bulldog1935

In addition to handles to swap, SDS Custom on ebay offers some nice EVA knobs that will swap onto your handle. ________________________________________________ If you want to go the handle swap route: You need 8x5 mm rectangular slot to fit Daiwa and Abu. 7x4 mm fits Shimano. Especially if you go to Ali Express, look at the carbon handle by ArtSea - rubber paddles and this one has shaped cork knobs This Fluke handle has oversized cork knobs - they have the Daiwa/Abu 8x5 in black. Gomexus has a website -easier to see what they offer and just as easy to buy. __________________________________________ The good Japan handles almost cost a reel, but they're very nice with titanium hardware, etc. My favorite Avail handle - JapanTackle, Hedgehog Studio to find these. this is Studio Composite carbon handle - if you think it looks strange, it's even nicer to fish than it looks strange. Best place to buy this one is FishingShopKiwi.

I don't know anything about the stock magnets, and I'm sure the new magnets are rare-earth - neodymium. N52 powerful magnet　 Gold plating|Fishing Tools| - AliExpress When I took the old rusted magnet out, measured 5 mm x 1.5 mm thick. Just remember the listed piecemeal price is a ruse- they make up for it with a big shipping fee (for Ali). And of course you'll see the total before you send them paypal. I'm also guessing that's silver electroplate coating the old magnets - silver and chloride don't get along.

@desmobob Your lantern came out nice. The 1884 Spalding Kosmic reel I show above wasn't mine - I was hired to remove salts and dealloying, and restore it - it's valued at $4000. ok, here's my article from 15 years ago. Cleaning Reels | Classic Fly Reels | Fiberglass Flyrodders However, the subject of this thread is still tuning magnetic brakes... the question has been raised. Reels are loaded with gunk and corrosion - usually 70 to 80 years' worth by the time I get them. They're made out of aluminum, brass and steel, painted, anodized, or bare. Lubricants oxidize, releasing acids (or caustic in the case of lithium) form tars and waxes and eventually turn into polymers. Limestone residues from chalk streams are corrosive to aluminum. Reels have it tough. I've never taken before photos, and I've had some nasty ones, but most of you have seen some of my after photos. Here's what I do. (credit to Richard Thomann who gave me this procedure 10 year ago, though, I've added my caveats, touches and insight from my experience working with it) 1) Take the reel down as far as you feel comfortable. 2) Wipe everything down with paper towels or q-tips and whatever you can to remove the loose debris and old lubricant. 3) Vinegar-water bath. This is generally four parts warm water to one part vinegar. Temperature, time and vinegar content can all go up (up to 3 hours) if you reel is all brass. (NOT painted brass - use only soapy water rinses and brushes on painted brass, because the hydrogen generated in any immersion solution will blow the paint right off.) some basic guidelines - 30 to 45 minutes for painted reels, or rubber side plates and handles (bakelite is impervious) wouldn't go past 1 hour for lead finished alloy fly reels 2 hours for plated brass 3 hours for bare brass or German silver Generally, we're looking at finger-warm solution for about an hour or less. On a painted aluminum reel or lead finished reel, you might want to keep it down to a half-hour. Although, lead finish is usually more tolerant than paint, so you can push to the full hour if it needs it. And take it out when its visibly clean. Take a soft tooth brush to the debris every 10-15 minutes. This solution should do the bulk of your cleaning. If you have tenacious crud, rusted steel, dealloyed brass (looks pink) you may want to push it a little longer, but balance it against the visible effects on your finish. Rub out the insides of bushings with q-tips or twisted up paper towel. Rinse well in lukewarm water. 4) dilute soap bath - very dilute. Alkalis cause corrosion of aluminum. Ammonia causes cracking of brass. Not to alarm you, but you're simply using this bath to wet and remove the tar remnants that were broken up by the vinegar, and to neutralize residual vinegar. Again use the soft toothbrush to break up any residues. 5) Final rinse - very thorough cold-water rinse here. Be careful of the sink rinsing off your tiny parts. 6) Air dry - overnight is good. 7) Rub with a wax or silicone guncloth. This is also a good time to put on a coating of Butcher's Bowling Alley Wax if you want to do that kind of thing. 8 ) Lube and reassemble - use Zebco Quantum Hot Sauce - the good stuff. Hot Sauce Grease on drag gears, and on worn and wobbly spindles. Hot Sauce Lube (light oil) on spindles/bushings, handle spindles, pawl stanchions, bearings, drag blocks and threads. yeah, I know y'all don't like Hot Sauce, but there's nothing safer on valuable antiques, especially cast alloy. It also works very well on all fly reels. ___________________ special topics. Magnesium reels - Marryat, Battenkill MkIII - exposed magnesium appears to react vigorously with vinegar, so it's probably wisest to bypass soaking in solutions and use Boeshield for cleaning. Solvents - acetone is for removing paint and plastic handles - be very careful. Yes, it removes tars also. Be very careful. One application for denatured alcohol is removing old line varnish from inside a spool. It will usually come out with a good swipe, but try to avoid drips, keep it away from handles, follow quickly with a dry swab and even limit exposure to the paint. oxidizers/colorants/patinating agents with their steps and rinses would fit between steps 6 and 7 above, but this is real art that I'm going to dodge here. Abrasives/polishes. I'm going to mostly stay away from this, because I usually quit at wax. But OK, I keep Pol metal polish around, and always have "Miracle" lemon-oil polishing cloths. I lightly and quickly rub down my rods with Miracle polishing cloths to keep the calcium buildup down, and chase that with a chamois. Hope this helps, Ron Mc p.s. here's the goal

all we need is a 360 light to be legal, but if you're paddling the Arroyo at night, good idea to have a VHF tuned to port channel 10 to hear if there's a barge coming up the channel. (and if you have GPS/DSC w/ MMSI registration, he can see you on his nav screen) if you want a weigh-nothing USB headlamp with just-right light levels, check out Nitecore NU20. Mine went through the wash and still works perfectly.

I saw them at Nashville fairgrounds (Tejas tour) in '76 - they closed after The Band on their last waltz. We were on a blanket right in front of the stage. ZZTop are all from Beaumont, and recorded everything in Memphis.

In this case, would be pointless. I'm a metallurgist and corrosion engineer, and wrote the article on cleaning and preserving antique reels. Not to offend, my point is how to tune mag brakes. The thing about salt rust, it's more corrosive than salt itself, and you don't want it moving around inside your reel. Regards, bro.

After 4 years in salt service, my oldest Super Duty G showed its first rust sign - only in the magnets (everything else all through the reel looks pristine). This is filliform corrosion - sideways under a coating - a mechanism for a little bit of salt from the air, combined with condensation, to concentrate in place - and you can't remove it, without removing the coating. (The coating is there to keep the magnets from rusting, etc.) I did clean and rebuild the whole brake plate, and everything inside was pristine on that brake rebuild, getting the knob and cam plate in phase - 6th time's a charm... I ordered Momo N52 magnets through Ali Express. While their piece-price on these looks dirt cheap, they hit you with a big shipping charge. I ordered 8, and they came prepackaged as 10 - the $15 total price was still fair. BTW, every old magnet that came out showed incipient attack on the bottom. The Momo N52 magnets are gold-plated - will be interesting to see how this fares compared to the coating on the stock magnets. These magnets are powerful. In my 1/4-oz niche on the old magnets, I had the mag set a notch above 50% for total-reliable casting, and great cast distance. Test casting with the 8 new magnets, incipient backlash was only about 20% mag adjustment, and the next two notches were excessive step changes on the cam - too much mag. So I took two magnets out. Trying again, didn't cast or adjust enough to find incipient backlash, but was getting 120' reliable cast at a little over 40%, and several notches in that range felt better graduated - that is, narrow changes in mag over several notches. Ready to go fishing, and since I'm here, my oldest Super Duty G. The red tension knob is Avail and the thumb clutch is AMO - neither color part was spendy.

added these Jackall floater-divers especially fishing from a kayak, need to be able to move lures around to put together a box for tomorrow, etc. Running out of slots and stacking lures, I went to TackleDirect, and used reward points - gratis tackle boxes

they have plastic utensils for the tourists now, but the first time I visited Smitty's Market in Lockhart, it was different. They had a pulpit on the wall with a butcher knife on a chain. If you didn't bring your pocket knife, Everybody knew you weren't from here.

ok, this is different than fishing from a kayak, though I also fish my 8-1/2' bait rods from kayak. My reel recommendations still fit, but for rod, I'd go with an MH steelhead rod. Okuma SST is a good place to find a cost-effective one. Also Lamiglas X-11. Here's my choice Lamiglas Rogue River Special MTC - Tyler, owner of corpusfishing forum, swears by his for casting lures from the beach. Purpose-built beach lure rod, custom Abu CT and 8' RH Composites 8' ML surf rod - this will cast beyond your imagination - just about triples your price target - but the tackle above is friendlier to use. Did a search on TackleDirect, just in case there was a long dedicated surf lure casting rod in your price range - none came up (but there are cost-effective spinning options). There are several in much higher grades, Century, RH Composites... Look at Steelhead Casting rods.

Not to totally disparage the topic or a wise fisherman, Gaspergou - fresh water drum - I've bottom-bounced some 8- and 10-lbers on fly rod with Teeny line and cats whisker around boat docks - they have shoulders.

Gary Borger describes this best. "Fish psychologists" have worked out the IQ of a trout is 6, and the smartest fish, carp, has IQ of 12. So let's say a bass falls somewhere in between - IQ=9. You never get outsmarted by fish - at least, let's hope not. By natural selection, brave and inquisitive fish become become food as fry and never live to breed. Big fish aren't smart, big fish are cowards. If you're not catching fish, they're not eating, they're not eating what you're offering, you haven't found the water conditions where the bait and gamefish hang, or your stealth isn't working.

Asian Portal has the Fed-Ex over-size package charge worked into their price - Plat and Digitaka simply add it as a second charge. Plat usually adds the "free" FedEx into pricing on higher grade rods. I chased down my Valleyhill RO 67MMM on Digitaka, and the delivered cost from either Digitaka or Asian Portal would have been the same. Asian Portal's free Fed-Ex ($28 small package) on any $100 order has to be a loss-leader for them. They're banking on you coming back and spending more later. I've bought so many small parts and lines $105 orders from them, I always check their inventory first on the reels and rods. Good call on the rod grade. No Major Craft rod is junk at any level. Fuji guides and reel seats are kind of a baseline for consideration for me - without Fuji, nothing. And as our OP pointed out, one man's mid-grade is another man's untouchable.

Alamo means cottonwood. Big carp circle under cottonwood trees during a seed fall. I've sure sight-fished some big carp, tying up fake cottonwood seed flies with a size 16 scud hook, waste white marabou, and brown thread.

That's a $214 JDM rod. Here's the OOS listing at Asian Portal NEW Standard bus rod BENKEI" is born! Blank design: Blank design using high-middle elastic carbon which carefully selected materials according to their individuality and use. It is a high basic blank with excellent sensitivity and operability. Guide concept: KR & K guide setting of Arkonite ring manufactured by Fuji Kogyo. It is a guide of an excellent strength ring and a light and reliable frame. Length (ft): 6'9 "Lure (oz): 1 / 4-2 Line (lb): 14-30 PE.Line (Issue): 40-60 Action: REGU In frog games?C only its power fighting ability tends to attract attention?C but in reality it is very delicate fishing. A tight approach that reduces waterborne sound greatly increases the hit ratio. In addition?C the delicacy of the tip part that enables quick dog walking also contributes to improving the hooking rate with frog games with many mistake bytes. Of course?C the bat power which is equal to the gachinko match is certified. * The image of the product you are posting is displaying the representative image. Moreover?C the color may look different from the real one. Please be forewarned."

Tough target to hit, but for rods, I'd be looking at Tsunami and Okuma 7' rods, MH to H, based on the weight range you plan to cast. Another really good rod for the price is Tackle Direct house brand. Personally, I'd increase the ante to get into a Crowder E-series Lite. You don't need the largest reel here, and many bass-fishing-aimed baitcast reels will work - the biggest problem is finding one at that price. That's another place I would be perfectly happy fishing my Super Duty G with 20- or 30-lb braid, and Lew's still has this reel on sale for $144 (shipped). 150 yds 12-lb Abrazx may not be enough capacity for you. The Super Duty 300 has dual braking that many on the forum laud, and increases the capacity to 190-yds 14-lb. Great brake system to learn with, and that capacity and mono/fluoro test is pretty perfect. Super Duty G is the first low profile baitcaster that impressed me enough to buy a second. My first, after 4 years inshore, just showed its first signs of rust - they were in the brake magnets. Ordered the correct magnets from Ali Express, and I've taken this reel out of service until I can get around to swapping 3 more drive bearings with HRCB rust-resistant. A reel I've never tried personally, but it sure looks good on paper, is Okuma Komodo - stainless drive for extreme wear and salt resistance. I'd stick with the smallest 3-size. Its capacity matches Super Duty 300.

You'll find a large group on this forum for whom a DC reel will never be on their want list, and such a bold opening premise might gain you some snide replies. At least a few of us were casting weightless rigs to 2-oz spider weights plus that much meat on Ambassadeurs 40 years ago. Consider DC to be a trade-off between ease of use and distance, especially with light lures. It works by adjusting brakes 1000 times/s. I watched Shimano's video, and the number of incipient backlashes it showed corrected over one cast can't be efficient compared to a fast spool with linear mag properly adjusted for the one point in the cast it's needed However, you have to start that cast properly, and you have to stop the non-DC reel with your thumb. DC may be the easiest way to initially get distance with limited thumb skill, not the best rod habits, and limited knowledge of how to set up a reel to cast a range of baits. So yeah, one thing a DC reel will never do is cast 2 g to 130' - you can prorate it from there. More recently, I'm more impressed with Daiwa SV. With that brake system, you can set up for your light bait end, and it takes care of the heavy end start-up for you without another adjustment.

Ken, it's truly impossible to figure out what you're trying to describe without photos. First off, split cane boat rods disappeared about 1955, when fiberglass+resin became the principal rod blank material and, especially in that year, True Temper moved the Montague plant to SC. Within a few more years, H-I bought Harnell, and South Bend/ Gladding devoured them all. I have a 1951 Ward's catalog with the typical H-I, South Bend and Montague reel seats represented. Four pages of them all have pockets, one side fixed, with a sliding pocket on the opposite end secured by one or two screw rings. Likewise, my 1960 Harnell catalog boat rods all fit this description. The one unusual exception in the Ward's cat is a boat rod reel seat with two sliding rings and no screw locks. The closest to your description I can think of were on South Bend and Harnell fly rods, still with a fixed pocket on one end, and the screw ring secured the other end of the foot without a separate sliding pocket. This may have been a Varmac invention, since Varmac partnered with Harnell and both eventually became part of H-I and then SB/Gladding.

even with Stradic, you have the worm-gear-rider bushing - the higher grade reels have a ball bearing there (so does Tica) - you can improve your own Stradic if you want to go inside. No spool ball bearing, but that's a part that only has a job when paying big drag. Still impossible to fault Stradic, other than Shimano's short-life line roller that Stradic shares with Stella. Rhetorical question, why does Shimano stuff their ball bearing line roller with lithium grease. Will have to admit, no reels come tuned to my likes, and they all get tweaked.

@Jigfishn10 It's been more than a few years, but we were out on a big cuddy like that on red snapper opening day (so long ago, opening day was in April). My buddy bought the charter in a church benefit auction. He had the first boat I had seen with AIM navigation, and pretty trick to watch him find invisible reefs in his GPS memory. We caught so many, we fished through our bait, and I got up on the bow with a fly rod, catching blues for cut bait. We brought home this samsonite, taken on cut blue. It's also nice to know if you have GPS-DSC and MMSI registration, a big boat like that can see your kayak on his nav screen...

@ATA what you may be trying to state is higher-grade reels use higher-grade MOCs, possibly including higher-grade bearings (Steez and Metanium are salt-rated). Combined with state-of-the-art design and manufacturing technology, they likely perform at their peak longer, and with less maintenance.

You might want to take a look at some of the JDM Revos, such as LX992Z. Maybe you don't like mag brake, but my experience, it's the best brake for distance with light lures. Super Duty G is my hands-down favorite Lew's - casting 1/8 oz, it will out-distance my Steez and Zillion with stock Boost spools. (some credit to IXA spool bearing upgrade in my SDG) What makes Daiwa's SV brake so wide-lure-weight versatile is the non-linear start-up with heavy lures. But lighter lures don't jerk enough to make the SV function, and you can make a lighter spool without it. I mentioned on another thread from watching rod-in-action videos - Mr. Yamaga of Yamaga Blanks can fish whatever he wants, fishes Revo on his light game rod 1/8 to 1/2 oz, and fishes Daiwa SV on his MH shore game rod with 6" 1-1/2-oz plug. I think it's noteworthy that ZPI bench-raced Metanium in their sky's-the-limit ZPride, they bench-raced Bantam MGL and Tatula SV TW (but didn't give them ZPI model names). The reel ZPI is banking on, however, is an Abu - the Alcance, offered in four gear ratios from 5.6 to 8.1. They offer 2 different spools, and also the short-pitch Alcance RC-G with yet their shallowest spool, and mag brake cam tuned just for pitching. These reels weight in at 170 g, which is only 10 g more than magnesium Steez SV TW. Their spools range from 7 to 11 g, and strong enough to handle the stretch of 16-lb mono.

...except those 5.3-geared reels also had 37 mm spool diameter. 34 mm is large on a low profile baitcaster I generally prefer 6.6 and lower with stock handle pitch. I put longer-pitch handles on 7- and 8-geared reels, mostly to improve lure control @jimmyjoe brought up.

of course, the OP is probably not around here to read our answers this decade. The Lazarus thread now has a different life and context.