 2" apart.
Pick the blank up to get good tension and spin, wrapping your thread all the way up to the tape.
(the thread should climb right over the guide foot without stopping)
Hold the blank with one hand while keeping tension on the thread and remove the tape.
Pack if you need,then finish the wrap again holding with both hands.

When doing this I end up holding the blank about 2-3" above the "v" groove of my building jig to keep tension
almost like free handing the wrap. My (2) hands provide the support to the balnk.

i have used several helps for wrapping guides and need them all!
tie wraps, rubber bands, twist ties,sliced latex tubing,etc. one thing i have used that has helped has been sliced pieces of ear plug materials. it will create tension, moves fairly easy for adjustment, and slices/tears off readily. just one more way.

Hey, I really appreciate the help. Great tips. But most importantly, I appreciate the fact that it's just not me. I spent a month wrapping a wooden dowel, to get color combo's, metalic underlay with nylon over ,no color perserver, adding trim wraps, etc. The whole nine yards. But when it came time to build I never foresaw this problem. Last part of the build and I think I'm getting impatient. Think I'll take an old rod with a similar diameter and practice all the things you good people suggested. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!! :)

With the smaller guide feet you can also try starting your wrap, after a few turns and knowing it's not going anywhere, slide the guide foot on in about halfway up the foot. Take about 5-10 turns and very carefully pull the guide foot toward the tip while pushing the thread back the other way. This does take some practice and carefulness, but it's one of the easiest ways to do it. Once its all set, continue on up the wrap, tie it off and there ya go.

Have any of you used that guide foot adhesive from flex coat? I am getting ready to do a threadless wrap with micros and was thinking about trying it to hold the guides in place then just permaseal over them.

I went to the local orthodontist and got several packs of thier smalles trubber bands they use with braces. Easy to roll on and move about. I wrap right up to the band and then use my sissors to snip it off. Works great for me..