Now that I have a few (dozen) rods under my belt, I have worked out some of the things that I found lacking in my original rod wrapper.
The first was size. The darn thing wasn’t long enough and I never seemed to have enough support for the rod section I was working on. The base on the original was warped, too. I had a real “Rockin’ Rod Wrapper”. The next thing was thread handling. The Military rods can have as many as 32 color changes in one ribbon. There may be only 2 colors in that ribbon, but they switch 32 times. Most ribbons have 4 colors or so and they change 10-20 times. That was a lot of spool changes. I had to come up with a new thread handling system. I was limited to regular spools, too. I couldn’t use any of the cone type spools due to my tensioning system. Lastly, I wanted the option of motorizing things.
Here is what I came up with. I have wrapped a couple of rods by hand on it and like it a lot. The thread handling is much smoother and I can have 4 colors ready to go at any given time. Swapping those for another color takes a very short time.
The base is 48" long and has 4 supports when using it as a hand wrapper. One support on each side has hooks to put a mini bungie cord on to hold the blank down if need be.
The bench is a mess. It is that way all the time.
The really cool part is the headstock to my rod lathe. I went to Goodwill and picked up an old sewing machine for $10, took the motor and foot pedal out of it and will recycle the rest. I was having trouble finding an upper pulley so I turned one from some Delrin like plastic I had. The center hole was drilled slightly under size and the shaft, .25" stainless rod from the K&S racks I like so much, was pressed in. The chuck is a 1.5" PVC plumbing cap that I center bored and epoxied a shaft collar on to fasten it to the shaft. The shaft spins in a bronze bushing in the upright and has nylon thrust washers on either side of the upright. The belt is a largish o-ring. The headstock is removable to get it out of the way if necessary and can slide along the base like the supports.
Nice job, Kevin
I don’t know when you go motorized if speed variability is a factor. If so you may find that the foot pedal is not as good as it would seem. Those of us that use sewing machine motors as a power source for making furled leaders have found that adding a light dimmer rheostat in place of the pedal works better.
This man is a creative genius! I see various creations on his table, that he has generously shared with others, that elevate the joy of rod building to new heights.
Not all of us use a dimmer switch. Some of us use the foot pedal and get along just fine. I have yet do drink the Aged Sage Kool AId, and I doubt I ever will.
I haven’t used a power wrapper before but figured it wouldn’t hurt to try if I could do it cheap enough. The foot pedal works pretty well on this one and if I need to, I can put the big pulley on it to slow it down a bit.
Betty where is that face you are talking about? I got a pile of Cr*p on that bench but I don’t remember leaving part of anyone’s face on it. If you look closely, you will see parts of 3 different rods on the table. The Sage to the left in the first picture on the stand alone supports is brand spanking new. The guy sent it to me along with a Struble D-21 Titanium seat and fighting butt to have the factory ones replaced. The new ones are on it in that picture. Way up in the upper left is the tip of a spinning rod I am building for a benefit next month for one of the ladies at the Post who was in a bad car wreck. The Denver Bronco Cheerleaders are supposed to be there and I really hope I can look them in the eyes to ask for pictures. (fat chance) There is another rod there that is in it’s sock on the far end that I am freshening up for sale.
This sure is a fun way to make a living even if I am so broke I can’t pay attention.
