I am building my power wrapper. What length should I make it over all?

Christopher,
I have built a bunch of different power wrappers for both myself as well as others.

Bottom line, you need a wrapper to be at least a foot longer than any rod you might potentially be building.

Simply because it is a convenient size as well as my desire to build 8=9 foot rods, I have always used a 10 foot piece of material for the wrapper base.

I also have another wrapper base that is only 4 feet long for the many ice rods that I build.

I have other uses for the room, in which I build rods, so everything in the wrapper and building rod can be broken down, and stored away, when the room is not being used for rod building.

Here is a picture of my current power wrapper base which is made of a single piece of aluminum U channel, and is complete with roller wheels and brakes.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

I like to remain in one spot with my lights, tools and other equipment and materials and roll the rod past my work station.



This is a picture of the current power head that I bolt to the power wrapper base to turn the rods>
[www.rodbuilding.org]

This power head uses a bidirectional DC motor for power and uses a cogged belt on XL cogged pulleys to couple the power of the motor that is located inside the piece of PVC tubing to drive the pulley on the head stock shuck wihich is a 1/2 inch industrial keyless chuck. I use only the chuck and a tapered piece of solid stock inserted into the butt of a rod blank with no butt cap on it.. But, if the rod has a butt cap on it, I use a "shank" inserted into the 1/2 inch keyless chuck and on which is screwed a 3/ inch Taig industrial lathe chuck to mount the rod.

This is a picture of my thread stand. It is simply a piece of nylon on which is mounted the oak piece of wood on which is mounted the spring tension device to maintain tension on the wrapping thread while wrapping the rod. The nylon base simply rests against the back side of the wrapper bed and slides easily along the wrapping bench as the rod is wrapped.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

This is the thread stand that I use to wrap, when I am using very large spools of thread. The thread comes off the spool, through the guides and then into the base of my usual thread stand to maintain thread tension.

This is a picture of one of the many rod rests that I have made to be used when wrapping rods.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

My wrapper is 6ft long and suits all my needs. Start with the longest base you can manage, you can always make it shorter..

The most important feature is the drive motor. The motor should be capable to go from zero to full speed with minimum loss of torque, a DC motor is the best choice.

If you are handy a modified cordless drill motor would work fine. Set up a power supply and a foot pedal to control speed.

I suspect over time the wrapper will not look like the one you started with because there is always "one more modification to make".

Most of all make this a fun project not a chore.

Good luck

John

Mine is 12 ft, build mostly surf rods. also do some repairs

You have to measure it from the chuck on your headstock, and give yourself some room for your thread carriage to run out all the way to your longest rod's tip top if you want to wrap the tip top. Half the thread carriage length will be past the tip top when your wrapping it.
You can of course turn the rod around in the wrapper if need be to hand wrap the tip top if need be, but either way your going to need a bit extra length if your doing a 1 piece rod.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2017 07:24PM by Spencer Phipps.

Spencer,
I always figure the longest rod plus 2 feet to allow for the power head, chuck, and carriage travel.

So, an 8 foot rod needs a 10 foot wrapper. A 14 foot long rod needs a 16 foot wrapper.

But, of course if you are wrapping a multi piece rod, you only need the length of the individual rod section, plus 2 feet to successfully wrap such a longer multi piece rod.

Good luck

I agree Roger.