Newbie first time poster with a probably boring simple question
In the past I wrapped broken guides with no stand or thread holder just a book with tread between and turning the rod with fingers
I bought a home made rod jig/stand of good quality from some one,,,it is one piece with 4 different support towers to lay rod on but one long piece no portable towers
I'm wondering???
When wrapping guides on a heavy one piece musky rod 7 1/2 feet to 9 feet,,,and your wrapping guides that last two feet or so from tip,,,how do you keep it on stand without it getting butt heavy, unbalanced, ,popping up and falling off the stand.????
Is there some trick?? Or accessories you need

For balancing out a rod, you can use rolls of tape on the light end to slide them over the rod to balance it out while wrapping on some guides. Or, you can use a bar stool or chair to support the heavy end while wrapping.

Extra supports are helpful. I've made them using cheap pine from the lumber yard. Cut a v notch in one end of a piece and screw it into a base board with a couple screws. For years I wrapped at a table. When I was working near the tip and the butt of the rod got too far off the end of the table for my supports, I would just lay it on the back of a chair.

Another little trick I'll do is to make some loops from fishing line and slide on some 1/2-1oz bullet weights. These can be placed at different spots along the rod to help keep one end of the rod from lifting off of your supports when then number of supports you have is limited, or you are too lazy to move the chair until you absolutely need to.

Over the summer I built an 8' bar in my basement. It's just right for entertaining, working from home, and wrapping the occasional rod. The components arrive today for the first rod I get to wrap on it. I'm excited to finally be able to support the full length of a rod while I work.

When I needed some extra supports, I just built a dozen of these in an hour or so.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

A block of wood for the base and a 1x for the vertical with either a V slot in the top end, or a rounded slot in the top end.

Make the bottom of the V or the slot all at the same height so that the rod sits level and is fully supported. Move the blank rest to any location where it is needed.

Sounds like,,,if your going to wrap frequently on long one piece rods your better off buying or acquiring a few stand alone single supports instead of the one piece slab design with built in supports??
Would that be correct???

Brad, are your supports fixed in place on your base? Most can be slid up and down the base as needed. Are your supports adjustable for height?

In cases like yours I try to get a support on the rod gimbal. Or I don't glue the butt cap on and a little bit of exposed blank is at the end for a support. Worse case I put one at the end of the grip.

The better supports will use three wheels and the top wheel is spring loaded or wing knot adjusted to hold the blank down. Here is a link so you can see what I am talking about.

[www.mudhole.com]

Russ in Hollywood, FL.

Like others have said, extra support stands are very helpful for what you describe. Another thing that may help is to add an elastic tensioner to the supports on your wrapper to secure the rod blank. A simple loop that reaches over the blank and hooks on both sides of the support is easy to use when you need it, and out of the way when you don't. It also works to "hold" the blank in place when you need "one more hand" while doing the thread pull-through, etc.

Brad,
One of my first wrappers was a pine 1x4 with a bunch of holes drilled down the centerline of the board.

Then, on each of my rod rests, I drilled a single matching hole.

Even though it took a bit of time, when I wanted a rod rest in a particular place, I would just place the rod rest in that spot and put a bolt and nut in place to hold it secure. I would counter sink the hole on the back side of the board, so that the head of the bolt would not be above the bottom of the board.

Total cost $3.

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Some years ago, I made a simple wrapper as shown in the following picture:
[www.rodbuilding.org]

I made this one - shorter - to handle the building of ice rods. I think that the total wrapper length was 4 feet.
In this case, it is a board with a slot milled down the center of the board with a router.
Then, on the back side of the board is a wider 1/2 inch slot milled 1/4 inch deeper to allow the head of a carriage bolt to slide up and down the slot.

The rod rests are made using shower door rollers, with plumbing supply O rings on the groove in the rollers. The rollers are supported with flat aluminum bars, bolted to a vertical aluminum boar, that is mounted on top of a piece of plastic cutting board.

Plastic cutting board is a great material to use for these projects.
Inexpensive.
Easy to mill, cut and drill.
Never needs any finish coat of paint or similar.


The rollers may be raised or lowered and locked in place with the locking bolts that hold the arms in place.

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This is another example of a rod support:
[www.rodbuilding.org]

In this case, the rollers are from a surplus store that were part of an inexpensive block and tackle system. The O rings were also from the surplus store that cost me 3 cents each.
I think that I paid about 20 cents each for the rollers. The support is a piece of metal with a V cut in the top to allow clearance for the rod and an L bracket at the base to keep the support vertical.

If making them for building rather than drying, the supports could be made any height that you wish.

Good luck



Good luck .