Are Thread Carriages Any Help??

[Out-Station]

G'day all, a few years back i made myself a lathe which has been great and still going strong. However i never did get around to making myself a "thread carriage" attachment to hold a couple of spools, tension adjustment etc. I just hold the thread in my hand, works fine for simple binding jobs but i was thinking that some type of traveling thread carriage would make life easier doing trims etc. For any of you that have of these commercial lathes with one of these thread thingy's, do you use them? Do they make trims etc easier?.. or do all the pro's do it the same way as me (must have three hands if they do i recon).

Cheer's, Scott

[Daintreeboy]

I've only just started but don't use mine for trims as you have to unwrap each time between cross overs so it doesn't work as you have to take the spool out and put back in. Makes it pointless. It is awesome for single overbinds though. Frees both hands up and makes them a breeze.

[pedro473]

Scott,

No doubt that a thread carriage will make life much easier mate, it would all depend on what type of bed you have to attach your carraige to but there are many and varied designs on the market for you to choose from, or you could always build one yourself. I have mentioned in other threads that I believe that the renzetti multi spool thread carraige is one of the better ones and I think they are available from the states for around $100
My thoughts anyway

Cheers
Pedro

[grave41]

I would"nt be without one. Iff im binding from left to right i add a coloured thread under the main thread from right to left to do side by side coloures and you can keep changing colours easy as because you are binding back over the start tag end.Cant do this without tension.
Imo Graham

[RFARREN]

+1 they make life a lot easier thats for sure
once you get used to it u will wonder how you wrapped without it