Wednesday, March 02, 2005
Reset String Spools
After years of shooting field target I have finally come up with a fairly easy method of minding my reset string. When I started out then years ago now I made H shaped string holders out of plywood and stuck a nail in each side of the H for winding purposes. These worked well for a lot of years, they could be would quickly by hand or stuck into a cordless drill and wound up even faster. The only down side was unwinding them, you could only do two strings at a time and then you had to let them flop around as you walked back to the lane from the target. Inevitably they would get caught on branches or briars and such.
A few years after getting a club going in Florida Alan Otsuka gave me about 20 spools that he made from PVC pipe and some sort of plastic for sides. Unwinding them was really easy since you could put up to 4 spools on a 12" spike and unwind the whole lot of them as you walked. These worked well but tended to break rather easily when a shooter would get up from a lane and step on them and winding them up required a machined arbor with O-rings on it, which I only had one of.
Ahhh, the wonders of the web. Last year I decided it was time to replace all of my aging string holders. I started a search on the web for some sort of prefabricated string holder that I could buy and use easily. I discoved two companies that make plastic spools for wire and solder companies. I found that they had a couple of spool sizes that might work and ordered some samples. Some had large flanges with smaller spindles and some were just the opposite.
What I settled on was a 2 1/8" flange, 1 1/8" barrel traverse and a 1" bore. They also had a 2 1/8" barrel traverse but I found that the 1 1/8" gave me plenty of room to fit 60 yard of 50 lbs or 80 lbs test Dacron line. If I had more than 60 yards or a higher test I would have gone with the 2 1/8" barrel. I had to buy them in a lot of 450 spools so I have plenty of left overs. If anyone wants to buy a set of 25 or 50 please email me.
Another great discovery I made was a simple make-it-at-home arbor that I can use with the new spools. I found that Walmart sells a brass 1" boat drain plug in the sporting good department. 
I has a 1" diameter and about 1" length rubber stopper that I put onto a threadded rod with 1/4" nylocks and bam, I have an adjustable arbor that I can make for under $5.
While all this was going on I decided that I wanted to get away from having to tote around my cordless drill and worry about the batteries going dead on it. I search the net for ideas and found that old manual hand drills would turn the arbor at a 4:1 ratio and found some on ebay for next to nothing and tried them out. The work good but I found a couple of old hand grinders that turn at a 9:1 ratio and really wind up the string pronto. I made up several holding fixtures for the drill and grinder winders and find they work pretty well. Over all I am pretty happy with my new string holders and winders, they make string management easier.
A few years after getting a club going in Florida Alan Otsuka gave me about 20 spools that he made from PVC pipe and some sort of plastic for sides. Unwinding them was really easy since you could put up to 4 spools on a 12" spike and unwind the whole lot of them as you walked. These worked well but tended to break rather easily when a shooter would get up from a lane and step on them and winding them up required a machined arbor with O-rings on it, which I only had one of.
Ahhh, the wonders of the web. Last year I decided it was time to replace all of my aging string holders. I started a search on the web for some sort of prefabricated string holder that I could buy and use easily. I discoved two companies that make plastic spools for wire and solder companies. I found that they had a couple of spool sizes that might work and ordered some samples. Some had large flanges with smaller spindles and some were just the opposite.
What I settled on was a 2 1/8" flange, 1 1/8" barrel traverse and a 1" bore. They also had a 2 1/8" barrel traverse but I found that the 1 1/8" gave me plenty of room to fit 60 yard of 50 lbs or 80 lbs test Dacron line. If I had more than 60 yards or a higher test I would have gone with the 2 1/8" barrel. I had to buy them in a lot of 450 spools so I have plenty of left overs. If anyone wants to buy a set of 25 or 50 please email me.
Another great discovery I made was a simple make-it-at-home arbor that I can use with the new spools. I found that Walmart sells a brass 1" boat drain plug in the sporting good department. 
I has a 1" diameter and about 1" length rubber stopper that I put onto a threadded rod with 1/4" nylocks and bam, I have an adjustable arbor that I can make for under $5.While all this was going on I decided that I wanted to get away from having to tote around my cordless drill and worry about the batteries going dead on it. I search the net for ideas and found that old manual hand drills would turn the arbor at a 4:1 ratio and found some on ebay for next to nothing and tried them out. The work good but I found a couple of old hand grinders that turn at a 9:1 ratio and really wind up the string pronto. I made up several holding fixtures for the drill and grinder winders and find they work pretty well. Over all I am pretty happy with my new string holders and winders, they make string management easier.
