I'm trying to piece together a small lathe or wrapping motor or any motor actually that I can mount a chuck to and shape or restore cork grips that are still on old rods. I guess you could call it restoration of vintage rods w/o changing their original look. I realize that components may not be available but there are reasonable substitutes. I have a power wrapper but I'm wanting to avoid getting the dust on that so I've decided to dedicate a basic setup to chuck grips and have a variable rpm and 2-4 supports, some suggestions.

Steve

If you've and old hand drill the Flex Coat cork lathe works. Or study the Flex Coat design and build your own. Here is a link to a prior discussion on this point. [rodbuilding.org]

Be careful restoring / cleaning old cork grips by sanding. Many of the really old grips are a bit skinny and sanding to refresh the grip can quickly get out of hand. Try scrubbing an old grip with a tooth brush and Dawn or Simple Green first. Let the grip dry and then lightly sand with 600 grit paper if needed.

Steve,
When I first started building, I made a full length rod lathe that worked well. I had to be careful, since I used a single speed 3600 rpm motor. I had to be sure to balance the blank before I started to turn it - if I was working on a built up rod.

Then, in later times I use an old 24 volt cordless drill motor to use as a variable speed power source to turn the rod. For that one, I used heavy duty rod supports to insure that the blank remained stable.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Time and turning took its toll, so that motor has gone to its motor resting place. I now use a 1/2 hp variable speed motor driving a head stock to power the rod when I want to do touch up of rod handles.

Very good idea to have a "clean room" for wrapping and finish work and a "dirty room" do do any sanding or shaping.

Be safe

Thanks gentlemen, I did pickup the hobby lathe from grizzly their drill is no longer available but a Dewalt 6amp corded drill fits the lathe. I was needing to have a variable speed control so I went MLCS catalog and got their router control 20 amp. Does the trick however there is a clicking at low rpms and my neighbor looked it over and feels that the speed control is lowering the apmerage and not the voltage. I'm not wanting really high rpms and I prefer to have both hands involved in the shaping/sanding, so holding a trigger is kind of not an option even though we tried a zip tie. I'm at a descision point of do I take all of this stuff back for a refund, do some more experimenting. CRB has a power head but I'm wanting to mount a 3-jaw chuck, the self centering/adjusting chuck I'm to sure how that will hold under pressure from sanding/shaping. There was also the fact that the higher rpm the rod was jumping all over my support--what am I missing.

Go to Harbor Feight and get the 18" lathe. You will be able to do all kinds of stuff with it and may any modifications you need

If it is not really damaged, just dirty, the Mr Clean erasure sponge works well.

Steve,
When doing any sort of sanding, you need to have a good 3-ball bearing support to support the rod as you are turning it. Or you need a solid ball bearing tail stock in your lathe to solidly mount the end of your mandrel if you are sanding on a mandrel.
A decent wood lathe does this very well.

If you want to use a variable speed drill for sanding, then you can make a very good 3 ball bearing support that will do a very good job.

A picture of one of the many 3 ball bearing supports that I have made for my rod lathes, as well as for my wood lathe for long work.

The 3 ball bearing support that I made for my full length rod lathe but also use on my wood lathe for that project that needs such a support. In this picture I use the support to support the end of the wood grip that I have shaped for center drilling, using the tail stock and jacobs chuck with a drill mounted in the chuck:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

A picture of a 3 ball bearing support that I made for my full length rod lathe, but have also used it on my rod wrapper as well as for sanding:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

With respect to speed control of your drill.
The classic router speed control uses a Triac or SCR to chop off part of the AC power during its normal cycle.

At low speeds, more and more of the wave is chopped off so you get slivers of power going to the motor. These slivers of power cause the clicking you mention.

You can use some of the Fordham controllers, which use a slightly different system and avoid the clicking issue.

Also, sometimes you can take a common light bulb lamp dimmer and put it in front of the other router control to give you a lower speed and still avoid the clicking of the motor.

But, as others have suggested - the very best solution is to pick up a wood lathe and be done with it. You don't need a variable speed lathe, but you do need a speed control. The belt change speed controls work fine and give plenty of variation in speed to do virtually any job you might want to do. Not as convenient as an electronic control, but perfectly adequate.

You can often go to your local Craig's list and find used lathes that are being sold for a very reasonable amount.

This lathe from Harbor freight does a very good job of turning. But, be aware, that if you do much turning at all, you will likely spend as much for accessories, like chucks and associated equipment as you have spent in your original lathe purchase.
[www.harborfreight.com]

For example - on the local Minneapolis Craigs list is this listing:
[minneapolis.craigslist.org]

this is the same lathe listed by harbor freight - with a different name on the casting. It happens to be new in the box. If you do go shopping for a lathe on Craigs list or similar, try to buy locally, because the heavy lathe and shipping cost can be rather expensive.

Other examples of "wood lathe" on the Minneapolis Craig's list:

[minneapolis.craigslist.org]

Steve
Since you want to turn the cork on the blank, a wood lathe is not very practical. You need a long bed and rod supports to prevent whipping of the rod when turning. A 1/10 hp AC/DC motor such as a Dalton (used on the Renzetti lathe) should be sufficent for your needs. This in combination with a motor mount, a decent rod chuck, rod supports, a variable speed rheostat should get you going. If you use an aluminum rod wrapper track make sure you screw it to you bench.
Norm

Steve,
Today, when I want to turn a grip on on a new or old rod - with the grip on the rod - I use a copy of my power wrapper with a heavy duty power source.
For a long time I used an old 24 volt cordless drill motor that I stripped down and mounted in a pair of blocks. I controlled the speed of the cordless drill motor by use of a high current variable voltage foot controlled power supply.

[www.rodbuilding.org]


After long use, the motor has gone to its happy hunting ground and has been replaced with a 1/2 hp variable speed dc motor that works very well.

I have found that the typical low power motor used on power wrappers has insufficient power to do a nice job of sanding and shaping a grip.

Good luck

Thanks to all for your comments and suggestions. I should be able to piece together a couple lathes beds with with some t-track and jig knobs to get myself setup. I guess I'm heading toward the 3 bed setup-- one for wrapping, one for drying, and one for fabrication and restoration of grips. I ordered the Pac Bay model RDM-1 dryer from Janns Netcraft, they have a decent selection of components that I should be able to get this put together. As for the speed control I will try out a couple different options to see what will be the most practical w/o burning up motors. This has been quite a learning journey, everyones help knowledge and patience to the new guy on the block is humbly appreciated. I would also like to give a special shout out to Ron Weber of Southwest Custom Rods for his help as well---
To anyone who may be impacted by Hurricane Matthew may you and any of yours be safe and return to a somewhat normal life.

Steve,
By far - the simplest and easiest motor to use for a variable speed motor for your sanding lathe is to use a 110 volt variable speed electric drill.

You can take and make a band that will fit around the handle with a set screw in the band and use the screw to depress the variable speed control on the drill. Then you can use an on/off switch in series with the plug to turn the drill on and off as needed - with its speed set by the adjusting screw.

To hold the rod - using the standard jacobs chuck on the drill use a tapered piece of solid stock. Drill a hole through the butt cap of the rod and then use a reamer to enlarge the hole until the hole is the same size as the inside of the blank.

Then, use a piece of solid solid stock - like the fiberglass driveway markers that are available at any hardware store. Cut the solid stock to length - like about 4 inches. Then, either sand down the end of the solid stock if needed to fit inside the blank, or use masking tape to build up the size of the solid stock for a tight slip fit on the inside of the blank. I have turned many many rod handles using this technique and it works very well.

When finished, just make a plug out of appropropriate matching material and epoxy the plug in place and sand it flush with the back of the grip.

Take care