Port Modification of the Smithwick Binder #2

First, let me emphasize that this is a Smithwick binder. I merely made changes which altered it slightly and made it easier for me to use. This is NOT a Port binder!

Tom's binder is designed to allow the rod to turn easily and be bound from left-to-right and then back again. It is simply two pulleys mounted so that they have friction bars riding against them as levers on which you can hang weights to provide the tension in the drive belt. It has a thread tensioner on top just as the Garrison binder has. His is smaller than my behemoth, but mine disassembles for travel if needed.  (The "wings" dismount, making it shrink from approximately 8 ft by 3 ft to 4 ft by 18", if the wings are stood on end next to the main chassis.)

I did several things differently after originally copying Tom's shamelessly.

I had a heck of a time remembering to turn one wheel one way and the other in reverse as on his, so I placed them (almost) directly over one another (Pic 1). That way they both turn Clockwise when binding. The reason they're offset that little bit is so that the belt runs up and back down at roughly the same angles. I also added bronze sleeve bearings which I picked up at Home Depot. They're 5/8" inside diameter, I think, so as to match the hex bolts I used for axles on the pulleys. I'm pretty sure the pulleys' holes  are 5/8",  but you  can certainly  use other-than-that for the wheels. I pressed the sleeves into 5/4" pine "chassis" (probably aided by Epon) and then put washers (front and back) and stop nuts on the rear of the "axles" with such a spacing that the wheels turn freely without any slop.

I also added the sliding support bar you may miss unless I tell you to look for it. Tom's has a rather small permanent rectangle cut out for tying the thread to the rods. I couldn't make that work and originally tried a plastic (maybe fiberglass)   U shaped thingie that's made to hold cables to walls (See picture left). I mounted that so its bottom was in the same plane as the grooves in the infeed and outfeed troughs but it was supported only in the back, and tended to deflect downward whenever the tension in the belt increased. This sagging scared the heck out  of me on the tips of tips! I subsequently thought his small bar looked like it worked better, so I tried that out but in a way that I wouldn't have to tie my knots using surgeon's forceps. Thus, the slider (See pictures below).

It slides away to enable knotting the thread and back to support the bar that juts out from the main chassis.

The infeed and outfeed troughs have grooves routed in them (approximately 1/2" radius) as retainers for the sections. The scale is not really evident, so I'll mention that my feed bars are almost 4’ each, so the rod is supported with a vengeance for the whole wrap. My only continuing problem is that the gluey rod wants to walk up and out of the troughs as it spins. (That may be the only source of twist possible in this design.) I have resorted to drilling small holes 1/2" deep along the edges of the troughs (maybe every 8" or so) and standing 2 1/2", 8p finishing nails in them, so as to provide a fence to trap the spinning rod as it passes.

You'll notice that I put handles on the wheels but I find it's more controllable if you just use the axles and your fingers to do the deed.

I think if you look carefully at the mechanism, it'll be apparent that with the exception of the infeed/outfeed angles (matching), almost none of the dimensions are critical and you can build it to your own scale.

In action, you place the rod to the left (I like to start tip of section first, so that as the tension builds, so does the mass of the rod to counteract twist), set the wt on the left-hand (following) friction bar, wrap the belt and tie the thread around the section a la Garrison, and crank the right-hand wheel clockwise. When the section is finished, you cut and tie off the thread (I flip the section over so it's again going through tip first), wind the belt and thread about the section so the next (right-to-left) pass will cause criss-crossing, place the weight on the right-hand friction bar, and turn the left-hand wheel, still moving in the clockwise direction.