13 hours ago, PhishLI said:

The first thing I did when I picked up my first few bait casters was to tear them down for a look inside. The Belleville washers were an obvious-to-me reason to back off my drag, but the main drag washer was too. They're always concave with respect to the drag disc(s) and main gear on what I've encountered, therefore, just like the Bellville washers, they're subject to fatigue and ultimately deformation under pressure.

 

I'm not going to try to prove this is a fact or measurable, but I trust my instincts after decades of R&D, so I back off my drags. Just made sense to me without ever have heard the suggestion made beforehand. If I was able to learn to tie my shoes after untying them the night before, I can remember to re-tighten my drag.

I find it neat that there has even been reels in the past that were designed to be left max lock down drag and they did this removing the bellville washers and replacing them with thicker flat washers.  Without the curved washers to go flat and lose pressure the problem of a loss of drag over time from running high drag pressures doesn't exist 

 

The reel will have zero drag pressure until the drag star is screwed all the way in and then it's max drag at lockdown.  One of the Deps Zillions did this and I think there is a Kastking reel also but you can do this to any baitcast reel.  I've done it to my parts FrankenZillion when I put it back together with junk parts after removing the desirable parts for other reels.   I think it has a Tatula crank shaft with a Fuego CT handle and retainer with one of those little plastic drag stars from a 15 Alphas SV or SS SV103.  I need to get a pic of that abomination. 

I loosen mine when they go back in the box and tighten when they come out. It’s just habit at this point. But honestly most of my reels are fished locked down besides a few treble hook setups so it doesn’t take me much time to tighten to my liking. 

If it's early in the season and I know I might not make it out for a bit, I'll loosen drag. Otherwise I loosen drag at the end of the year.

Randomly watching some fishing videos on youtube and last winter saw a video from Daiwa where the guy recommended loosening them.

 

Went downstairs and did just that.

 

It will get done once a year at the end of the season unless someone highly recommends doing it after each outing.

 

I have a lot of money in some of these combos I don't want to eff them up.

2 hours ago, Bigbox99 said:

I find it neat that there has even been reels in the past that were designed to be left max lock down drag and they did this removing the bellville washers and replacing them with thicker flat washers.  Without the curved washers to go flat and lose pressure the problem of a loss of drag over time from running high drag pressures doesn't exist 

 

 

 

Hmmm... I gotta disagree on some of this.

 

I'm retired now, but I spent some years on the bench working on reels for a shop in central Florida and I have been working on reels for around 45 years now as a hobbiest.

 

A fishing buddy of mine told me one time that he wished for all of his reels to not even have a drag mech in them. Just completely locked down permanently. Its how he fishes. With 50 and 60 pound braid who needs a drag?

 

If a reel were designed to operate in locked down state, then why would it also include a drag mech? My dad's 1940's round reels were built that way. No drag mechs. Handle and spool geared together.

 

One of the reels I recently overhauled for a friend of mine is an old Shimano Bantam Mag Plus 251 I think? Made in 1985. Its now 2025 so 40 years of fishing that reel has worked without servicing or maintenance in all those years. It was falling apart when he handed it to me a few weeks ago. And it had virtually no drag at all. Shimano earned the reputation on reels like this one for sure. Reels made today won't hold up as well.

 

But, one of my jobs as warranty repair tech sitting on the bench working on reels was to adjust tolerances. The drag star is a balancing act. Backed all the way off you want to feel little to almost no drag, and then be able to tighten it down to near lockdown. So a drag stack has to be carefully adjusted.

 

The old Bantam I just overhauled had been kept tightened down for many years and so it was naturally compressed to the point of almost not even having any drag left after trying to tighten it down.

 

But let's take just this one reel. There are 3 places of compression in its drag stack. Well 4 if I count the plastic bushing used as a drive gear bearing where today the AR bearings sit. That plastic bushing can change shape under years of pressure. Not much granted since it is held in by the cover plate, but in the drag stack is one belleville curved washer that can weaken and change shape over time reducing the amount of tightening down that can be achieved. This reel also came with a dartanium 1 drag washer that showed signs of compression with a raised lip around the edge folding up and around the steel key washer compressing it. But under the gear is another washer usually a phenolic washer that can also compress some and donate its loss to the overall total in the drag stack. It is this phenolic washer that dictates where the drive gear and pinion gear align.

 

Keeping drags constantly cranked down tight can over time change how the gear wears because its alignment can change over time due to slight compression. So is it better for the gears one way or another? I prefer to NOT keep compression pressure on that usually phenolic gear aligning "drag" washer. Depending on what this washer is made out of will dictate how much it can move over time if at all. Some may compress. Others might not. Change shape here and your gears alignment will change.

 

So from my perspective there is more in the drag stack that can cause loss of drag over time.

 

I'd like to make a controversial statement at this time concerning drag washers... and please keep in mind this opinion is coming from someone who has worked on reels for various brands at a shop under numerous warranty contracts. So I had to repair reels according to them. And over the years I learn a few things maybe some don't, like did you know that today the most popular material used for drag washers, the cross weave carbon fiber material used today, is NOT even a brake or braking material? How odd is that?

 

That today the most popular braking material used in fishing reels for "drag" is not actually a braking material at all because carbon is a lubricant, and that it is used in a way that is also contrary to braking or adding more drag to the braking mechanism by way of grease.

 

This means we are using a material that is itself a lubricant, and then we apply even more lubricant to it, and then crank down on it and demand that it do braking for us but better stay smooth or else!

 

And, this material does compress, and can actually move around because it contains two elements- carbon fiber woven across each other and glued into place by epoxy. So the top of the curved fibers in the weave can move around freely and do compress.

 

Fishing reel brands have had to cave into this popularized idea of in demand cross weave carbon fiber drag washers and install this same material into their reels in order to help sell them, when in the real world their engineers would never have used such a material in the reels they designed!

 

Just pointing it out...

 

The reason all of it can work is because its use or application is so low demand that its a no harm situation so why not roll with it?

 

A lot of fishermen do not even know or realize that a large number of mass produced fishing reels currently sold and in use across USA today do not even contain real drag washers. Found inside untold numbers of reels is nothing more than commercial pipe gasket material. The blue and sometimes red cardboard drag washers manufacturers use because its so cheap and it can last for years. It also sticks to either the steel key washer or gear. Usually one side gets stuck to something.

 

And if plain old pipe gasket cardboard works fine for years, then surely cross weave carbon fiber will work fine too! It does in bass fishing level reels.

 

But on the great reel repair tech Alan Tani posted photos of what cross weave carbon fiber drag washers look like after trying to slow a huge marlin or 8 foot shark. I've seen cross weave drag washers shredded at the higher demand levels.

 

This is why Shimano puts cross weave into their lower and midline reels, but still use their patented dartanium 2 drag washer material in some of their high end reels. For some reason its acquired a less than stellar reputation and yet it is a brake material specially designed for it.

 

Truth is stranger than fiction and often reality is backwards to how it should be. This might be one of those situations.

 

Its kind of funny and ironic that the cross weave carbon fiber drag washers are made from the same material fishing rods are made from. Look at the rolls of prepeg used to make fishing rods and all it is is an epoxy impregnated cross weave of carbon fibers too. Same thing really. Never knew a fishing rod could also be a drag washer!

 

And for the record, I always back off my drags after every use. Not saying what is right or wrong, but keep that 40 year old reel mentioned above in mind as an example of what does and can happen over time.

 

I added a second belleville or "C" spring washer as Shimano calls them (two new ones) opposed the single one the reel came with. This added back in the necessary drag stack to bring that drag star back into balance once a new drag washer was installed.

1 hour ago, GReb said:

I loosen mine when they go back in the box and tighten when they come out. It’s just habit at this point. But honestly most of my reels are fished locked down besides a few treble hook setups so it doesn’t take me much time to tighten to my liking. 

 

At the end of the season you take your reels off and put them back in their boxes?

 

Dang.   

5 minutes ago, HawkeyeSmallie said:

 

At the end of the season you take your reels off and put them back in their boxes?

 

Dang.   

End of season? You northerners are deprived souls. 

8 minutes ago, GReb said:

You northerners are deprived souls. 

 

1 hour ago, FloridaFishinFool said:

If a reel were designed to operate in locked down state, then why would it also include a drag mech?

I assume to protect the A/R bearing and to use existing components.  Deps doesn't make reels so much as they make custom versions of reels.  In the case of the Deps Zillion they were limited to working with existing Daiwa parts and the Zillion used a conventional drag.  It also meets the requirements of a reel that is meant to be used with a locked down drag all the time without damage to the drag components (belleville washers) because it doesn't have them.  Once the reel is assembled the drag stack is pressed together then it lives that way at lockdown forever.  With a normal a reel left at max lockdown for years on end with belleville washers to apply pressure on the drag stack the washers can deform and take to the flattened state resulting in decreasing pressure on the drag stack over time.   

The bait casting reel drag is a mechanical clutch designed to slip to prevent breaking line or the rod. The Belleville washer is conical shape with the outside diameter face down or using 2 conical washer one is face down the other face up so they don’t nest. If you flatten out a conical washer it can turn inside out or loose its temper and remain a flat washer. If you lock down the drag so the clutch doesn’t slip you can damage the disk and washers.

You pay money to have a state of the art drag system that slips evenly throughout the pressure applied. You want to spool the spool from spinning clamp your thumb down on the spool. Bass don’t run very far or fast, the will turn under pressure, it’s their nature to make fast turns, very difficult to over power a big bass with MH or H bass rods.

Loosening the drag increases the mechanism functional life to operate smoothly. Replacing drag disk isn’t expensive just a few dollars from Smooth Drags and if you lock down your drag suggest changing the disk annually.

A MH bass rod bottoms out about 5 lbs drag force, 7 lbs for Heavy bass rods no reason the lock down your drags.

Tom

Very interesting, thanks @FloridaFishinFool.

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I don't have an off season as we don't have hardly any ice here. I normally keep my drags pretty loose though becuase I rarely use anything over 12 pound test mono, and more normally 8 and 10.

 

So with light to moderate pressure, how much damage does the drag incur by not being loosened when not in use?