Occasionally some one asks for ideas on furling jigs / boards. Thought a thread devoted to various models would be useful, or at least interesting.

Mine is pretty much cobbled together with stuff from Home Depot. The table is simply a plywood sheet rested on a couple collapsible sawhorses. The wings on the far ( left side in photo ) side let me extend the two boards in my basic jig to 14' and let me furl lines / leaders up to about 12' long for Tenkara rods.



The sliding carriage at the tip end is connected to a tension device and allows for reduction and relaxation of the leader during twisting and furling. On my original jig, a tension devise was the most difficult problem to solve. The carriage was the only solution I came up with. The tension devise is a length of stretch cord and a box end wrench of the appropriate weight. The fish hook on the post facilitates incorporating a tip ring before furling begins.



The posts or pegs are dowells set at spacing 40% of the distance from the butt to the tip on one side and 70% of that distance on the other side. This results in a configuration of 40% butt section, 30% mid section, and 30% tip section. Changing the spacing / configution would require a couple seconds with a drill to relocate the posts anywhere along the board. I chose the 40-30-30 configuration after reading a number of articles on leader construction. There may be better configurations, but this one works for me.



The gear system consists of two driven gears turning hooks for twisting / furling and a driving gear at a 5:1 ratio. Found the gears on an internet site. They were the most expensive component of the jig, but should last for quite a while.



Power by Ryobi as in a low end variable speed reversible drill. Since I use formulas for making leaders rather than using the "reduction" or "pig tailing" approaches, a lower speed drill is necessary so I can count revolutions / twists. Since I power furl rather than let the twisted leader material relax under tension, the reversible feature is essential to my system.



John

P.S. I just happened to clean up my work area yesterday after furling several leaders. Otherwise I would never have taken photos of my set up and started this thread.