I only recently discovered the major improvement in comfort when using a thicker handle knob on my reel. I think a little longer handle is nice too.

 

I realized this just in time for the tariffs to wreck everything for me and the reel handle i bought on Ali-X last month went from 8 bucks to $10

 

After you put it in the cart and head to check out you see the $57 additional charge and suddenly your dreams of a fleet of ergonomic reels are crushed

 

Well I tried a handle from Amazon for $13

 

Honestly, I freakin love the way these knobs feel when I grip them, but I hate the way it knocks like the police raiding the wrong house at 2 AM and I'm casting under someone's dock... It's gotta go

 

I then was hit with some save a buck inspiration, and thought I could strip down some old junk reels and see if I find anything worthwhile. Then I thought I should prioritize which handles go on which reels, and decided to take my Lews custom black handle and put it on my new tatula 100.

 

I then took an old piscifun handle and put that on my lews. I put the tat100 handle on the junk piscifun for now to keep it safe in storage. 

 

I thought I'll swap the red nut plate to the tat just because... and it just hit me that tomorrow I'm going to try to take the red knob cover and see if they'll fit in there too.

 

I'll say the tat100 handle itself was super smooth and quiet, and I might miss that, don't know how noticeable it will be on the water with a lure giving me feedback anyway though. But the replacement knobs, even the cheap piscifun handle, are quiet too, and a lot more comfortable. 

 

I feel like thicker knobs makes it a bit easier for my hand to find them by instinct in the dark after a cast, especially for something you want to start feeling immediately like a buzzbait. 

 

@Delaware Valley Tackle @bulldog1935how tight should I make that handle nut? obviously the plate that locks around it prevents it from slipping anyway, but to line it up i feel like my options are just stopped spinning, or wicked tight to make it around to the next corner of the nut plate. What's the damage risk of over tightening? 

 

The lews knobs are $32 for a set, I feel good about my experiment 

Shim your knobs to remove any play assuming the knob isn't riveted to the handle.

handle nut needs to be a little more than finger-tight - just wrench tight - but not highly torqued.  

Most of these nuts are aluminum alloy, and will strip easily.  

Save the final tightening in case you need it to align the retaining washer screw hole on the handle, to get the retaining screw started.  

 

handy KDW tool I snagged on a Hedgehog order - the socket is 10-mm handle nut

1 hour ago, Bigbox99 said:

riveted

The very comfortable one I bought is, so aggravating 

 

@bulldog1935 so finger tight and then as much as it takes to align the plate is enough right? 

 

I asked about over tightening, but what about under tightening? 

 

Should the handle always end up flush against drag star or do some designs leave a little gap from handle washer to drag star? I should've looked first I suppose but didn't even think to think of that

should be a stack of washers that need to seat, so something like 1/4-turn past hand-tight - I probably got the feel tightening 1000 M5s on bicycle drop-outs

 

if it's under-tight, the handle rocks/ flops - easy.  

I'll get a Pic later of what I'm seeing when I get the chance. I think a couple handles didn't even have a washer underneath. But i was also exhausted and clueless when I started messing around so maybe I missed something. 

@bulldog1935

This is what I meant, pretty significant gap on some reels. This normal? 

 

The lews handle on the tat100 looks basically completely flush, I'm gonna double check if a washer made it's way under there or not

I thought maybe I mixed up washers and that was the issue, I swapped another one with the tat100 - does this look right... or better? 

 

d**n, wish I even thought to think that last night. Anybody have the new tat100 and could send a pic of the washer under the handle to confirm for me?

Here's how it looks now, washer has wings and i aimed them down towards the drag star so it lifts in the middle. 

Not sure if the winged washer was from another reel handle though haha

 

Foolish I know, but I'm not used to playing around like this so didn't even cross my my mind

35 minutes ago, Banned User said:

@bulldog1935

This is what I meant, pretty significant gap on some reels. This normal? 

 

The lews handle on the tat100 looks basically completely flush, I'm gonna double check if a washer made it's way under there or not

Thats normal for reels with a threaded drag star.  The Tatula uses a threaded nut the star can turn but the star itself is free to float on a spring and will take up that gap as the spring pushes the star against the handle.  It's a cosmetic treatment to not have that gap. 

Also back off your drags when you are not using the reels.  You'll cause the spring washers to deform and lose drag pressure on the drag surfaces forcing you to run tighter and tighter drag settings until one day its maxed out and the drag is slipping on hooksets.  You'll also notice that gap on those reels with the threaded drag stars will dissappear when the drag is backed off.

Every reel design is the same - the mainshaft has a slot-stop.  The slotted washer and main shaft bump-stop on the mainshaft stop-shoulder.  

There is a difference in the drag star design between different reels.  

 

Some reels have threads in the drag star direct to main shaft, some have a geometric cap that grabs a separate drag nut. 

If I did't take breakcrumb photos, wouldn't have all these cool photos to share...

My Ryoga - Daiwa uses a nylon shim to fill the gap.  

Most will have some sort of spring washer that fills the gap.  

Note, the gap is controlled by the internal height of the drag stack.  

 

If you want the gap smaller (or want more drag before star threads bottom-out), you install new drag washers, or a spacer washer in the drag stack.  

So it doesn't really matter much if I mix up washers or even don't use a washer it seems then huh? Also, did I misalign the spring while doing all this or am I just hyper aware of my reel now that I'm scrutinizing everything? 

 

When i spin the handle it looks wobbly

the wide part of the slotted spring washer should be pushing down on the drag star (or Daiwa nylon washer)

Watched a couple videos with some good shots of the handle, definitely no gap at all between handle and drag star. Also not wobbly on the spin, gonna try to level out the spring or something and see if that fixes it

10 minutes ago, bulldog1935 said:

wide part of the slotted spring washer

I'm not really sure what you mean. I didn't take the star off or anything, so if that's something underneath I'll have to take a look later. I'm wondering if I let the spring come just a little loose and lose its spot... or maybe it bent it squeezing down to take the handle off? Maybe I'm just going crazy looking too hard. Definitely does a bit of a wave when spinning but maybe it's no big deal

Wobbly drag stars can happen with the floating stars that use the spring.  Its the nature of the design since the star is not captured by the threads of the handle shaft and and can be pushed off center by the spring.  You don't notice it unless you slap the handle and stare at the drag star so it doesn't bother me.  Make sure this spring washer is in between the handle and star with the curved ends towards the star.  That's supposed to help center the star when it is pushed up towards the handle by the spring to reduce that wobble but it can still be wobbly sometimes.

What you’re seeing is normal.  There’s no special spring position or anything. As stated, just snug on the handle nut and position for retainer.