Carbon Fiber?

[wfjord]

I was at my local tackle shop looking through their unmarked loose reel parts and noticed some black drag washers that looked similar to the carbon fiber washers that I've been buying online, except they felt a bit smoother and softer and rather fuzzy around the edges.  They were relatively sturdy, but not quite as rigid feeling as the cf washers I've started using that come from smoothdrag.com.

The sizes were a perfect fit for most of my bait casters and wouldn't even need any trimming, but I'm not sure what these washers are made of.  Could these possibly be carbon fiber ---or asbestos or something else?

[philaroman]

just make sure they're not Dremel cut-off wheels, LOL

[reel man]

I suspect these drags were HT100 carbon fiber material (6-309) that Penn provided in their reels after asbestos drag material was found to be hazardous.  If memory serves me right they had an exclusivity agreement with Bullard, on the east coast, to only sell this (I think was a brake lining) to Penn Reels, but for reasons unknown to me Penn lost that exclusivity so the material came available to other manufactures.  Dawn at Smoooth Drag found this out and put a sizable order with thus the Carbontex was born.  They bought a fine weave, and a rough weave, often bonding them together.  These fit all the Jigmasters, and Newell reels in the 200, 300, and 400 sizes, and a larger size for the 500 & 600 size reels, as well as numerous other reel manufactures as replacements for the stock drags.

A company made the dies for the various sizes which I think is called Pacific Stamping in N. Hollywood, CA.

[sdlehr]

Agree, HT-100 washers have a coarser weave than the washers Dawn sells. I've talked to a few people who have used both and haven't seen a difference in performance in practical, real-life situations. I trust these folks know what they're talking about, but if anyone knows or thinks otherwise this would be a good place to discuss it....

Sid

[wfjord]

Thanks for the info, reel man and Sid.
The weave on the washers in my photo is the same on both sides. On the two smaller size washers I can detect a very thin lighter colored core that the weave is apparently bonded to on each side. It looks like there's a good chance they're the same ones Penn used. I'm definitely going to give them a try in a couple of my reels.

[wfjord]

I put the HT-100 washers in a Shimano casting reel identical to another one that has Carbontex washers.  The washers in both reels are greased with Cal's. So far I can't tell any difference.