I currently have an alps power wrapper and have been doing very simple guide wraps but am currently working on learning more complex patterns and techniques.The Renzetti carriage seems to have a lot of advantages over the alps carriage. I have seen wrapping videos with people using Renzetti machines, I am just not currently looking to invest a grand or so to upgrade to the Renzetti machine. But for about $200 you can buy the thread carriage and the large spool attachment, and it would appear that I could find a way to engineer it to work on the alps rail system even if it means cannibalizing my current thread carriage, and making some adjustments to the base arm of the Renzetti carriage. My main concern would be that if you have the Renzetti carriage on the front of the track instead of on the back, would the riser arm with the eyelet potentially block your view of your work? Has anyone attempted this before?

You need to understand that most butt guide wraps and such rely on hand work, not the thread carriage. The only advantage you're going to get with the Renzetti carriage is the capability to carry more spools and have the reverse thread tension. Your ALPs carriage could be modified to do much the same.

I've done hundreds of decorative wraps. I push the thread carriage (Renzetti) out of the way and work with pre-cut thread segments by hand. It's much faster.

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Zach,
Also realize that you really don't need a thread carriage at all to do a wonderful job of wrapping rods.

You just need something to hold the thread and keep tension on it and have it move nicely along the rod bench. Whether it is attached to the wrapper or not, is entirely up to the design of the wrapper.
But, there is 0 reason to have the item that holds the thread to be attached to the wrapper, unless you want it attached to the wrapper.

If you just take a look at tours of fishing rod factories, I doubt that you will see a single thread carriage in the building. But, millions of rods come out of these factories every year.

Look at time stamp 3-54:
[www.youtube.com]

If you look at this video, you will see that the thread is just sitting on the bench and all of the tension is maintained by the thread running through the person's hand.
[www.youtube.com]





Best of luck

Thanks for the input gentleman it is much appreciated!

many just use a fly tying bobbin..