My question is there a set pound pull that your thread should be comming off the spool to wrap your rod with. I struggle with getting mine set by feel all the time and I think it would be easyer to to tie a loop in the tag end of the thread once in the spool and put a scale to it and pull until its coming off at the right pound rating.

I think one to two pounds is probably appropriate. You could experiment with different amounts of resistance to find just where the guides are snug but can still be adjusted for alignment.

G'Day Jimmy for what it's worth I have my thread tension to 101.5 grams that around 4oz I think . I find that if I go any heavier then the guides are too hard to shift to align them prior to cp .In the 7-8 years that I have never had & failure .That would be 350-400 rods .I should also mention that I use Maderia or Mettler thread about 90% of the time also with no failure's

Regards Baz

Bundeena
NSW Australia

what ever works for you, don't for get you will have to move the guides some when you finish the wrap , an to pull the tag end in

William Sidney
AK

Jimmy,
When going to a different thread, I do a test wrap.
I set my tension just as tight as possible that is consistent with just barely being able to move a guide with both hands. I find that this is particularly important when working with the smaller guides that use fewer wraps. If the thread is at all on the loose side, the guide will not stay put.

So, I tighten the tension down and do a test wrap. If I can't move the guide, I cut it off, loosen the thread a touch and test again.

I don't want routine handling before coating the guides have a big chance of knocking the guides out of misalignment. I check, double check and triple check the guides again and again, just before applying finish to be absolutely sure that none of the guides have been knocked out of misalignment.

Although I have rod stands to take care of rods in progress, I might have 10 or 15 rods, that have been built and are waiting for finish. So, there is a chance, that the guides could touch something while waiting for finish. The less tight the thread is, the more likely it is that a guide has been misaligned.

Take care

I was interested in Barry Chapmans reply regarding the thread he uses. I still have a few spools of Gudebrod thread left and every time I use one I wish they had not go out of business. The weave of their thread is much better than anything I have found to date. Is the Maderia thread similar to Gudebrod and where do you get it?

I also agree with the replies that the thread should should not be so tight you can't adjust the guide later for alignment .

Thanks,

Bill Hall

Thanks for the replys. I was hoping that there was a simple answer to this but it doesn't sound like it. It sounds as though it is another one of those personal preferance things. This only arises because I changed my rod wrapping station abit. it makes it so I have to reposition the rod blank less but it has been harder to keep my thread tension exact. Basicly I copied the newer mudhole wrapper and added a piece of rod blank with a tip top on it to run my line threw. I mainly use PacBay thread and because of its criss cross wrap pattern I was needing to move the rod blank back and forth in my wrapper when drawing directly from the spool. I had the thread tention really dialed in on this set up. But now with the flexing of the tip top its throwing me off a bit.

G'Day Ben check in the sewing stores in your area if you can't find any just google it & try to get hold of the Maderia thread chart with all their colours .There are something 300 + colours & shades you will almost find the exact colour you are looking for .Guderbrod was the yard stick all threads were measured against & I'm not sure that come up to that mark. A word of warning when you use any of the embroidery threads you will have to use CP before epoxy otherwise you will finish up with "Fisheyes" all through epoxy due to the silicon that is in the embroidery threads regardless of brand . Some builders advocate putting about 6" of thread into the epoxy to relieve the surface tension & the claim is the it will stop fisheyes although I can't verify it .

Hope this is of some help

Regards Baz

Bundeena
NSW Australia

Jimmy,
This is the thread setup that I have been using ever since I started building rods:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

I had first started with an oak board for a base, but switched to a nylon cutting board base since it slides better. The base sits against the back of the rod wrapper base and I slide it as needed to move up and down the rod.
The base remains tight to the back of the rod wrapper base as I work so that the thread tension remains constant. The arm is a solid piece of oak, so that there is 0 movement in the arm and thus no change in the thread tension.

I find that this tension device works very well for me and I have no plans to change to anything else. I do NOT use metallic thread through this device. I use a lot of metallic for trim, but do not run it through the tension device since I only use metallic for trim which does not require a tension device to hold the one or few multiple trim wraps.

If I use the larger thread spools, I have a stand that sits behind my tension device and I pull the thread off the top of the thread cones to feed into the back bottom of my tension stand.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Lots of different ways to wrap rods.

Also, I never move myself and tools and light up and down the rod.
Rather, I stay in one place and move the rod up and down the rod bench in front of me. If I am building long rods, I use my aluminum based wrapper. This base has rollers and brakes installed on the base bottom which allows me to easily move any length rod up and down the rod bench as I wrap.

Using rollers was evolutionary. Here is an example of my first use of rollers for the wrapper:
[www.rodbuilding.org]
At that time I was using shorter tables and I placed a board roller between the tables to allow my wrapper to roll back and forth as needed.

After getting a continuous counter top for my wrapper bench, I moved to a single full length aluminum channel for my wrapper base. Then, after using basic rollers under the base, I finally moved to my current configuration with rollers and brakes placed on the lower inside of the wrapper base:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

But through all of these changes, I continued to use the same thread stand and tension device that I had used from the beginning. I do not like any "give" in my thread path after it leaves the tension device. I would not like to have the thread tension possibly vary.

I have reverse on my wrapper controller. As a result, if I have made a mistake, I grab the thread on the thread side of the tension device. Then, as I back up the rod to clear the mistake, I pull the thread back to maintain tension. Flip the switch and I am back to wrapping.

There are as many ways and tools to build a rod, as the saying goes - " as the number of stars in the skies," so use the techniques and tools that work for you and your particular situation.

Good luck

I ended up shortening the rod tip I have in my wrapper and this took care of my problem. With the shorter tip it can flex way less, keeping tention constent.