Hi All,

Ive been rod building for 2 years now, mostly doing rods for myself and 2 customer rods so far. Now that Im alot more confident and know what I am doing, to a certain extent, I have decide to buy a pacbay power wrapper to speed up things a little. I know there a better one out there ie Renzetti but I cant justify the expenditure at this stage. Now my question is, is the upgrade chuck a bonus but not necessary and why. I dont plan to shape grips on as I have build my own lathe for this. The only downside on my home built lathe is that I can shape while the grips are on the rod.

any thoughts are appreciated.

Bill J

Get the upgrade chuck you will save yourself alot of problems and headaches..............

No -- do yourself a MUCH bigger favor and buy the ALPS chuck from Batson Enterprises.

I have the standard chuck since 2009 and have had zero problems. You just need to level the rod and lock the chuck.

_________________________________________
"Angling is extremely time consuming.
That's sort of the whole point." - Thomas McGuane

I am with Ken

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Bill - willierods.com

The Pac Bay upgrade chuck is excellent - no need to go any further. It does everything you'd want and more. It makes for a great set up, and I don't envy the higher end wrappers at all - it's just a good solid set up. That's why it was coppied by the other companies!

I have a PacBay, and an AmTak power wrapper. The basic units are identical. I installed the PacBay "upgrade" chucks on both and was still not happy with the overall performance of the three finger chuck. Last year I bought ALPS chucks for both and could not be happier with them - and they are virtually the same cost as the PacBay upgrade chucks. Three step fly wheel for turning and a three step wheel for drying. The ALPS chuck is similar to a three jaw machine lathe - not in the same bracket as the Renzetti chuck (I also have a Renzetti) but very good value.

While the upgraded chuck is much better than the original it still is prone to loosening while drying. The ALPS is the way to go.

Freddwhy (Rapt-Ryte)

Bill,
In addition to the use of one of the chucks mentioned above, it is nice to have the ability to install a standard Jacobs chuck as you commonly have on the end of a standard drill.
I have a power head set up for each of my wrappers to be able to use a standard keyless 1/2 inch machinist chuck. These are quite inexpensive to obtain on the INTERNET and will thread onto a standard 1/2 X 20 threaded headstock shaft. This may or may not match the head stock that is on the wrapper you are considering to purchase.

The reason that I keep this type chuck on hand, is that it is suitable for doing any type rod work when you don't have the butt cap installed on a rod. Simply insert a solid piece of blank or metal or wood rod up the butt end of the rod - building it up with masking tape if necessary for a nice firm fit.

A couple of advantages about using the inside of the rod blank to hold the rod, rather than the outside of the rod handle:
1. It never slips. Use a piece of rod blank that fit several inches up inside the rod - with a built up taper on the chuck rod to nicely fit the inside of the rod under construction butt area for several inches.
2. You never leave any mark on the rod handle or butt cap. Since the butt cap has not been installed, you don't mark the butt cap. Since the rod holding is done on the inside of the rod, there are no marks on the outside of the rod.

In recent years, with the use of a composite butt cap that is often turned on the handle as part of the grip, I use a slightly different method. I leave the butt cap reamed out 1/2 depth to the outer diameter of the butt of the rod. Then, assemble the handle and cap to the blank. Then, I use a drill and reamer to ream out the end of the butt cap to the inner diameter of the rod blank. Thus, I can use a piece of solid blank inserted up the inside of the blank to hold the rod. If I need to clean up the handle or the butt cap, it is a trivial thing to do. I simply chuck the rod holding piece of blank in the Jacobs chuck and spin up the rod while on the wrapper to clean up any part of the handle or butt cap.

When the rod is finished, I make a tapered plug for the butt cap out of the same material used for the butt cap and then glue it in.
I then clamp the rod into the cross vise that I have attached to my disk sander and sand the end of the rod butt cap perfectly flat at 90 degrees while it is being held in the cross vise.

The procedure is simple and quick and the telling takes longer to do than the action to do it.

Be safe
Roger

Get the upgrade chuck Get the upgrade chuck Get the upgrade chuck Get the upgrade chuck Get the upgrade chuck Get the upgrade chuck Get the upgrade chuck Get the upgrade chuck Get the upgrade chuck Get the upgrade chuck Get the upgrade chuck

BTW, I prefer my Rodsmith for wrapping over the Renzetti.

Hi All ,

Thank you for your responses. I feel so privileged to be a part of this forum . So many people will to help..

Based on the majority of responses, I decided to get the upgrade check. Just saves me getting it later. Now I just have to decided between the pacbay and the ALPS chucks.

Roger, thanks for sharing your tips.

Do they pacbays have a slip clutch for drying? or do I have get it separately to add to another dryer.? Sorry for the dumb question.

regards



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/2011 06:29AM by Bill Jovanovski.

Neither PacBay nor Amtak wrappers have slip clutches. If you read the post on slip clutches you'll see that a good number of people do not use them.