The spring wire to me is a must have. When you start the wrap, the wire bends down due to the tension from the washers and springs on the spool. It's actually a reverse tension system which allows you to turn or back up a few turns without touching the thread or the spool if you need to. Let's say that you are wrapping and you accidentally wrap over the preceding thread. You can just roll the blank backwards until your thread lines up and continue wrapping without ever moving your hand from the blank. If you don't have a reverse tension, you can't do that. You will have to either grab the spool or hold the thread tight in one hand while you correct the thread. On mine, I can actually turn 5 or 6 turns backward if I need to. Like if I forget to put in the pull out loop, I just roll backward, put the loop in and roll forward. It works great for decorative wrapping as well because I have a lot of room to move the thread at different angles. If my rollers are set securely, I can walk away from it in the middle of a wrap also. Basically it gives you tension both ways. When you just have spool tension without it and you let go or roll back, the thread loses tension unless you hold it somehow. This system eliminates that for me. Saves me some headaches. There are many builders who do not use these and they are used to not having them. I started out with them and love them. If I ever got a wrapper without one, I would put one on immediately. Here's a picture showing a rod with the thread started and the tension rod bent down. Hope this helps.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

David Dosser
Coshocton, OH

That makes perfect sense.... I never really thought about the need to reverse while wrapping but this sure would make it easier. Thats a very ingenious fix to a problem I never would have thought of.

Where are you getting the thin wire spring steel.

On another note how many threads do you find yourself wrapping at one time. Im trying to think about how I will design the thread carriage and a couple different designs come to mind depending on how many threads a person may wrap at one time. When I wrapped years ago I never pulled more than one at a time.. However the more I read the more I see that people may wrap 2 or more.. So that would change my design as all spools need to be able to feed thread into the eye

I got my spring steel at an Ace Hardware store. it is .032" and came in 3 foot lengths in a tube of 10 per tube. Even heavy spinnerbait making wire would probably work. The most I ever wrap is 4 at time, but I am fairly comfortable wrapping 2 at a time. Each of my spools has it's own eyelet but when I wrap more than one, I put them both through the same tension rod eye at the top. So they start off separate until they hit the spring steel then come together.

David Dosser
Coshocton, OH

A few thoughts Casey.

DC motors are easier (read cheaper) to do speed control and reverse rotation with. The motors typically run more than an AC motor but the speed controls are much less. Given that you already have a drive you might as well go with AC for now.

I'd suggest you start off slow and forget the motor for now. Just build the base with the rollers. The stuff Barry mentioned is a good platform. Then try wrapping a few rods by hand. A significant percentage of guys buy a power wrapper and quickly give up on the motor. Unless you are building heavy salt water rods in isn't a big time saver. The wrap a few rods by hand and get a feel for what works best for you.

There isn't any one right way. Most of us use a combination of methods. Some stuff we do off a thread carriage, some we do with a bobbin, and some we just hold in our hand.

Some guys will wrap one side of each double foot guide and then turn the entire wrapper around to do the other side. Some will wrap the other side of the guide by reversing motor direction. Some like the thread coming over the top of the blank and some like it coming under the blank. Again some of us do a bit of each.

The point I'm trying to make is until you build a few rods you aren't really going to know what are important features. Things like the tension rods, and the ability to stop the rod and maintain the tension, are highly desirable features. The ability to start smoothly at very slow RPM's would rate next for me and most power wrappers won't. AC motors "cog" and few will spend the big bucks for a powerful enough DC motor with a good speed control setup.


Some power wrappers are robust enough to double as a lathe. Since most turning operations make a lot of mess I'd much rather have a separate lathe in a different area. If anything I'd build that first. You never mentioned what type of rods you will build. For a lot of rods a hand wrapper is faster and easier.

Tell us a bit more about what you want to make (in terms of rods) and you can get some feedback.

Russ in Hollywood, FL.

In all honesty I have as much fun building the stuff to build the rods as I have building the rods LOL

I hope to be able to build whatever rod I desire with this setup. (except for fly rods). If I had to say what rod I will probably build the most of it would be an 8 - 10 foot live bait type rod. Something in the medium heavy - heavy action with a butt in the .5" - .75". The guys around here do a lot of river cat fishing and love the fancy rods. Since im in that group, thats what I would guess ill build the most of. I however do have plans to possibly build some bass casting and spinning rods as well. Im not doing this to build large quantities its mainly just because I want to build a few for fun and I enjoy building the rigs to build them.

I dont need to build this to cut any cork or eva as I already have a metal cutting lathe I can use for that.

What do you mean when you say you use a bobbin.. I can understand holding the spool by hand and I understand it coming straight off the spool while under spring tension... What exactly is a bobbin??? The only bobbin im aware of is one which is used in a sewing machine

thanks

I agree with Russ. Also just a note. I don't use power very often, but it's nice to have when I need it. I use if for long underwraps, mild sanding and shaping and long solid color wraps. Other than that, I wrap by hand and do my lathe work in the basement on a Grizzly hobby lathe. I started out running thread through a book and then I bought Mudhole's wrapper kit, then built my own. I have been updating my stuff ever since. I'll add something or change something as time goes by and as I learn more about it. I also agree that since you already have a drive system, stick with it for now. I used a sewing machine motor and pedal before I went to dc stuff. I wrapped for 2 years by hand before I got any kind of power. Be sure and look at the pictures under equipment and happy building!

David Dosser
Coshocton, OH

Here are some examples of bobbins:

[www.mudhole.com]

Usually they are sized to hold smaller fly tying sized spools of thread, but there are larger ones made
for 100yd rod threads as well.

~Rich



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2011 12:13PM by Rich Olson.

Well I tried running the head stock via a foot peddle and I didnt notice any choppyness... Its geared down quite a bit so I think thats helping matters. It still could benefit from being geared down a little more.

Now that I think about it may be wise for me to look for a small AC gear motor. I know most are running small dc gear motors but an AC gear motor could run off my freq drive...

Anyways what I have will work for now. Or until I get bored and change it HAHAHA

Well I tried running the head stock via a foot peddle and I didnt notice any choppyness... Its geared down quite a bit so I think thats helping matters. It still could benefit from being geared down a little more.

Now that I think about it may be wise for me to look for a small AC gear motor. I know most are running small dc gear motors but an AC gear motor could run off my freq drive...

Anyways what I have will work for now. Or until I get bored and change it HAHAHA

Most of the AC motors that come with power wrappers are actually sewing machine motors that use a variable control and a foot pedal.

David Dosser
Coshocton, OH

yeah thats exactly what my motor came from... I was able to use the multiple pullys to gear it down a good bit... still needs a little more but I may just turn a pully on my lathe and see what that does.

When I was using that motor I had to use a dimmer type switch inline with my foot pedal. That way you can adjust it with your knob and then once you get it set, you can use the foot pedal and really make it crawl at low speeds if needed. If you do a search for dimmer switch on this site you will find a lot of stuff. Somewhere in the pictures there's even a diagram on how to wire it. Basically you just wire it in series. Main wire to dimmer then to foot pedal then to motor. Works great. That way you don't have to gear it down so much. This is my old one but you can't see the dimmer switch. I eventually mounted the dimmer to the wood base.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

David Dosser
Coshocton, OH

Yeah thats a possibility if for some reason I dont use the frequency drive. I can basically go through it and adjust however I need.

I have considered just ditching the drive and using something just like what you described. Heck I even have a rotesserie motor I could also use for drying...

The drive would be nice as I could have multiple pre set speeds and all sorts of adjustments... Plus it just looks cool with all the lights and display HAHAHAHAHAH

Time will tell...

I just finished making the thread carriage.. Im debating how to make the "tower" as ill call it which the thread spools will mount and how many I want to be able to mount.

Be sure to look at all the pictures. They were a huge help to me, especially using the search function for "thread carriage" or "tensioner" etc. There are many ways to do it. For a drying motor I use one that I got from one of the sponsors to the left as well as 2 others from another place. I have an 18 rpm ac motor that I used to make my epoxy mixer, a 9 rpm (dryer) and a 20 rpm (dryer). The 36 is a little fast. Most of the time I use the 20 rpm dryer. My e-mail is unhidden if you need any more help or just want further information on what I used to make my tools with. Have fun.

David Dosser
Coshocton, OH

[www.clickautomation.com]

Is there a speed that is too slow for a rod dryer... I have a 2 rpm rotisserie motor that I thought about using for a separate dryer in case I needed to dry 2 at the same time...

The 2 rpm will work fine. A lot of people use those motors. I turned mine by hand for a long time before I actually bought a dryer. I like to experiment with different speeds etc. I started with a 7 rpm, but 2 will do just fine. Sometimes I put the finish on while rotating it by hand and then I put it in the dryer. Other times I apply it while turning in the dryer. It's totally up to you and works fine either way. Be sure to read the articles in the Library above and it will help you out a bunch. It really helped me and I still refer to them quite often even though I've read them.

David Dosser
Coshocton, OH

Depending on the temp of you area A fast turner is nice to apply finish -- Then hand turn and get rid of the Excess Finish -- Then do the 2 RPM

Bill - willierods.com

I completely agree with Bill. If you try to apply it while turning on 2 rpm's your epoxy is likely to start setting up on you before you get to the end of the rod. You can't brush it on, you have to let it flow off the application tool (brush, spatula, credit card or whatever). It is nice to apply it while spinning moderately fast for me.

David Dosser
Coshocton, OH

Okay good call... I think I can arrange something similar..

So now on to the thread carriage "tower" ill call it...

I have a "tower" as ill call it about 14" tall directly behind the wrappers bed. From this I plan to mount the studs for the thread spools to go on... Im curious if anyone finds the need to move thread spools up and down. The way I have it planned so far is that they would all be fixed, but a person would have the ability to pull string from any spool and run through the spring steel then on to the rod to wrap. I cant see a need to move any spools up or down but maybe I just dont know LOL.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

any thoughts.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2011 06:36PM by Casey Abell.