Upon the advice of a friend, I am going to design/build my own rod wrapper. I can certainly build one of the V-stand type and hopefully improve it some.

Those of you who have built rods, what are the biggest shortcomings you see in existing wrappers? what are most important features you would want?

I figure if I'm gonna build it, maybe I can figure a way to make it cool.

I've got all this wood left from my last home improvement project, so why not build one instead of wasting $70-80 on one that sucks.

I think you should go with one that rotates on wheels smoothly. Much better than the Vblock wrappers, especially where you're building 8-10 foot rods...
Personally, I'm going to build one on an 8-9 foot alignment board with 4 moveable stands with wheels (rollerblade or skateboard style) that lines up with my dryer motor. I also am going to run a thread carriage parallel to the wrapper but not directly connected to it. this will allow the carriage to slide where I want it to easily without needing to remove it to get on another side of the rod stands... I was going to start this weekend but too ill... Maybe this coming weekend :P

I built my first rod wrapper (you can have it if you want it), I found it difficult to work on longer rods and time consuming. I purchased 3 of the Clemens rod supports (see pic) and love them. I use them in my office on an old kitchen table for my thread work. I use them down in the basement when it comes time to put the finish on or in the early stages of sanding handles. I find it so much more versitle and not quite as pricey as one of those expensive rod jigs.

You can buy those some rollers shown on my supports from Clemens separately, if you wanted to incorporate them into your own design. The rod in the picture is a 7foot6inch Lamiglass TiMC90H (titanium wrap you can see just ahead of the foregrip) I'm working on now. Just finished up a 7 foot spinning rod for plastic and this one will be for dragging eels, light jigs and some cod fishing. If you were building 1 piece rods much longer, I might even want a 4th support.

Good luck and tight lines.
[img="http://www.rgsiroisco.com/rodbench.jpg"]

S.M. , right on cue there's an article in the Fisherman this week on exactly what you asked.

I'll need to read that article before I embark on my nasty wrapper design }> ... Thanks Slip

GS, do you recall how much those Clemmen's supports are going for these days??

This is what I've been tinkering around with making for the last few weeks. I'm currently using a setup built on sliding door tracks back to back with stands groved to slide on those tracks. The stands support two skate board wheels on each stand and rotate pretty freely and consistently. I'm either going to use skateboard or prefferably Roller blade wheels (better spinning, not as wide)... I still have a couple plans in mind for the thread carriage but something simular to GS's but sliding next to the alignment board...

[img=http://www.striped-bass.com/Images/wrapper.jpg]

If you buy them in pairs, you save a couple bucks, but 2 will run you around $100. I keep meaning to bring mine to a local metal fab shop to get a price to get one built, if I provide them the ball bearing roller supports. It's not like it's a complicated design or anything. I like them because they are easily moved, adjusted for height & guide spacing and using the lead weights on the ends; stay put on the table for thread work. You can get the 2" dia. ball bearing roller by itself for about $15, or the 1" for $6, but I'm looking at an old catalog.

They aren't cheep, but they work great and you might want to consider the rollers in your design. I like the 3rd roller on top, and the fact it can be secured in place over the rod. That prevents the rod from accidentally getting knocked on the floor if I happen to catch the end, or if I get a call or something, I can reach over to the closest and tighten it down on the blank to hold the thread tension. It also comes in handy come time to tighten up a decorative butt wrap. I have one under the handle and I can push the top roller bar firmly on the cork handle and keep the rod pretty secure as I work to tighten up the patterns on the top.

Good luck and tight lines.

That's what I was afraid of. I'm figuring to build the whole thing for that or less... I'm going to hit Home Depot with pen and paper and do a little parts catalogin' to list supplies. Those Clemens and Renzettis look great but just an awfull lot of money... I'm also thinking about a roller on top of one stand for just that purpose. The setup I'm using now doesn't have one and it is missed...

OK, read the article and it would certainly do for building a wrapper but that one is not quite the equivalent of what I'm using now. I'm looking to move up in quality and capacity at this time. I will also build a list of materials on construction of this wrapper and make that available if this works out as well as I think it will...