I was saving up to buy a good power wrapper, but now I've decided to build one this fall/winter. I'm moving back to wky, about 10 mins from KY and Barkley Lakes, where my parents and in-laws are at. With the move I gain access to welding equipment, bandsaws, industrial equipment through my dad and millwright equipment through my dad's cousin. So with their help, and what I've learned through the site, hopefully I'll be able to put together something that can wrap a rod.

I've heard renzetti has the best thread tensioner, but I've never seen one for myself. Would someone send me some pictures at reedrods@gmail.com or post them in the photos section. I would like to build something similar to it. I've seen some pictures, but they're usually at a distance that I cannot tell much.

This is my part list so far:

- dayton motor 1/5 hp or so. Other suggestions?
- Taig headstock and chuck and pulleys and belt
- 80/20 1545 or 1530 aluminum extrusions for base
- A foredom foot control
- rheostat control / speed control of some sort
- I'll use aluminum flat stock to construct the stands.


Thanks,

Jeremy W. Reed

You might want to look on the Renzetti and Pacific Bay websights (Both are sponsors here) to see photos of two different tensioners.

Don

I did go to the web sites, but there is not a good close up picture of the renzetti thread tensioner that I can find.

If I have time tomorrow I'll snap a photo for you, although I doubt you can make one for less than they sell them for. Depending on what your time is worth, of course.

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

You should be able to find a lot of pictures on the Photo page under equipment and tools

Bill - willierods.com

Even if you see a picture you will not be able to discern the most important part of the Renzetti thread carriage and tensioning method. The threaded post the spool is mounted on has a flat machined in the threaded end to accept a D ring washer. That allows you to tighten the wing nut to apply tension to the spool but will not allow the wing nut to back off as the spool turns because the washer does not turn with the spool. If Tom gives you a good photograph pay close attention to what you are looking at.

Jeremy,
The equipment that you have listed is fine and will work. But one of the downfalls of this style equipment is that the motor only turns in one direction.
Yes, now and then one can jury rig the motor to turn in the opposite direction, but you might consider a different course of action.

You might think about running a DC motor on your power wrapper.

Over the years, I have gone through various iterations of power wrappers.

The unit that I currently use employs a 0-30 volt DC power supply that is foot controlled. In the supply box is a switch that reverses the polarity of the DC voltage going to the motor.

The motor is a 24 volt DC Pittman gear motor with a rpm of either 500 rpm for one motor or 1000 rpm for another motor. Then, I couple the motor to the wrapper chuck with the use of a 1:1 3/8th pitch cogged set of 2 inch pulleys.

When I use the wrapper, I have the motor running in the direction that I want to wrap. If I encounter a mistake and need to back up, I hit the reversing switch, hit the foot pedal, back up as needed, and then hit the reversing switch again to proceed.

For wrapper chucks, I use two different chucks.
One chuck is a 1/2 inch keyless chuck which I use when working on a new rod that has no butt cap. I insert a solid glass rod - with tape on it as needed for a tight fit - into the butt of the rod. Then, I chuck the solid rod into the chuck for solid non slip connection to the wrapper.

The other chuck uses a Taig ball bearing head stock, along with a 3 inch Taig chuck. I use the soft aluminum jaws that have had the inside rounded inward to give maximum gripping power when chucking up the butt of a finished rod.

For rod stands, I use stands that are cantilevered out over the wrapper base. This allows ones hand to work near or under the rod stand without interference from the rod stand. The rod stands use two horizontal bars. On the bottom bar are mounted two closely spaced rollers made of skate board bearings with rubber O rings on the bearings to give a rubber to blank contact with no wear on the blank. On the top bar is a single roller - centered between the two bottom rollers, that swing down and capture the rod in a triangular roller configuration similar to many other ones posted on the photo pages of this forum.

If you have any questions or thoughts and would like some help to make a power setup for a dc motor just drop me an e-mail.

hflier@comcast.net

Roger

By the way, here is some nice machine work for a lathe bed and rod rests:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

And:
[www.rodbuilding.org]

A nice example of a Taig head stock and chuck:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

An example of the power section of one of my DC wrapper motors. The chuck is rolling on bearings that are pressed into the nylon headstock material. The DC gear motor is a press fit into the nylon head stock material. The motor is covered with a piece of pvc pipe.
The chuck is driven with a cogged timing belt for non slip operation.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

An example of a rod rest using skate board bearings with a rubber O ring for soft rod contact. The offset on the support allow for close work to and under the rod rest.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Jeremy,
If you have room, a nice thing to do is to use a long level rod building bench. Have the bench long enough so that you can take your power wrapper, put rollers under it and then roll the wrapper by your work station, rather than you moving along the rod.
The current wrapper that I use employs a u shaped piece of aluminum channel for stability. Near the ends on each side of the u channels, I have mounted skate board ball bearings. As a result, I can take a finger and slide the wrapper and the rod from one end of the rod bench to the other. The rod bench is a continuous Formica piece of kitchen counter top that is supported to remain straight and level. The wrapper easily rolls from one end of the bench to the other. As a matter of fact, it rolls so easily that I generally make a pad of paper towels to slip under the rod bench to act as a friction clutch to keep the wrapper in one spot while wrapping on a particular guide or butt section of a rod.

Of course this technique only works if you have the space for a rod bench that is about double the length of your power wrapper. I make all of my wrappers 10 feet in length to accommodate any rod that I might want to build, along with the necessary length for the wrapper power unit.

Good luck
Roger

Thank you Roger for the replies. Here is a picture of something similar I would like to build. [www.stripersonline.com]

I know nothing about DC motors, so this may be a dumb question, but what is your power supply setup? My understanding is that these cannot run on the standard wall socket power supply.

Thanks,

jwr

here is a simple idea The yellow ( has been changed ) plastic is placed on after the springs The spool turns and the wing nut does not
[www.rodbuilding.org]

Bill - willierods.com

Jeremy,
1. Great wrapper to emulate. I see that the builder has incorporated the same items that I used for my wrapper.
a. Taig head stock
b. Taig chuck
c. Line master Varior foot pedal which is used to control the drive electronics.
d. Cantilevered rod rests

All great ideas.

In the case of the wrapper you pictured, the builder used a commercial available DC drive electronics board. He then powered this drive board with a simple AC transformer and DC converter. The DC drive electronics then generated a variable pulse width DC pulse which is used to source power for the DC motor. The motor that he used is very similar to the ones that are used on Sherline Lathes. I am not sure, but the motor and drive electronics may actually be the Sherline motor and drive that is used on the commercial Sherline mini lathes.

-----------------------------
To answer your question about my power supply setup for the wrapper that I constructed.
I first tried a pulse controlled motor controller for my DC motors. However, I found that the setup made for a noisy motor. i.e. the varying pulse width caused the motor to start and stop at a very high frequency, which generated a near whistle sound from the motor that I found to be irritating.

I found that for "power wrapping", not MINI LATHE work, that a "Variable voltage" power supply worked better than a pulse width power supply as was used in the wrapper of your pictures.
In the variable voltage power supply, I simply constructed a 0-30 volt DC power supply that plugs into 110V AC power like a common light socket in your work shop. The DC power supply voltage is controlled by a variable resistor. Normally for a bench power supply, the variable power supply is mounted on the front of the power supply much like a radio dial. However, in my case of building the controller for the wrapper, I moved the variable resistor to the foot pedal. That is what the Line Master does. It is a foot pedal with an integrated variable resistor. You need to use the correct value resistor in the foot pedal to allow the variable power supply to operate correctly.

As I said earlier, if you need further help with such a system, or further questions with such a system, just drop me an e-mail and I will answer your questions off line.

hflier@comcast.net

Roger