I have a cheap harbor freight lathe right now. It does a decent job, but not the best. I bought it for $50, so I'm not complaining. I find myself wanting either a power wrapper or a new jet lathe with a 20" bed.

For my price range, it's looking like a batson or pac bay wrapper, if I get one, i would upgrade the chuck on both. For those with the power wrapper, do you have any trouble turning grips with it? The reason I would like a power wrapper is so I can turn grips while they are directly on the blank. I can pre-drill the cork and knock out a lot of reaming by just building it on the blank.

Also, right now, I have a chance to get a Jet 1220 for $350. I would need a chuck, etc.

I do not use a chuck on my cheap lathe now. I had a 3" piece of solid stock metal threaded on one end to fit the spindle, and tap and threaded on the other end to accept a 3/8" threaded rod I had made. At the end of the bed, I have a live center. I have a relative that's a machinist so it was no cost. I couldn't justify spending $100+ on a chuck at the time when my lathe was only $50.

If I go with the lathe, what all tools/attachments will I need? I know a chuck, but not sure what else.

They both have their pros and cons. For those who have one or the other or both, let me hear your thoughts. This isn't going to be a purchase anytime soon, but I'm hoping to have it before the summer is out.

Thanks for the help.

Jeremy W. Reed
Reed Rods
Custom Fishing Rods and Outdoor Gear

Jeremy,
I personally think that turning anything on a power wrapper is a bad idea.
Simply put, power wrappers are designed to be used for wrapping rods.
Conversely, lathes are designed to turn things.

Neither one will do the other job very well or in the best way.

I started out by building a full length rod turning lathe. To do this, I used a constant speed buffer motor with a fixed speed of 3600 rpm. I have a 1/2 inch keyless chuck on the end of the motor that works nicely to chuck a solid piece of rod stock and then insert it into the end of the rod blank.

For rod rests, I used high quality skate board bearings well supported in solidly mounted aluminum mounts. Each rod rest had three skate board bearings mounted on it. Each of the bars holding the bearings were well supported and locked in place as needed on vertical rods. When ever using the wrapper, I take a couple piece of masking tape to put on the blank in the area of the rod rests to keep any bearing support marks off of the blank.

The thing that you have to be careful of, when using a single speed high speed turning motor on a full length rod lathe is blank whip. If the rod rests are not correctly supported, it is easy to have the blank begin to whip and have destructive oscillation set into the blank and destroy the blank in a matter of seconds. So, when starting the lathe, I always keep one hand on the blank and one hand on the motor switch to instantly stop the motor if the blank begins to whip from incorrectly positioned rod rests.

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Then, the rod wrapper is a separate machine with a good head stock with a "Taig head stock and a DC gear motor and foot controlled DC power supply to supply turning power to the wrapper. I use a 0-1000 rpm motor on the wrapper with a 1:1 drive, so I can spin the rod at speeds up to 1000 rpm. I have found that this is about the fastest speed that I can safely control the rod when I am doing a long wrap on a heavy rod. But, at 1000 rpm, it only takes a few seconds to complete even a long wrap.

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Then, I use a separate lathe with a variable speed to take care of handle turning chores on a mandrel. It works very well and has plenty of power with a good head stock, tail stock and tooling support to do an excellent job on the handles.

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The other thing that I like to stress is to separate and keep the clean and dirty parts of rod building in separate rooms or better yet- separate buildings. By keeping all of your dust generating activities in a separate room, and or building - you don't have dust and dirt issues in your area where you do wrapping and finish work. It is next to impossible to keep your wrapping and finish work sterile and clean, if you are doing sanding and turning work in the same room.
It really doesn't matter if you have vacuums and filters in your dirt or dusty areas - the wrapping and finish area will be contaminated with the dust and turnings from the dirty part of the rod building area.

I have built my full length rod lathe, as well as my power wrapper at a pretty nominal cost. The midi lathe is a commercial product that was purchased locally.


If you have further questions; please drop me an e-mail.

hflier@comcast.net

Be safe
Roger

Hi Jeremy,

The Pac Bay type rod wrappers are great tools for wrapping, and turning the occasional grip. I would not recommend them for a steady diet of turning grips though. If you want a combo unit to both wrap and turn, my opinion is that you would have to step up to a Custom Power Wrap unit, or a renzetti. These are more substantial and would turn grips on a regular basis.

I find the system of turning grips on a lathe in a different room (garage) and separating all the dust from the wrapping and finishing area is a bonus. Plus the lathe is also used to turn wood for reel seats and inlays, something you probably can't do on the rod wrappers. If you are going to be turning on a regular basis, a real lathe is your best route.

I bought a Turncrafter pro from Penn State Industries. It's a midi lathe with 17" between the centers, which allows me to turn 14" grips with no problem. The belt models were around $250 at the time and you can still catch them on sale. The variable speed models (highly recommended) are a little more. You'll need a chuck ($75-$100). Tools for turning cork can be pretty simple to start. A flat wood rasp or a stanley surform tool for roughing, a bastard mill file for a parting tool and finer features, and a round wood file for some sharper features. After that, it's all sandpaper. An oval skew chisel is pretty useful at times but not totally necessary.

I also have a Pac Bay wrapper that I use for turning and finishing. This system works for me.

Shoot me an email if you have other questions or just pose them here.

Terry

Most of what we call "rod lathes" are designed for wrapping thread and perhaps doing very light duty turning chores such as turning cork. For wood or constant use with EVA or hypalon, you're certainly better off with a dedicated wood turning machine.

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

For Tom,

Sorry Jeremey, if you dont mind me asking Tom a question,

What if you are gluing cork directly to the blank or hypalon or Eva directly blank , what is the best method ( lathe or power wrapper) to turn grips?

Thanks

Trung

Trung,
If you are going to be doing handle turning, no matter the mount or method, a lathe is the best way to go.

Simply put, the lathe has the power and ability to turn the work piece while the material is being worked. That may not be the case for the power wrapper.

But, as was posted earlier - when turning a full length rod, you need adequate support on the rod blank. Depending on the blank power and action, you may need anywhere from two to 5 rod rests that are capable of holding up to the stresses of high speed turning. Do not consider any rod rest for this use, unless it has full ball bearings, and that you can securely lock the rod rest rollers to insure that the blank does not jump out of the rod rests when the blank is spinning at 3000 rpm. A speed of 2000 - 3000 rpm is a very nice speed for high quality turning.

Good luck
REW

Trung,
Here is a picture of the typical rod rests that I use for my full length rod lathe:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Roger

Roger,

If you dont mind, do you have a picture of the full lathe that you use to turn cork or hypalon off the blank? Can I get the details as what brand of motor, type of chuck, where I can get this parts?

Thanks Roger for the quick responsed

Trung