The Jigmaster Project

Started by Rothmar2, April 30, 2015, 10:51:52 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Tightlines667

#195
Can't wait to see some pictures of the 'schoolies'.  

Do you have a GoPro?
*Video of your bite would be even greater.  

Hope I am not jinxing the trip here ???
Hope springs eternal
for the consumate fishermen.

Alto Mare

Chris, those look like they mean business, can't wait for the report...no pressure :)
Forget about all the reasons why something may not work. You only need to find one good reason why it will.

Rothmar2

No Go-Pro for me John, although the guy I'm fishing with films a bit with the Sony Cams, but doesn't edit much tuna footage, concentrates on swordfish clips.
I'm sensing y'all seeking a "Tankesque" style report.....gotta see how the trip pans out.

Rothmar2

#198
Bit of an update here. 2017 has not been the greatest of years for me so far, work stress (too much), and moving around jobs, has not let me get a great deal done on this project. But there has been a bit going on behind the scenes, which I will add in time. Another Jigmaster frame and reel has been almost completed, some other parts have been made, and there has been some fishing done with these reels as well! Quite hard fishing too, which has tested these reels to the limit, and limits have been reached to the point of failure in a particular case.
For now, I have a LOT of thread post rebuilding to do,thanks to the photobucket debarcle. In this thread alone, there are approx 200+ photos. And I have other threads to repair as well. Which is going to take a lot of time. So far I have uploaded over 500 photos onto the forum Gallery, and probably still have 100-150 more to upload to rebuild all the threads and posts I have done here over the years. A big shout out to Alan T and the moderators for allowing me gallery access. I fully intend to restore as much of the photos as possible.
In the meantime, here is a little taste of what will come, but can one of the moderators please tell me how to rotate images for posting PLEASE!



thorhammer

Yes please do moderators. This looks like a left handed piece of art lol


Chris always love your posts. Hate you are reloading everything but I fir one appreciate it.  That great work has to live on. 

Decker

Quote from: Rothmar2 on August 30, 2017, 11:37:37 PM
In the meantime, here is a little taste of what will come, but can one of the moderators please tell me how to rotate images for posting PLEASE!

I honestly don't know why photo orientation gets wrong sometimes when uploading.  it happens to me, with a photo taken from my iPhone, transfer it to my PC, and post it.  I'll look into this and see if I can come up with reliable instructions.

In the meantime, I fixed the pic inyour post by downloading the photo, rotating it in Windows Photos (Win10) and uploading it again.

Tiddlerbasher

Yep! That's all I ever do Joe - Windows Photo viewer - Win7 and 10 and I think Vista (cough spit retch ;))

Decker

I found some information and started a thread about photo orientation: http://alantani.com/index.php?topic=22793.0

Rothmar2

Thanks for the fix Joe, I think I have the hang of it.

Now to get this thread up to date. As in a previous post, while this year hasn't allowed me much time to invest in this project, there has still been progress in several ways.
I have been trying to keep up with other related projects for others who have showed me great generosity over the course of this journey.

Here is the 501N kit I did for Mike, alongside another 501 frame I was doing for a mate of mine in Tas.



A bunch of the ongoing projects as they stood earlier this year. The 501N kit is mixed up in this lot, with my "Frankenjiggy" plates mounted to it. Was using those plates as the crash test dummy before trying the Cortez Plates. There is a Cortez Squidder kit here, which will be the subject of a future thread. Without giving too much away, Tom H is a very generous class act....



Now some serious fishing has been done with these reels. My most recent trip away at work, I was able to give my Cortez Jiggy, and my mates 501 a real workout. Water depths 250-300', and bottom bouncing for various fish species. The sharks were arguably the biggest overall test, with both reels slugging it out with multiple whalers up to 7', and they both pulled up quite large leopard sharks, that would have weighed 150-200lb, although they fight like a garbage bag full of water. Sorry, not too many pics to add here.
A couple of Red Emperor.....



Chinaman Fish, also known as "Gallopers" for good reason, they punch well above their weight....



But the biggest test (and surprise!) came on my mates 501 one night. It has all Pro Challenger internals,4:1 gears, and spool.
I had caught a couple of small snapper-like fish, not quite 2lb each, and had quickly whipped them up from the depths. I was casually cranking what a thought was a third one, when it got monstered halfway up. My first thought was "Another bl___y shark!", but after a couple of headshakes, within seconds I'm relieved of 200+m of 50lb braid, and with a calm ocean, and near full moon, we can clearly see a reasonable sized billfish of some sort going beserk. We had seen a few free swimming around the boat during the days leading up to this encounter. But to actually have hooked one in the dark was quite a shock. Now the little jiggy handled this fish with ease. Yes it got quite hot, and yes, there was a noticeable bit of drag fade, but the reel at no point felt compromised. Whatever it was (more than likely a small black marlin or sailfish) soon stopped crashing all over the place, and sounded, and I began to get line steadily back. Unfortunately, being on a 98m vessel with a draught of 8m, was always going to cause some problems with manouvering, and the fish found its way under the ship, and the line ended up rubbing against the hull and breaking. I firmly believe that if this fish was hooked from a more nimble vessel, it would have been landed. When I opened the reel up after, the PC parts all still looked like new. I had around 12-14lb initial drag set. I also had one of the composite delrin spacer sleeves I have made fitted under the drag star, and that also survived intact. Big ups for the Pro Challenger parts! Now I know there are no pictures to back this tale up, but there is a new forum member here, who has now caught the Jigmaster upgrade bug since witnessing this event. Adam feel free to pipe up if necessary ;D. The only thing that put me off, was the stainless handle I made. The hollow ends were not comfortable, so ended up making some black PVC caps to round off the ends. So this is how this reel looked when handed over to my mate when I arrived home. Well broken in I think!



Now for the failure. I was breaking in the Cortez 501 in on another night, and had caught a couple of Red Emps, and had a bit of a stoush with a shark which was released. I was in the process if battling another reasonable fish, when there was a "tick" from the reel, and suddenly its jammed solid.....(!) Whatever was on the other end, got monstered by a shark, and now I'm trying to not get pulled over the side! Thankfully the line parted, but even then I had to support the spool from both sides and roll the spool with my fingers to get the remaining line back, something has seriously let go.
Opened the reel up to find this....



Drag was probably 16-18lb. A couple of PM's to Mike, who forwarded through to Randy (Vintage Offshore Tackle), and some pics of the failure point, also sent to Tiburon, and Randy has it covered! Huge thanks to you Randy and Tiburon for the replacement! Would never get that sort of integrity and generosity out here in Australia. This failure in no way reflects on Randy or Tiburon as to the quality of their parts. Can put it down to, these things occasionally happen. I swapped the PC spool from my mates reel into the Cortez for the remainder of the trip, and had no further problems.
  Soon after I get home, the spool arrives. Obviously I have been very inspired by Striper Lou's art, and just had to give it a go myself! Yes, that handle does not look in proportion to the reel. But I have big hands, and I'm "function before fashion" every day of the week. Looking forward to getting out and fishing this reel again soon.





This thread is not over by a long shot, still much more to do!

Alto Mare

Chris, this thread keeps getting better and better, I didn't think it could :). Interesting, on the capability of the custom Jigmaster, but at the same time, I'm not surprised.
When these gears came out, prior to manufacturing, Alan was having a hard time finding the carbon fiber washers that could handle the load. Along the way, I've destroyed many sheets for him, when I finally got close to 20lbs, Alan said that wasn't good enough, he wanted a little more. So here you have it.
We now have some good upgrades to enjoy.
I do hope one day you'll Meet up again with that Billfish.
Excellent report Chris!

About that snapped spool shaft from Tiburon, you've said it. Tiburon has been around for some time now, this appears to be just a fluke, this type of thing could happen to any manufacturer.

It was nice to see Randy get right on it and make it right.
I was customizing one of these reels for a friend and the Tiburon or Accurate spool...I don't remember which, wasn't working with the reel. Randy sent out a replacement spool within days.
Keep up your great service Randy!

Thanks for sharing Chris.

Sal
Forget about all the reasons why something may not work. You only need to find one good reason why it will.

Rothmar2

No problem Sal, the least I can do is share my experiences with these parts in a real fishing situation, as you have done with your testing over the years. I forgot to add that the 501 that had the billfish on, has a stock HT 100 and stock stainless washer 3 stack in it. The Penn star was screwed down as tight as possible to give the drag numbers quoted earlier. I don't think any more would be possible.
The Cortez has the 5 stack I made myself, thicknesses quoted earlier in this thread. The CF sheet I punched the drags from was bought from an EBay seller located in Australia. Those CF washers are still in good condition. I have tested that stack and have achieved  20lb against a set of scales, but that is beyond what was recently needed, and is more than I could handle without a harness for any length of time.
Looking forward to seeing how these reels put the skids on the bluefin Tuna down here. Will hopefully be able to post a report of that up soon.

Alto Mare

Oh I see Chris, I thought those were the 112 HX. With the exception of the six years, those are the same gears. I'm wondering if you would have had an easier time if you did have those instead.
Keep up your great work here.

All the best,

Sal
Forget about all the reasons why something may not work. You only need to find one good reason why it will.

Tightlines667

Nice report!

It is great to hear of the successes, and possible limitations of using these 'works of art'.  Surprising the spool shaft broke.  I don't believe these spools were not designed to be fished at these numbers, but they sure should be able to take them.

Sounds like you had plenty of action.  A night billfish hookup/fight is impressive.  I have heard of some East Coast guys actually trolling for white marlin at night, with some success.  I tried night trolling lighted moldcraft and only caught sharks.  I suppose the 'midnight sun' style lights help.to attract and hold bait/squid, and provide daytime oriented predators with enough light to feed by. 

Nice work!

John
Hope springs eternal
for the consumate fishermen.

mo65

   BRAVO! Great fishin'...I love when these custom builds get fished.
~YOU CAN TUNA GEETAR...BUT YOU CAN'T TUNA FEESH~


Penn Chronology

QuoteBut the biggest test (and surprise!) came on my mates 501 one night. It has all Pro Challenger internals,4:1 gears, and spool.
I had caught a couple of small snapper-like fish, not quite 2lb each, and had quickly whipped them up from the depths. I was casually cranking what a thought was a third one, when it got monstered halfway up. My first thought was "Another bl___y shark!", but after a couple of headshakes, within seconds I'm relieved of 200+m of 50lb braid, and with a calm ocean, and near full moon, we can clearly see a reasonable sized billfish of some sort going beserk. We had seen a few free swimming around the boat during the days leading up to this encounter. But to actually have hooked one in the dark was quite a shock. Now the little jiggy handled this fish with ease. Yes it got quite hot, and yes, there was a noticeable bit of drag fade, but the reel at no point felt compromised. Whatever it was (more than likely a small black marlin or sailfish) soon stopped crashing all over the place, and sounded, and I began to get line steadily back. Unfortunately, being on a 98m vessel with a draught of 8m, was always going to cause some problems with manouvering, and the fish found its way under the ship, and the line ended up rubbing against the hull and breaking. I firmly believe that if this fish was hooked from a more nimble vessel, it would have been landed. When I opened the reel up after, the PC parts all still looked like new. I had around 12-14lb initial drag set. I also had one of the composite delrin spacer sleeves I have made fitted under the drag star, and that also survived intact. Big ups for the Pro Challenger parts! Now I know there are no pictures to back this tale up, but there is a new forum member here, who has now caught the Jigmaster upgrade bug since witnessing this event. Adam feel free to pipe up if necessary Grin. The only thing that put me off, was the stainless handle I made. The hollow ends were not comfortable, so ended up making some black PVC caps to round off the ends. So this is how this reel looked when handed over to my mate when I arrived home. Well broken in I think!

Fantastic test and proof that your workmanship and design is amazing. Great job!!