I am looking at making a new wrapper, the one that I currently have works but it was the first wrapper I ever made and while it works its not ideal. When I made it I made it out of a 1x10 base and 1x6 supports with just small pieces of wooden dowels to fit into holes in the 1x10. the problem is that the supports are not very stable and the spacing of the holes is off so the supports doesn't always fit in the spot that I need it too. I also made the thread carriage fixed to the base which works fine for building ice rods but for long rods it doesn't work well.

I would like to make one that has moveable roller supports and a moveable thread carriage. something that is going to have good support for doing weaves and wraps as well as just wrapping guides of course. I am not going to be adding a motor, at least at this point. Does anyone have any specs or blueprints on ones that they have made?

thanks

take a look here A lot of builders have made there own

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Bill - willierods.com

Bill,

I have been looking through those, I am hoping someone has their actual dimensions that they used to build. I am terrible at coming up with that stuff on my own.

Easy
Email the maker and ask

Bill - willierods.com

Scott,
Here are some pictures of the rod wrapper that I currently use.
It was basically made from aluminum stock and skate board bearings for the wheels with double O rings on the bearings.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

The wrapper base is made from a 10 foot piece of surplus aluminum channel that is 2X4X2 inches in dimension.
I had a machinist friend, use his mill to mill a slot down the center of the channel, to attach the rod rests. There are actually three slots with about 3 inches of solid material between the slots to leave the channel stronger.
In my case, it is a power wrapper and mount the power unit on the end of the aluminum channel with a couple of bolts.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

I simply have my thread stand sit on the work bench behind the wrapper and it abuts to the back of the channel. The thread stand base is nylon so it slide nicely when needed, but otherwise is stationary on the rod bench.

This is the shorter wrapper that I use for Ice rods and the simple thread tensioner thread carriage that I use when wrapping. Simple and straight forward.
This ice rod wrapper is 5 feet long by a pine 1x6 with a slot routed down the center to attach the rod rests. Simple, easy, and inexpensive.

[www.rodbuilding.org]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2014 10:41AM by roger wilson.

Roger,

A really sanitary job on the rod wrapper!

Don Campbell
don@sensorfishingrods.com

Donald,
Thanks.
When I first started building rods some time ago, I built one rod using a hand wrapper.
I am an engineer by background.
After wrapping the single rod, I said, "I will never wrap another rod by hand ever again."
I haven't.

It is so easy to put power on a wrapper and with a good variable speed reversible power unit, it makes wrapping effortless.

When making some of the long rods that I build, I have several inches of butt wraps. With these long wraps, I start the wrap, and then pedal to the metal to finish up the wrap at 1000 rpm.

A couple of things with commercial power wrappers.
In many cases, they have poor speed control at sub 1 rpm wrapping speed.
Most of the wrappers do not have reverse. So, any time you need to back up for what ever reason, it can be a bit of a hassle.

I think that at the end of the day, simple is better.

Since I use the rod bench for other things besides rod building, it is nice to have a wrapper that easily comes apart for easy storage.

Be safe

Roger,

Sent you an email

Roger said :
"After wrapping the single rod, I said, "I will never wrap another rod by hand ever again."
I haven't. "

LOL!! At my level of skill, adding power would only allow me to create gaps and crossovers at a faster rate than I do now! Not in the cards for me, that's for sure.

John

John,
Actually, if you have the correct power wrapper, so that you can keep both hands on your wrapping and not have to use one hand to turn the rod, you might be surprised at the changes you could quickly make.

Be safe

Scott,
If you don't mind having a weird looking setup you could look into something like mine. I think I paid about $60 bucks for the whole thing. It's a sewing machine motor with an acryllic chuck and metal pulley with assorted skateboard berrings, pretty much everything and the kitchen sink. I have the rod keepers adjustable and secure them to the MDF board with a wood screw so they can move anywhere on the blank. I used "hidden drawer" guides as the thread channel and springs with wing nuts and washers tension the thread on the 4 carriages that have eye bolts for guides. I have wrapped everything from 22" ice rods to 10.5" switch rods on it. I even turned a few cork handles I glued on the blank on it the other day. Only problem is no reverse that can be a real pain like roger said especially when working with a rod over 7 feet in length. A lot of the acryllic pieces were made by a gentleman online for rod building I don't know if he still makes them but those were only like $20 or so a few years ago. If you want I can hunt down his information again. I'll post pictures of my setup and i'll update this post with the link as soon as I figure out how, well I posted the pictures but I can't figure out how to link them to this post. There are three photos of the setup in the equipment section.

I know you said that you're not thinking about going with power, but even a cruede setup like this made me never want to hand wrap again. I would recommend this setup for hand wrapping as well if I take off the o-ring from the motor I can turn the rod effortlessly between the rod rests and move the thread with one hand. The rod is held in place with the 3 overlaping o-rings that keep it centered, you just twist the orings to clamp down on smaller diameter blanks. This is really handy for the 2 or 3 piece rods, I just twist the oring above the ferrule wrap and wrap up the rest of the section. The thread carriages slide on the drawer slides and I have another piece of MDF that goes in front of this one if the rod is larger than the 36" section for the wood base. I suppose if a person was extra savey they could stage another drawer glide next to the other one to make and addtional set of carriages that could work in tandem or make up ground not covered by the first. I haven't run into a problem with that yet though. Hope this gives someone some ideas!


Roger,
That is one impressive operation you got there. Those photos offically made me not want to post my setup lol.

I really like the dryer setup, I was thinking about making one myself, gave me a lot of good ideas.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2014 05:12AM by Elliott Reams.

Elliot,

I could care less about how things look as long as they preform well. I would love to see pictures of your setup and if you want to email me any contact info you might have I wod really appreciate it.

Thanks
Scott