Jake at Lamiglas gave three of us from my r&d department a tour of the factory.

The piece that intrigued me the most was the lathes they use for wrapping and finish. It appeared that they had a soft collet and stretchy fitting that went over the butt of the rod. The fitting, once on the rod butt pushed in place inside the collet. That was interesting but more so for mass production than for my rod building.

What I saw that I want was a lathe that can be stopped and turned by hand by grabbing the rod. The operator would be applying finish at ~200rpm (I knew this was done but it was great to see how easy they made it look), grab the blank to stop it suddenly, turn it back and forth to fill under the guide feet and apply finish on the guide side of the wrap then let go to allow it to spin again, proceed to the next wrap.

I saw the same technique of manually turning the blank by grabbing it on the lathe used for the wraps.

What's the slip mechanism? Is this standard on wrapping lathes built for rodbuilding?

I use a sewing machine lathe built by a rod builder who retired (to fish, of course). Reversible, variable speed, solid 3 jaw chuck. I like it. If I want to manually turn the blank I have to grab the chuck to do so. That's easy if I'm working near the butt of the rod. An option for low torque high speed would be handy though.

Looking forward to your input.

Craig

[www.mudhole.com]

By the way, the chuck is very easy to make.
Punch a 1/2 inch hole in a piece of 1/16th thick neoprene.
Then, stretch the neoprene over the end of a 2 inch pvc cap, that has a 1/4 inch hole bored into the center of the cap. After stretching the neoprene over the pipe cap - holding the hole over the center of the chuck, use a plastic tie wrap to hold the neoprene secure.
This works best with about 4 or 5 hands doing the job.

The cost of the chuck made this way will be about $1.25.

Here is an example of a commercial slip clutch:
[www.rinomechanical.com]

and:

[ondrivesus.com]

and

[www.sdp-si.com]



Roger



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2012 01:11AM by roger wilson.

Thanks, Roger.

Great links.

Four or five hands sounds about right. How many tries to get the hole centered in the pvc cap?

Should I use anything over the butt to keep the spinning neoprene safe from hardware and/or cork safe from the neoprene?

Is it possible to get enough tension to get a tight wrap or is this a finish tool only?

Craig

Craig,
Sure you can use this chuck to wrap rods with no issue at all.
Since the neoprene can leave a mark on the rod butt of lighter colored butts, it is not a bad idea to put a wrap of blue (low tack) masking tape around the butt of the rod where it enters the chuck.

Many many rods have been dried by many many builders using this style chuck.

I have found that by using a 1/2 inch hole in the neoprene, that it stretches out to about 5/8th when it is sitting on the end of the chuck stretched out.
Then, the typical lighter rod butt is about 1 inch in diameter. so, the neoprene stretches about 3/8th of an inch which gives plenty of tension to hold the rod in place.



Roger