I’m in the process of wrapping my first rod using this wrapper. The upper rollers on both of the spring loaded rod supports make no contact with the blank. Hence the blank just rests on the two lower rollers. Are there any alterations that can be made to have those upper rollers hold the blank in place. I don’t see myself wrapping any rods thick enough for these rollers to work with the current setup.

Are some of the rollers maybe reversed? The at least one of the three rollers should be offset in each group.

Don't the lower supports adjust to raise the blank?

Joel,
I went to the 2017 Batson enterprises Catalog and found a picture of the Alps wrapper which is supplied by Batson.

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Notice that the lower set of rollers is adjustable. You should place a rod in the wrapper chuck and then, starting at the butt guide, the height of the lower set of rollers should be raised to insure that the rod is resting level.
Then, the height of the lower set of rollers for the rest of the rod rests should also be adjusted and raised so that the rod continues to sit level as you go through the rod. By raising the lower set of rollers, you should be able to have nice contact with the upper single roller no matter the diameter of the blank.

However, if you do find that you do not make contact on some of the tip areas of the blank - you can fudge a bit and gradually increase the height of the rod rests as you go down the rod. The wrapper will still function just fine if there is a bit of vertical rise in the rod down the length of the rod blank.

To be sure, double check the picture and compare it to your rod rest. You want to be sure that the rod rest has been assembled correctly as shown in the picture.

Good luck



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/2017 11:43AM by roger wilson.

The rod supports with the spring loaded upper arm are useless on the smaller diameter sections of the blank.

Looking at Roger's photo, it appears the spring arm would be too short to reach the blank no matter the height of the lower rollers! Bad photo angle to tell for sure.

Thanks for all the comments. But I believe Gary is spot on. The spring loaded upper arms are useless.

If what you say is true, that the lower rollers can not be raised enough to do the job; there are two very simple fixes for the issues.

1. Just make a new longer arm for the upper roller. Just take an aluminum bar of the appropriate length, drill a hole in each end as one in the middle for the spring. Bolt the roller on the end hole and mount the arm on the rod rest.
The idea would be to make the arm long enough so that the roller would be able to engage the lower roller.

2. Or, an even easier thing to do - assuming that you can locate one, is to just install a larger roller on the end of the upper arm. I can't really tell, but perhaps you could measure the diameter of the roller for me. It appears to be about a 1 inch shower door roller with an O ring on it. I have a bunch of 2 inch rollers that would work and you would just have to bolt one on in place of the upper rollers.

Here, for example are some 1 3/4 inch nylon ball bearing rollers that might be of sufficient size to take care of the problem:

[www.homedepot.com]

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If you want to simply extend the length of the upper arm; here is some aluminum flat stock that would do the job just fine:

[www.homedepot.com]

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By the way; here is a picture of the rod rests that I have been using for the last several years that I made from aluminum bar stock, plastic cutting boards and ball bearing rollers with an 0 ring on the outside of the rollers.
Both the lower bar can be adjusted up or down to insure that level of the rod, and the upper arm can swing down or up to allow loading of the rod and to contain the rod when lowered. I lock the loser pair of wheels solid and then on the upper arm, I have a lock nut to adjust the tension of the upper arm enough so that It can be moved up and out of the way and it will stay. Or, the arm and roller can be lowered onto the rod, and the friction from the locking nut and washer will hold the upper arm secure to capture the rod.

When I designed the rod rest, I tool measurements of the height of my wrapper chuck as well as sizes of all of the various blanks that I might be wrapping to insure that I would have the full adjustablilty and lockability of the rollers onto the rod to both make for easy loading as well as to secure the rod in place when the upper roller came down:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

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In your case, I think that the change to a longer arm on the upper roller would solve your problem.

Good luck



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/2017 10:20PM by roger wilson.

If you take a look at the American Tackle as shown in the Mud Hole catalog, there obviously isn't any issue with the upper roller holding the rod:

[www.mudhole.com]

If the problem with the Alps rod rest simply caused by the upper roller being mounted too high on the rod rest?

If the upper roller is mounted too high, is there enough material in the rod rest, so that you could drill a lower hole in the rod rest to move the upper roller to a lower position, and still have a firm amr support?


Be safe

p.s.
I just looked up the American Tackle rod rest on their catalog page. Here is a view of the other side of the rest:

[www.americantackle.us]

Perfect design. In the case of the American Tackle rod rest, both the lower pair of rollers as well as the upper roller are mounted on an amr - each of which will adjust vertically. Excellent.
This means that the upper roller can be moved completely out of the way. Then, the lower pair of rollers can be moved vertically, so that the full length of the rod is adjusted vertically. Then, after all of the lower rollers are set in place, each of the upper rollers on the vertical sliding arm with the slot in the arm can be adjusted vertically to lock the rod in place, but still keeping the horizontal alignment of the upper roller at the center of the pair of lower rollers.

I wonder if the American tackle rod rests have the same mounting dimensions as the Alps wrapper?

Good luck



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/2017 10:34PM by roger wilson.

One phone csll to Batson's and your problem will be solved. You have one of the best machines on the market and a company to back it up.

As per your suggestion Grant, I just got off the phone with Batson and their trying to locate me some larger rollers. Thanks


Thanks Roger for going above and beyond. I viewed your setup. Wow is all I can say. Nice

Joel,
I was thinking about your particular issue this morning and another solution that would work very well would be to take an aluminum strip of 1/2 inch wide x 1/8th inch thick aluminum stock that would be longer than the very longest length needed to solve your issue.

The, starting from about 1/2 inch from the top of the piece, mill a slot in the piece of strip back as far as your current roller location. Then, drill a hole in the unslotted end of the stock to remount on your rod rest. Then, put a double nut on the bolt that holds the single wheel to the bar with a locking wing nut. Clip the spring to the hole you make for the spring and you will be good to go.

Then, in use, whenever needed, loosen the locking bolt on the upper wheel, slide the wheel to the location where it will nicely secure the blank in place and then tighten up the locking wing nut to secure the wheel on the slotted arm.

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This is just the simple and inexpensive way to give your single upper wheel the necessary adjustibility to work with your rod rest.

A few different pictures of rod rests to give you an idea of the types of rests currently in use:

[www.rodbuilding.org]

[www.rodbuilding.org]

[www.rodbuilding.org]

[www.rodbuilding.org]

[www.rodbuilding.org]

[www.rodbuilding.org]

[www.rodbuilding.org]

[www.rodbuilding.org]

After building my first rod with this wrapper, I applied threadmaster using the dryer setup on this unit. I went downstairs after about 4 hours drying time to shut it down. I noticed the rod wasn’t turning. Here the dryer motor shaft with the pulleys attached to it literally fell out of the motor. Had to strip some of the rod due to the finish sagging and redo, and lost the rod decal in the process. Really disappointed.

Joel,
I assume that you have talked to Batson about the dryer motor and they are going to make it right for you aren't they?

Roger

Roger,
I sent them an email last night. Hope to hear from them early next week. Talked to a guy there yesterday about the roller situation. He was trying to locate some larger rollers. If I don’t hear back from him, I’ll call in a few days.

Get the slide adjust and your problems will go away. The spring adjust do not work for small dia rod tapers [www.getbitoutdoors.com] I would tell them to exchange them if this is a new wrapper!! The worst part is - They don't work and they Know it !!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/11/2017 05:37AM by Jay Dubay.

I personally cannot stand the spring type hold downs. Even on my FlexCote finishing machine, I went ahead and modified with a slightly stronger spring. Both of my wrappers have the slide type top rollers

Ron Weber