bulldog1935

Hi @Brycecover that's Roro X29, which is discontinued, and I know why. I managed to slightly bow the titanium spindle, probably when I was trying to thumb a bit of slack against the drag, e.g., putting a reel cover on the rigged rod. These days, I prefer AMO spool, anyway, but I have to work out my own bearings.

Same p/n 133971 on both Tatula and Zillion. but different number, 133850 on Ryoga. Looks like Ryoga spring is thicker wire and more turns, so it's a stronger spring. If your old spring is the same length, should work OK. If the spring is really different, may cause the clutch to bind. Smartest thing is replace them as a pair. You can also restore set temper in your old spring pair in the oven, 350 F for 15 min. (I reshape and set temper old springs on antique reels to adjust spool check tension and tuning)

@HawkeyeSmallie hi friend, that is my '17 Steez (16? - different websites list the year differently). It was my first Daiwa in 35 years, and I bought it just for Roro-X29 spool match-up. Couldn't be happier. Regards

I can't find the OP's question about spinning tackle, anywhere. Did he ask about finesse fly fishing, also? On topic, improving the spool bearings in inexpensive Sabre JH100 (from Express website) makes an extreme distance reel. Here, it's matched with a Japanese para-taper rod that's not inexpensive, but makes a killer distance combo. Guess that would be my 1st question of the OP, have you looked at the spool bearings, and can you improve them?

hmm

Yeah, kinda ^ this ^ I started BFS for salt shore (Little Cut), Steez w/ Roro-X spool and 8'2" Yamaga Blanks BCIII. I followed it up with a different rod to swap the reel, 6'7" Valleyhill ROC67MMM. (Kayak on Boerne City Lake) I've since moved ZPI Alcance with their magnesium BFS spool onto the Valleyhill reservoir BFS rod, and very happy with the result. Both reels are 100-size, 34-mm (BFS) spools, and racy low-inertia spool bearings. I use short rods and smaller reels in river kayak, and wading Hill Country limestone creeks.

Tournament casters want 2 full-mm end play in their spool. I'm in the less than 1 mm school, since I'm not tournament-distance casting. I really don't see why this is such a big issue. Anytime you swap a spool or just remove the palm plate, you should open up Zero Set wide first thing - after you swap, return the palm plate and latch it, last thing is to re-set Zero with the spool in freespool. It's really easy to tell where side play disappears as you tighten the knob - open it up until you can feel it moving again, and you're done.

Probably the last two surf rods I'm going to add. Top is Breakaway Omega 10'6", 2 to 4 oz. Best thing, this rod makes a permanent home for my best bench result ever, 5500CT, which will cast 1/2 oz past 100 yds on 8' RH Customs lure rod - but my CS Rocket displaced it from that rod. Will use it here for casting big lures, nominal 2 oz, and double up for staking light spider weights. The Breakaway conventional reel seat is a spinning seat, nice because it opens up wide to accept the 78-mm foot on Akios barstock CT frame. So I trimmed a Breakaway saddle clamp to fit snug and give me a trigger. The Yamaga Blanks Early 105 is an astounding lure rod, rated 15 to 50 g, but will fish 1/4 oz all day, and casts a heck of a 5-g metal microjig. Makes a great match with my bench 4500CT

@STPC Thanks friend. Exact same logic applies to dual-mag on bench Ambassadeur, which is why I showed my 6500CT above, and inside here. I wasn't able to set this reel up on 14' surf rod, so I set mag and then centrifugal casting 1/4 oz and 1/2 oz on 8' lure rod in the back acre. When I got it to the surf, casting 2 oz to 400' on 14' rod, it was backlash-proof, which is very important - throwing off your rig can ruin your day.

some things just don't seem like a problem. The biggest one is Zero Adjust. You need to find incipient side play in your spool, and you're done. This holds whether you're casting 2 g or 2 oz. I gotta think some people just gotta adjust something. If your cast ain't working, adjust your cast before futzing the reel.

I'm building a bicycle from frame currently, ordering parts from Spain, Germany, UK, and Japan. Every vendor I'm dealing with charges and prepays import duty up front. They've even returned to shipping airmail and USPS delivery from EU, for cost-effective shopping. The process is getting painless. The savings can be dramatic - handmade polyester-linen-casing Vittoria tires (now made in Thailand but sold under their Italian name) that are $125+ from US vendors are $56 from Spain. Even post within US vs. from Spain is only $3 difference. Buying from EU, their 17% VAT gets subtracted from your purchase - buying from Japan you're still paying their 10% VAT (Japan taxes). I will always say taxing discretionary spending (while still saving money) seems like a very fair way to pay down budget deficit and the national debt, which is the result of true madness (40% of all money in history was created - imagined - in the past 5 years, and it became our debt that we didn't ask for). It just took awhile for vendors, shippers, and buyers to settle into the change. But every other country on the planet charges VAT, a simple reason DHL already has the experience, and is picking up more business.

FWIW, all my worm-drive Shimanos, '19 Vanquish, '19 Stradic, '20 Twin Power required at least 0.5-mm spool shim to spool a spare spool. The parts that come in the Shimano boxes are worth their weight in gold - p/n 10. The Shimano part simply stacks onto the outside of the spindle. Don't have a photo with the spool removed (and don't intend to remove a spool to shoot one). But this example shows you how different they are on a Tica reel - p/n 12 - much larger diameter, around a rotor bearing, and below the pay-clicker spring. I wouldn't expect them to be universal except for a common Shimano part.

I'm not sure when 1/2 oz got to be a small bait, but that's the perfect weight for max distance and reliability from Daiwa SV Boost spool. Easy? Cast 1/4 oz on a high arc to find your mag base setting by dialing out mid-cast backlash. Nothing else to do..

I always cast with normal lures that I can see, buried hooks, standard weights, so I know what I'm adjusting for. This covers 2g-, 3g-, 1/8-oz jigheads, 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2 oz. If I'm casting greater, up to 2 oz, I'll just use a lead weight and tie on an orange-ribbon streamer so I can see it.

South Bend ABL worked in 1913 - the line goes under the spring-loaded bail. Line slack and bail drop moves a wool pad against the spool. The knob on the face plate adjusts stand-off on the wool pad. Perfectly thumbless reel that even stops itself. The Brits copied ABL mechanism on a centrepin reel, Allcocks Easicast, 1930 - the brake shoe w/ stand-off adjustment engages the spool rim. More than a simple Wallis cast, Easicast will overhead cast like a surf reel. The first centrifugal brake, 1915, was made by Redifor, and quickly bought by Pflueger. Two tear-drop metal pawls on the spool rub the reel frame - worked way too well, and cost serious distance. The bench tournament reels of the '20s, Meek, Talbot, Jack Welch Heddon, are fast by today's standards. They, too, had a brake that functions like a modern mag brake - daily fill the oil reservoir on the spindle ends. Oil-whirl works so hard as a casting brake, you hear the spool purring through the cast.

I eliminated backlash a long, long time ago.

Like you, we much prefer 8-9' rods for tossing lures to pelagic fish sign in the surf guts. Gulf Coast beach structure is a long, shallow way to the guts. (Spots on the beach are p/u trucks, and there's just about 400' of water across the top crop of the Google Earth.) Two species in particular, pompano and redfish, require planting meat past the 2nd gut, so we need long rods for that cast. It's also a lot of fun to pendulum-cast 2 oz to 400' on a 14' rod. Last photo, my buddy Lou is in front of the first gut casting my Tsunami 1102H - fishing spider weights, and you walk it back to the beach and stake it out. If you see feeding slashes or diving birds in the guts, you grab a lure rod and go after them.

This one usually gets the most-pretty votes, my 6500CS Rocket on Akios barstock frame. Don't let your grandad's Ambassadeur fool you - this one really is a rocket. (15 BB, 10 in the spool + LW) Also, my C3 Ambassadeurs all have blue corundum drag washers, and deliver double digits to spare.

@ATA is always showing his salt tackle. All I've been adding lately is surf tackle, and still not done. Always worth showing (most of) my surf Ambassadeurs. I've had this Tsunami Airwaves 1102H matched for years with big 72-mm-spool, 10000-frame Tica spinner Decided to match it instead with a smaller 60-mm-spool large-frame Tica (and 7 ounces lighter) to make it more versatile, and double up to throw big lures. So I added 12' Breakaway GDX to match with the big Tica for staking 2-6 oz This still leaves me with my best-ever bench distance-reel (1/2 oz past 100 yds) without a full-time match. It got displaced from my 8' ML surf-lure rod when I bench-raced 6500 CS Rocket on Akios LW frame. Next month, I'll probably add 10'6" Breakaway Omega 2-4-oz to double this up for both big lures and staking more meat.

we need photos...

You also have people who do the math. You recognize them on the forum because they post the math.

Jun described HLC was designed for casting 3/4-oz loaded JH (and much more) to 100m. That's a pretty big chore - my bench Ambassadeur 6500CT gets that distance with 2 oz, though I have a 5500CT that gets there with 1/2 oz. The HLC would make an excellent surf reel, matched with an 8-10' lure rod. HLC factory brake tune should be marginal geting 1/4 oz past mid-cast, and marginal getting 1/2 oz past start-up. but again, it's made to "boost" start-up brake return to get maximum distance throwing the heavy end. If you're having no light-med-end trouble, sounds like you have a smooth, natural cast, and let the rod rebound and weight carry the cast with no jolt added to the rod. You probably don't need Jun's brake-tuning mod, which is intended to increase light-medium brake.

50 on Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Qjaiune-Washers-Thickness-Plastic-Transparent/dp/B09TZSZN3J/ref=sr_1_1 Other than metal, amazon doesn't list washers harder than nylon. Don't necessarily need them, but McMaster has harder, stiffer MOC options such as phenolic and PEEK Looks like Jun used acrylic or polycarbonate, which is why I mentioned hard plastic. @AlisterH Bolt Depot sells piecemeal, but add the 1st class mail charge, 50 from Amazon ends up the same cost (if you have Prime). I find a lot of uses for nylon washers, especially in micro sizes. Bolt Depot lets you buy 4 or 5 each in a range of sizes, and it's still a small order.

HLC gets reduced brake force with a MagForce inductor return spring that's 4x stronger, and the purple inductor is 0.8-mm shorter, putting that much less Lenz mass into the magnet field Jun Sonada recommends casting over 1/2 oz. If Jun said it, he measured it. He also has a mod if you want to gain back that 0.8 mm, for a more reliable brake - https://japantackle.com/tackle_topics/21steezatwhlc-modify The frame will accept all 1520 Daiwa spools, and the current annular MagForce magnets are all the same, so you can swap in MagZ Boost or gold-inductor MagZ with more reliable brakes for 1/4 to 1+ oz.

Simple for me - I swap all factory rubber knobs (or tune gear ratio with full handles) - I have no use for I-shaped rubber knobs - yes, they deteriorate, and they're outrageously heavy (all the handles and knobs below are lighter than stock handles and I-shaped rubber). I've had some knob bearings lock up in the salt, and I replace the offending bearings with zirconia.