Time to go through my reels and was wondering if there is a way to remove the brake dums from the side plates? Would make it easear to polish with them out.

Thanks.

The schematic for your reel will show you how far it is dessigned to be taken down. Unless the drum is beat up I'd suggest cleaning it with denatured alcohol and then applying a very light coat of oil. This should be all it needs.

Most are "press fit," but removing them often damages the palm side plate.

Thank you for the information but I like to take reels I clean and relube and polish the friction points.

DVT, polishing the drum is one of the best things you can do to a reel with centrifugal brakes. I did several of mine; when I had such reels. After polishing, you can usually go down one setting. If you normally used three brakes, you can go down to two, get smoother braking and better distance. If you have such a reel yourself, try it. You'll like it, I promise you.

For you Quantum PT owners, this will reduce the brake noise by at least 50%. I know; I had several 600 and 700 series PT's, and the brake whine really annoyed me. Polishing the drum made them much quieter.

I used to have a pair of E7 Curados. Polishing the brake drum improved them also. Ditto Johhny Morris reels. Ditto Patriarchs. Every reel I did this to benefited from the effort.

DO NOT use sandpaper of any kind. Use a Dremel, soft felt wheel and ultra-fine polishing compound. The red stuff that comes with the Dremel polishing kit works nicely.

Keep a cold, soaked paper towel handy. The drum will get too hot to handle without it.

DVT, polishing the drum is one of the best things you can do to a reel with centrifugal brakes. I did several of mine; when I had such reels. After polishing, you can usually go down one setting. If you normally used three brakes, you can go down to two, get smoother braking and better distance. If you have such a reel yourself, try it. You'll like it, I promise you.

For you Quantum PT owners, this will reduce the brake noise by at least 50%. I know; I had several 600 and 700 series PT's, and the brake whine really annoyed me. Polishing the drum made them much quieter.

I used to have a pair of E7 Curados. Polishing the brake drum improved them also. Ditto Johhny Morris reels. Ditto Patriarchs. Every reel I did this to benefited from the effort.

DO NOT use sandpaper of any kind. Use a Dremel, soft felt wheel and ultra-fine polishing compound. The red stuff that comes with the Dremel polishing kit works nicely.

Keep a cold, soaked paper towel handy. The drum will get too hot to handle without it.

Yup, I agree that polishing the brake drum improves the performance. I do that as part of my "Super Tune" service. I've seen so many butchered "Tuning" attempts I'm hesitant to encourage the practice without exhausting other options. Your point about not sanding is right on.

Didn't say I was doing any sanding just polishing.

ghoti how are you removing the brake drums?

revoman, don't know what reels you're talking about. Look inside the drum. If there are small screws there, the drum may be removable. If not, then you'll have to ploish it in place. It's been a while, but I seem to remember that the drums in the Curados did not come out, the drums in the Patriarchs did, the drums in the PT's came out for sure. The Revos I had were the original STX models, and had no drums; they were magnetics.

If there aren't any screws don't try to force it out. Some are pressed in, some with some type of adhesive, and you'll likely damage the sideplate and/or the drum trying to remove one of these.

For those reels with non-removable drums I used a very thin, larger diameter felt wheel. Then scrubbed with a stiff toothbrush, multiple times to get all the compound out.