Good morning gents! I just finished wrapping a rod for my daughter. I used Madeira thread for the guides, and I had a lot of issues with gaps. I don't know if it's the thread or the guides or what. On some I could wrap a few and pack to tighten it up. But as I got toward the tip, even if I packed every few revolutions, it would just spring back to open gaps.

Is there something you do different when using small diameter thread? I'm sure most of you use this size because it looks nicer when done properly. I've been prepping the guides with a file at the tip only; do I need to file down the edge along the usides all the way to the ring? I'm at a loss.

I purchased a kit with a bunch of colors from Madeira and don't want to have to revert to buying spools of size D wrapping thread each time I build a rod because I can't close up the gaps. Plus that makes color matching the guides more difficult if I do a Madeira butt wrap.

I think you'll notice tighter wraps if you'll knock the edges down too.

Also hit the feet with 220 paper It will help the thread grip better

Bill - willierods.com

I will try that (both responses). I have an identical rod in deep green (hers was purple) that I will be building for myself. Going to use brown thread with a gold trim, which looks fantastic on the test wrap I did just around the blank. If I can keep the gaps out, it will be a really nice looking rod.

Randy,
Just a couple of tips.
When I prep a guide i use a 1x30 inch belt sander with 220 grit paper. I hold the guide at right angles to the sanding belt. The end result is that there are very fine lines on the guide foot that run perpendicular to the length of the guide foot.
These very fine grooves do a very good job in helping to hold the thread in place.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

When I sand the guide foot, I sand the end of a guide to a near razor edge. This allows the thread to easily move from the blank to the guide foot with no jumping.

Take care

I knocked down the edges of a micro guide, which seemed to be the worst, with a Dremel and test wrapped it onto my blank near the tip. Seems to have gone on much smoother. Will definitely do that from now on.

I do have a belt sander but it is a 6" belt. I imagine this could work just as well. Do you just hold the guide with pliers on the smaller ones? These are size 6 micro Minimas.

Randy,
Take a look at the jig that I made. Just use a machine screw that just fits into the guide being prepped. Grind down the head of the screw so that it is a thin flat head. Then, cut a piece of blank to form a handle. Adjust the length of the blank and the machine screw, so that you can insert the machine screw into the guide eye, put on the piece of blank and screw on a wing nut only having to turn it 3 or 4 turns to get it tight. That will allow you to prep a lot of guides very quickly.

If you use the 6 inch sander, you can use the slightly slack spot between the end of the bed and the roller to do the prep work. This will allow you to have the guide tight to the sanding belt without having to worry about the bed of the sander.

Good luck

Comments deleted



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2016 05:08PM by John E Powell.

Roger, thanks. I completely missed the photo! Do you screw the screw into the blank for each guide? Seems like eventually the blank would strip out.

Randy,
Sorry that the picture is not more clear.

You have the guide, and then you have a flat headed machine screw that runs all of the way through the hollow blank. On the end of the blank opposite the guide is a wing nut that holds the guide on securely.
As I indicated originally, trim either the blank, or the machine screw so that you can put the screw through the guide, through the blank and attach the wing nut have have it tight with about 4 turns. That way, you do not have to waste a bunch of time running the wing nut down on the threads. It takes about 5 seconds to take one guide off and put another guide on the machine screw, blank and wing nut setup.

By using the blank as a handle, it is very easy to work with guides, even very small guides with no issue. Also, because the flat head machine screw and blank gently holds the guide ring, you don't have to worry about guide damage, as might be the case if you try to hold the guide with a pair of pliers.

I have about a half dozen different sized machine screw and blank setups for prepping different sized tiny guides. Larger guides are no problem since it is easy to hold larger spinning or casting guide in one h and to prep it.

You only need the "handle" so to speak for guides that are about size 8 and below.

Good luck

Where are you seeing the gaps? In relation to the guide and where it is located on the blank.

I have narrowed guides when they are wider than the blank, and have take the bulges from the sides of the guides off as well, if the guide was wider than the blank.

Chris Richer
Iroquois ON

Roger--Thanks for the clarification.
Chris--the gaps are mostly in the guides toward the tip, along the length of the foot. The worst is near the eye of the guide. If I can get a pic up tomorrow, I will post a link.

Randy,
When you wrap, what sort of angle do you have your thread running toward the guide being wrapped.

The greater you can have the angle, without having the thread jump over a previous wrap, the tighter the wraps will be without having to do any additional packing.

I generally find, that if a gap opens up that might suggest packing, I am really better off and rewrap so that the gap never appears. The problem with packing is that if you move thread from one spot to another, you may pack one area, but then you tend to open up a space from where the thread was previously located.

Good luck

Yeah I try to keep it at a good angle as well. I don't have a power wrapper so the blank can slide around a bit. After Wed maybe I'll be able to afford a power wrapper!

I have an ultralight section that broke, just dug it out of the trash to make the little jig you showed me!

I use embroidery thread more or less exclusively & the thread can put up a fight .For me the answer was 1. good prep on the feet . 2 The tension that the thread was under & 3 rolling the thread prior to to putting the cp on .Then I use a laptop microscope to check for why gaps I missed So far most rods come away spot on

Regards Baz

Bundeena
NSW Australia

Here you can see where I ran into issues. The first one was decently tight. After that not so much.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

On the guide feet, pack tighter. Every 5 wraps, pack the thread towards the point. Depending on your wrapping tension and the bias on the thread towards the toe, you could pack as much as two threads wraps per pack.

For the bleed though on the tie off wrap, colour preserver will prevent it, mostly:) Light coloured thread over dark thread does tend to show the dark thread to some degree.

Chris Richer
Iroquois ON

Yeah the tie off was a different issue. I used pearl white metallic thread as an overwrap of the solid blue tie off. I've used metallics without cp with good results in the past. Was expecting the same results. It actually looks really good from the top though, because the nylon inside the metallic thread went translucent. It just gave a shimmery look to the blue underneath. Not sure if I had it to do over what I would do. I really liked the effect, but disliked the inlay tag ends bleeding through.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2016 08:11PM by Randy Weakley.

Come to think of it, I would probably put the inlays in the blue tie off (which I did CP), and then just used a solid overwrap of the metallic white without CP.

Since I only build for myself I am still a newbie when it comes to experience so time consuming ways are not a problem for me. I am sure some will get a good chuckle out of this.

I use two revolutions of 1/2" masking tape that has been applied to my shirt/pants a few times to make it like a post-it. This is where I want to start my wrap for five to ten revolutions before placing my guide on rod. I use different size I.D straws at different lengths, cut length wise, to pack my thread straight 360 degrees around. I don't remove tape until done. I got this idea when trying to get the Forhan wraps right.