I recently purchased the American Tackle power wrapper with upgrade aluminum chuck, I spent just over four bills for it after all was said and done. This purchase represents a huge investment into my rod building at almost four times the cost of my old standby sully rod dryer and stand. I built over 15 rods on the the sully unit and my last rod really turned out great, I also had a drying box I used with this setup and it seemed to work well for me.

After the upgrade however I am having far more problems then before, but for the money I just spent, I am really disapointed that I am at all. First off is the wobble of the pully unit which in turn adds considerable wobble to the rod chuck and rod blank. Again, for what I paid I am really, not impressed. My old sully unit only had a fraction of that amount of wobble, barely noticable, really. My second major issue is the speed control, everytime I set the speed to a setting that is perfect, the unit will start changing speeds in the middle of my work, most of the time at the worst moment. It will go from spinning great to barely spinning at all and then go back to spinning way to fast. If power is used from a nearby outlet the unit will just flat out stop spinning or the speed will just simply go wha-wha.

It does however do a decent job of turning cork grips, and I was able to turn a great fore-grip out of burl cork right away.

I was thinking about having some custom work done to it to fix the wobble and wiring issues, but I am not sure thats even remotely feasible or reasonable in cost. Frankly, I am not really sure if I will be keeping it.

So I though up some solutions to at least get some use of out of the unit:

1. Keep the unit and use the adjustable speed feature for turning cork only.
2. buy a 30rpm drying motor to replace the 11 rpm it currently has. This brings the speed closer to the 22 rpm that the sully unit had, a speed I did great work on. I would then use the drying fuction for the actual epoxy application.
3. Turn the rod by hand (Like I used to do and Tom really likes) using the ball bearing supports the unit provides.

Thats really the only way I could see keeping the unit, otherwise its going to be sold. My epoxy work actually worsened after buying this thing.

I would go back to my sully unit but its over 12 years old now, but if this does not work, I may have too.

Any thoughts?

Jason,
You are not alone.
Unless you go with a better chuck, there is a reasonable chance that you will have wobble in the chuck.
Some of the chucks of this brand are better, but some not so much.

If you want a really 0 run out or 0 wobble, go with a more commercial chuck, lke the Taig chuck that is used on the Renzetti lathe as well as the Alps upgraded chuck.

If you want, you can do the upgrade yourself by buying a taig chuck and a taig head stock and mount it to your lathe bed:

[www.taigtools.com]

[www.google.com]

Here is a picture of the "Alps" upgraded chuck and head stock which uses the Taig chuck and headstock:

[www.youtube.com]

Notice that there is virtually 0 wobble with the machine grade chuck, bearings and headstock.

Good luck

Perhaps you could return the upgrade that you purchased and go a different way? You could go with a change to a DC motor and a DC motor speed control for excellent low speed control.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/21/2015 07:52PM by roger wilson.

Of the three wrappers of the type you got, all are basically identical. The upgrade was mentioned by Roger.

I hear you, even though I do love using my American Tackle power wrapper and use it all the time, I did upgrade the chuck to the ALPS one and it is great, my problem with the power wrapper was the wiring also, after receiving an electrical boot of it I decided to investigate, looking at the wiring there was a earth screw loose and the wiring was very close to the aluminium underneath with just some silastic protecting the bare wires, lucky I had checked as if a metal tool or something had gone under there it could of been a bigger charge I had got instead. Had a friend who was an electrician and he came over and fixed the issues with the wiring and sealed it while adding extra length on the foot pedal control and also a on of switch for the dryer motor on an electrical cord also.

Wrapper is great now but if I ever was to look into purchasing another one I would be looking for a better sealed wiring system like what the ALPS power wrappers have, sure it is fine now but was also dissapointed with my investment at the time.

SG Custom Rods
Australia

Jason,

Any possibility of send the unit back for a full refund? I can only imagine what shipping costs on a power wrapper costs. Maybe they'd figure out it isn't profitable to distribute inferior products, especially when considering the costs of a new power wrapper!

Don Campbell
don@sensorfishingrods.com

Deleted

Don Becker



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2015 02:58PM by Donald Becker.

Regarding the "inferior products" comment from Don..... American Tackle does not make an upgraded chuck at this time. I am sorry you are having issues with it and I hope the company who makes it would help you out with a replacement. As far as the rheostat not being consistent I would love to help you out...please give me a call.

_______________________________
God Bless, Don Morse

800-516-1750 ext. 1207 / don@americantackle.us

Rod Building..... It's What We Do.