I'm interested in buying a wrapper and see different styles out there. Some with roller style support and others with upright felt support stands. I'd be interested in the advantages and disadvantages in each before deciding which route to take. Also, any suggestions on brands would be appreciated. I've wrapped rods in the past but many years ago (maybe 35 years ago) and used homemade upright with felt support.

Thanks for your comments.

Alan,
If you are going to be using the machine for wrapping and intend to sometimes spin the rod pretty quickly by all means get the roller style wrapper.

The felt V block is open on the top. It is pretty easy for a rod to be in the chuck incorrectly, or have a balance problem and have the rod fly out of the V blocks if you are spinning the rod quickly.

If you like, you can make your own rod stands using rollers.

One example of a rod stand made with shower door rollers:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

I made a bunch of these rod stands when I first started and when I did my handle turning on the blank. These are ball bearings and hold the blank very securely. But, because they are bare bearings, I used a double wrap of masking tape - any where I was going to use a rod holder on the bare blank.
[www.rodbuilding.org]

These are the rod stands that I use every day to hold the rod when wrapping.
[www.rodbuilding.org]

I very much like the cantilevered rod stand design. This allows one to have ones hand directly under the rod stand when wrapping if wrapping a very fine section of the blank where the rod holder is very close to the guide location.

To make these rod stands, one needs to do some metal drilling, metal tapping and some basic wood working .

Be safe

Hello Alan.

Well how did you like the felt?

Is this a power or hand wrapper?

I think with a hand wrapper that felt is fine but if you are using power wrapper you need rollers (friction problem with felt at speed).


Tight Wraps & Tighter Lines.

Bob,

New Bern, NC.

Roger:

I do a good bit of woodworking and some metal work. I like the cantilever style with the shower door rollers. I assume they are probably a nylon wheel. Did you spin the wheels to make a cove for the o-rings to sit in?

Alan,
If you get the shower door rollers, the rollers have an internal ball bearing, an attaching bolt, and a groove in the roller that would normally fit into the track on the shower door.

After you get the rollers, just go to your nearby hardware store and pick up 0 rings that will fill the groove and will cushion the rod.

When I made these particular stands, I just used a piece of aluminum strapping that was 1/2 inch by 1/16th of an inch. Then, you just need to cut the strap to length, drill a hole in each end - one hole to bolt to the vertical stand another hole to attach the roller. The vertical piece if a thicker piece of aluminum.

The base is a piece of plastic cutting board. The plastic cutting board makes great bases since it is easy to cut, machine and never needs any finish work.

Be safe

[www.amazon.com]

These use a metric bearing, so pick up a 5mm drill bit and drill the roller mounting holes to 5 mm. Then, pick up 5 mm - bolts, nuts and washers to attach the rollers.

When I mounted the vertical, I just drilled a hole straight up from the bottom of the vertical bar - and then tapped it for a reasonable sized fastener. I just used a single 10/32 machine screw to attach the vertical to the base board.

Be safe

Roger:

Thanks so much for the information and link for rollers. I really like the design.

What do you use for your motor and chuck?

Alan,
I prefer to use 1000 rpm 24 volt DC gear motors.

The chuck that I prefer using is the 3 inch Taig chuck with the soft aluminum jaws.

I use a speed control, in conjunction with a foot pedal that can provide the necessary feel for the speed to precisely dial in the speed of the motor.

Alan,

As an alternative to Roger's suggest, you can check at a local second hand store and pick up a used sewing machine. I found a portable sewing machine at a local store for $25 and I don't think it had hardly ever been used, I salvage the motor and foot pedal and it still going strong after 10 years + of use.

Don Campbell
don@sensorfishingrods.com

rod stands have their place not all work with power the V style are fine for hand wrappers for power you will definitely want need and be happier with roller stands

The best day to be alive is always tomorrow !!
Think out side the box when all else fails !!!
Wi.

Donald,
One of my earlier power wrappers used a sewing machine motor and pedal.

However, I was not at all happy with the lack of control and the inability to reverse direction.

Hence, my continued search, until I settled on the use of DC gear motors and appropriate controllers.

Take care

Don I would be interested to see pictures of your design you used for the sewing machine motor.. I have one as well but have yet to figure out a good way of mounting it to make it work

Don I would be interested to see pictures of your design you used for the sewing machine motor.. I have one as well but have yet to figure out a good way of mounting it to make it work

Trace,
A couple of pictures.
This is the current power unit that I use on my power wrapper. It incorporates a DC gear motor - enclosed in the pvc pipe on the lower portion of the unit. It has an xl cogged pulley on the shaft that drives an XL pulley to the chuck shaft - which is a straight 1/2 inch shaft rolling in a pair of 1/2 inch ball bearings mounted in a piece of nylon. The chuck shaft has the xl pulley being driven by the xl belt.

If wrapping a rod with no butt cap, I will insert a tapered solid stock rod into the butt of the blank and chuck it into the keyless chuck.
But, if I am wrapping a finished butt cap rod, I will use the Taig chuck that is mounted on a 3/4x16 -- to 1/2 inch straight shaft shank. This chuck with its aluminum jaws allow for an excellent grip on the finished handles of rods.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

---------------
A couple of examples of sewing machine and mounts from some of my first power wrapper builds:
[www.rodbuilding.org]

One of my first attempts with a sewing machine motor was a small pulley on the motor and a 4 inch pulley on the driven shaft. However, I personally found that the gear reduction was not enough to give me the slow speed turning power that I wanted on a power wrapper.
So, I went to a jack shaft type system of doing a double belt and pulley reduction. This setup worked fine- but I did not have the ability to reverse the motor.

=============
This is an example of another power unit using a sewing machine motor and a double jack shaft with a small 2 inch mini chuck. I ended up using this unit for a different purpose, because the 2 inch mini chuck is completely unsuitable for holding the grip on a fishing rod.

However, this mini chuck worked very well to hold the spool of spinning type fishing reels. So, for a number of years, I used this setup when I wanted to either empty or fill fishing rod spools.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The goal that I had for a power wrapper head unit was to be able to have sub 1 rpm chuck operation in either direction. But, then to be able to advance the speed smoothly - in both directions up to 1,000 rpm.
I have found that the DC gear motor does this job very nicely with excellent control and precision.

I have also done some experiments and work with DC brushless stepper motors. I have been using Oriental DC stepper motors with a gear head reduction head mounted on the motors. These also work very well, but this excellence does come at a steep price.

Here is a good paper on the operation and design of DC stepper motors and controllers.

If you were to buy new - stepper motor, gear head, controller, and foot pedal, the cost would be $500-$1000. But there are plenty of used stock on the industrial market where such items may be purchased as a much lower cost.

[www.orientalmotor.com]

Take care



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/25/2017 10:10AM by roger wilson.

That's exactly what I was looking for roger! Thank you!