Furling Motor

[JohnScott]

Thanks, John, do you manually pull on that shock cord to control the tension?

Duck -

I do manually handle the cord, but do not have to apply much tension, if any. Between the friction of the sliding post holder on the body of the jig and the friction of the cord around the end post, there is enough tension to keep the twisting in good order.

While countertwisting / furling, I usually do apply some tension while the leader stretches in the initial stages of furling, and then relax tension when the leader wants to contract again in the latter stages of furling.

If I ever get around to building a new jig, or refurbishing the one I have, I think I will resign the tension mechanism. I have in mind installing a small wheel at or near the end of the jig and let the tensioning cord run over it to a small container below the body of the jig. Fill the container with enough pennies**, or sand, or whatever to apply a reasonable amount of tension to both the twisting and furling material.

John

** Probably more than $.02 worth !!

The thing I like about the manual cranking set up, or a mechanized system with a counter, is the uniformity that can be achieved after some simple testing with various materials.

Seems to me the 90% thing is subject to the amount of tension being applied during the twisting process, not a very precise thing, especially from one person to another. Denny's subtract 10 seconds before breakage approach as described in the other thread that is going on right now, is interesting, and likely would result in uniform leaders, given constant twisting and furling speeds.