Hello Folks. Just finished my first Tiger Wrap. I want to say thanks to Bill Faulkner of FCR for his excellent instructional YouTube video. Of course he gave credit to Scott Throop, the originator of the design, and to Rod Maker magazine for first sharing this technique with Scott’s article.
I am sure many of you have done these, so I would like to share my experience and a couple of pics and get your feedback about the challenges I had and anything you can share about tips/tricks you have developed for yourself.
As Bill suggested, I used Gen 4 high-build on the base layer, and then their low-build on top. I had never used high-build epoxy, but have a new appreciation for it now and will use it on my decorative wraps in the future. He emphasized putting on four coats over the base wrap in order to get the depth needed for spacing between the base wrap and the top wrap. This effect, as he said, is an optical illusion called the Wire Effect. Four coats of high-build is a crazy amount of epoxy! This is where one of my challenges came from - it created a ramp at each end of the wrap that the top end thread wanted to slide off of. So, I wrapped tape around the blank on the up-hill wrap to prevent the thread from sliding backwards and then scuffed the down-hill end with sandpaper for traction. Next time, I am going to coat these "ramps" with CP and see if that prevents the slipping.
The next issue was my biggest difficulty - thread tension. Bill was clear about not using too much tension so you can burnish the threads to bring out the wavy Tiger effect. I usually run a lot of tension on my wraps, so this was new. I used a CRB 4-spool thread carriage, which has a single dynamic tensioning rod. You get two sources of tension with this set-up - the static tension of the springs on the carriage and the dynamic tension from the fiberglass tension rod. I like this set-up, though I know a lot of folks don't. That rod helps keep the thread tight on the wrap until it is secured. I have measured the tension on that rod when it is bent over at about 100 degrees, and it is just shy of 1/2 lb/f, so not a concern. But, when you run three threads through that eyelet, they seem to bind and really pull it over, creating too much tension for this technique. In the future, I am going to put two more tension rods in the back of this unit so each thread has its own rod. That should do the trick. I'll see.
Finally, I poured (yes, literally poured) a heavy coat of low-build over the single remaining thread on the top wrap at a higher rpm than I normally use. For those familiar with this technique, you know this is the thread left after removing the two sacrificial threads. The thread was wrapped so loose that I was concerned about it moving if I brushed the epoxy on, so pouring it followed by light horizontal brushing got it done. In the future, I will make sure that thread is a little tighter.
Pictures are posted here: [
www.rodbuilding.org]
