MAGNUM 500 - PENN JIGMASTER

[David Hall]

One more view of this little monster.  Your basic 50 dollar jigmaster with every upgrade hot rod mod known.
The accurate 4:1 gears are smooth even dry, the double dogs engage beautifully.  Alan hit a home run with this new bridge it is well worth the wait.  Matched up with his 10 tooth sleeve there is no better aftermarket drop in upgrade.

[steelhead_killer]

 :oWOW

[PacRat]

David,
If you decide to mill your drive side bearing pocket you will need to bevel the edge of your bridge plate to prevent contact with the spool flange. I just finished mine and she's nice and quiet now.
-Mike

[David Hall]

Mike Are you bevelling it on the spool side?

Andy, thanks it looks like your black widows brother!

[Black Pearl]

David,
If you decide to mill your drive side bearing pocket you will need to bevel the edge of your bridge plate to prevent contact with the spool flange. I just finished mine and she's nice and quiet now.
-Mike

Hi Mike,

Can you show a picture of it?

Thanks,
--Alan

[PacRat]

Yep, spool side. The contact was very minimal and the contact line on the spool flange was finer than a hair. You could probably get away with just breaking the edge a little because it's sharp. I decided to do a full bevel just incase the spool flange were to spread a little. I appreciate tight tolerances but they can get you in trouble too. I want it to be tight in all the right places and loose in all the right places too.
-Mike

[PacRat]

Alan,
I'll take photos tomorrow when I have better light. I think this will only be an issue with the Magnums as Sal pointed out. Much tighter quarters inside the 500 size spool flanges. The bevel seems to fix that though. I haven't put one in Tom's 4/0 yet but I plan to. I also plan to put one in a Pro Gear, Damn...I didn't buy enough.
-Mike

[David Hall]

Alan this mod will likely only be needed when two things happen.
1. Your installing it on a jigmaster accurate magnum side plate.
2. Your particular side plate needs to have the bearing cup milled deeper because the spool won't centre properly between the side plates.  As a note I have 4 of these side reels and have this issue on only one of them and it's not as bad as what Mike had on his reel.
Milling the bearing pocket moves the side bearing outboard on the drive side, this also allows the spool to move outboard on the same side so it engages deeper into the side plate.  This crowds the inside flange of the spool onto the bridge, whatever clearance there was between the edge of the bridge and the bridge screws and the inside flange of the spool is decreased by whatever the distance you mill out the bearing cup. 
I'm glad we have Mike working this out, I'd never have thought of it!

[Black Pearl]

Alan,
I'll take photos tomorrow when I have better light. I think this will only be an issue with the Magnums as Sal pointed out. Much tighter quarters inside the 500 size spool flanges. The bevel seems to fix that though. I haven't put one in Tom's 4/0 yet but I plan to. I also plan to put one in a Pro Gear, Damn...I didn't buy enough.
-Mike

You can always get it from SmoothDrag.....

[Black Pearl]

I was just dry fitting the maingear and checking clearances around the dogs, I noticed when the bridge is placed into the side plate, it does stick up a bit.  I don't know that this is going to be an issue but I think I might take your observation and ease the edge of the plate just to see if it sets lower into the sideplate.
First I'm going to check the spool centering in the frame, with the bearings in place and assembled.
Here's the new bridge and gear stack with insert all dry fit.
I moved on to assemble the right side plate.  During installing the eccentric spring I had a first ever occurrence, the spring slipped out of my pliers under tension of course and I vaguely caught the blur as it flew up past my face nearly touching the garage ceiling and zipping across the room and hitting a piece of cardboard,  hmm fortunately for me there are only 5300 cardboard boxes in my garage, I should locate it by August!  Okay time out for me, my mind is muddled and beleive it or not, the doctors have me on a five pound weight restriction, I discovered it takes more than five pounds to compress an eccentric spring and wiggle it into position.  Will get back to it later.

And you forgot to buy the stainless steel jack for it.

[David Hall]

Hah!
You noticed, I checked your website and couldn't find It?
I had to put the original brass one back in!

[Black Pearl]

Hah!
You noticed, I checked your website and couldn't find It?
I had to put the original brass one back in!

It is there and under "Penn Senator Custom Part" section.

[PacRat]

David,
You want a Jigmaster/112 eccentric jack for a Magnum. I had a brass Jigmaster jack in mine and the tip of the eccentric spring was gouging into the brass jack so I polished the tip of the spring and changed the brass jack for a stainless PC Jigmaster jack and it's nice and smooth now.
-Mike

[PacRat]

Alan,
Here's some photos of what I removed to get the double dog bridge to fit a Magnum 500. After this edge was removed everything went together good with no contact or binding. I used PC gears also and they feel great. Nice and tight and getting very quiet. I did use a brass peel shim under the gear-sleeve to tighten up the end-play a bit. This is a little snug right now but I'm anticipating it loosening as it breaks in. If not, I'll peel another layer or polish the bottom of the gear sleeve a little. I'm very satisfied with this little beast. I need to get line on her so I can get some drag numbers. I put Bryan's 7+1 stack in it minus the under-gear washer which I substituted a delrin washer for as per Sal's advice. The only fit issue I had with the gear/drag was that Bryan's eared washers were a bit tight in the PC gear. A couple of quick passes with a stone on the ear tips and they dropped right in.

Okay so here's the photos of the bridge.

You can see just how tight this is in a Jigmaster size reel.


I used black marker so you can see how much material I removed.


I went less than half the thickness of the plate.

[David Hall]

Thanks Mike and Alan, I'll get that jack ordered up today.
Mike, what tooling did you use to mill out your bearing pocket?
Thanks for the pictures on bevelling the bridge, simple enough to do on my disc sander.