String Winder

So my original purchase of string winders has worked really well over the last 2 years but I'm starting to see that they do break rather easily so I'm always keeping an eye out for other options.

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Recently I saw that some chalk reels had a 3:1 rewind ratio and so I started playing with one of the ones at home depot. It looked to be durable, had a button to push so you could pull on it to disperse the line without the handle killing your fingers. I was able to put 65+ yards of line on this one and still have room left for more if I wanted.

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Here is the non-gear portion showing the 3 screw locations, two at the mouth and one at the opposite end. I'm also showing you where I chose to drill the two holes for the cleat that I'm adding.
The cleat will be used after you have brought this back to the line and will tie off the string so that someone doesn't inadvertently pull on the line and strip the gears (which SOMEONE did to me when I showed this to them the first time).

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Here is the front also showing where the cleat will eventually be.

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I've put the cleat on and have added the two screws

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The opposite side with the lock nuts added and tightened down.

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Now it's time to remove the string from the spool. Cut the end, pull the spool out and start taking off the line. (You could do this prior to taking it apart to make things easier)

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Here are all the pieces ready to be put back together.  Not a lot to it.

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The cap where the string comes out of has a felt piece in there that is normally used to keep the chalk in. It's cut on one side so you can easily get the thread to the center when you put things back together.

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So, what I do is pull the felt insert out of the tip. Then I insert the end of the string through the tip, into the felt, through the rubber "gasket", through the metal "eye" and then attach it to the reel. Hopefully you can see the wandering string in this picture.

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Here is the back all put together with a quick detach key ring attached. On our targets we leave the female end on the target and detach the line by simply pulling on the release that separates the two halves of the key ring. We make sure that all of our targets have the female end on the targets so we don't have to worry about string placement.

Front of winder. The button after the "DeWalt" is the "free wheel" button. You push this and the string comes out without the winder spinning.

Here is the cleat being used showing you how the shooter can pull on this and would probably never break the winder.