Josh,
I built this thread tensioner many years ago, when I first began to wrap rods.
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It consists of a base made of nylon which slides nicely along the rod bench which has a top made of a formica kitchen counter top.
The vertical member is a simple piece of oak trim that has been trimmed to this size. The vertical member is supported by a pair of stainless steel right angle clips with a through bolt to maintain the heavy tension on the vertical member along with a wing nut to make the tension on the vertical member more or less tight.
I have drilled a couple of holes in the nylon base for pieces of rod which acts as a thread holder and also as a handle to move the thread up and down the rod bench and the rod blank as it is being wrapped.
The tensioner is the identical that Flex Coat uses on its wrapper but it is the same thread tension device used on millions of sewing and embroidery machines that sew billions of items every day of the year If the tension device basic design is good for billions of sewing machines, it is good enough for me.
To change direction of the thread, I use standard rod thread guides.
If I wish to use a large 3 lb spool of thread, I use this bulk thread holder and pull the thread off the spool that is identical to the bulk spool thread holder that is used by virtually every heavy duty commercial sewing machine used in the world.
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This bulk thread spool holder consists of a pine board, a piece of solid glass rod that had been part of a fishing rod. The solid rod is used to keep the thread spool in place. The wire used to direct the thread came from a wire coat hanger. I wound the loops in my wire winding tool that I formerly used to wind spring for other projects.
Note: that in the design of the bulk spool holder the thread sits on a rod to keep it stationary. The thread pulls off the top of the spool and the spool never rotates. The wire, then directs the thread up off the top of the spool, over a few inches and then back down and out to be at the same level as the level of the thread that comes off the small standard spools of wrapping thread. I just come into the base of my thread tension device from the other side and route it through the same rod guide on the tensioner that I use when coming from the front side of the thread tension device using small spools of thread. When I move the thread tension device up and down the rod when wrapping a guide, the bulk thread spool holder remains stationary.
Since, I always wrap from the same work station when I am wrapping the butt of the rod blank or the tip of the blank - I remain stationary in my chair. But to do that - rather than myself moving and tools and lights etc. I move the rod past me as I work at my work station.
My power wrapper bed uses ball bearing on the bottom edge of the wrapper bed. The power wrapper bed is 10 feet long and my rod wrapping bench is long enough so that I can move my wrapper bed 10 feet in either direction, so that I don't have to worry about falling off the ends of the bench.
For example:
Notice that my moving power wrapper bed was evolutionary. I first started building on a 4 foot long table. Then, I added more tables on each end of the initial 4 foot bench. As time went by, I inserted commercial board roller stands that are used in the lumber working shops to easily allow boards to roll back and forth as a piece of lumber is milled.
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Then, I moved onto a solid single piece long table top that was originally intended for a kitchen counter top:
In this picture, I still had a shorter bench, but I was now using my newer power wrapper bed made from aluminum channel - but still using the lumber roller stands to expedite movement of the wrapper bed.
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Here is a picture of my power wrapper base. It came from the surplus metal room at our local steel yard. On the way home I stopped at my friend's home who runs a commercial machine shop. I asked my friend to put the piece of aluminum channel on the bed of his mill, and mill sots in the top of the aluminum channel to act as a slot used to hold my rod supports which are a simply piece of cutting board, with a hole in the base for the bolt used to attach the thread holder any where in the slots n the aluminum channel base.
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Notice that I had three slots milled in the channel with separations of no slots so that the aluminum channel retained its strength. Then, appropriate holes were drilled in the channel to mount the head stock with its motor and chuck.
If you look at the picture of the wrapper bed, I used a half dozen skate board bearings to form a very smooth roller system to let the bed mover very easily.
However, once the bed was on site - i.e. in the location to wrap either the butt of the rod or the tip of the rod or anywhere in between - before starting to wrap that section of rod, I wished the bed to remain stationary. Hence, I installed brakes on the roller bed. I simply drilled and tapped threaded 1/4 x20 holes in strategic locations to accomodate a 1/4 inch carriage bolt. I used masking tape to wrap from the round carriage bolt head up the neck of the bolt for one inch. Then I used 1 inch wide masking tape to increase the diameter of the bolt to 3/4 of an inch. 3/4 of an inch is the inside diameter of regular hardware store variety - rubber chair leg tips. The rubber tips act as a brake pad. the top of the rod bench, acts as a brake rotor - so to speak. On the top side of the wrapper bed, I attached knurled knobs to lift and lower the brake bolts. Once the bed is in position, I screw down the nearest brake bolt and the wrapper remains stationary. Then, to move the wrapper, I rotate the brake bolt about three revolutions and the brake no longer touches the rod bench top and I can use my pinky finger to move the wrapper bed in either direction to its new location.
Note:
Since the bearing retaining bolts are near the bottom edge of the wrapper bed, I didn't want any part of the bearing retaining bolt to protrude out from the wrapper bed - because thap protrusion would hit the thread holder as it moved back and forth on the back of the wrapper base. Therefore I used flat head bolts and I counter sunk the holes used for the wrapper bed rollers. The picture of the wrapper bed illustrates this bolt and its appearance.
Over the years, I have used every variety of thread tension devices ever imagined by folks in the rod building industry. But, in every case every design had shortcomings that are not present with the simple spring loaded disk design.
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The overall design is simple, fool proof and works for me. By the way, I had had troubles using metallic thread with this style spring tension device until John Cates, from Flex Coat sent me the teflon pads that he uses on his wrappers and the issue with metallic thread is solved when u sing the spring loaded thread tension device.
Best wishes
