Pinion Bushing Instead Of Bearing

Rivverrat · July 03, 2015, 05:16:49 AM

Has any one tried a bushing in place of a bearing in a lever drag? I cant be the only one who's thought about it.

Bryan Young · July 03, 2015, 05:58:44 AM

Quote from: Rivverrat on July 03, 2015, 05:16:49 AM
Has any one tried a bushing in place of a bearing in a lever drag? I cant be the only one who's thought about it.

Alan and I discussed it then realized that a bearing is needed because the pinion gear spins and it would be difficult to turn the handle if a bushing is used.

Rivverrat · July 03, 2015, 07:36:48 AM

Brian, we have that same thing with some spool spindles. Am I missing something?
Cheap to try. I may give it a whirl.....Jeff

Fish-aholic · July 03, 2015, 02:16:02 PM

Bushings are best used to help support rotating shafts within it's ID. They are no good in places where rotation is also needed under the duress of axial loads, as per the case with LD reels.

johndtuttle · July 03, 2015, 02:43:49 PM

Quote from: Fish-aholic on July 03, 2015, 02:16:02 PM
Bushings are best used to help support rotating shafts within it's ID. They are no good in places where rotation is also needed under the duress of axial loads, as per the case with LD reels.

^^This.

You can polish bushings and get quite good performance for the spinning side of things. But if you put an axial load on it then it rapidly becomes a drag washer.

This is what you do with regular bearingsin most LD reels too of course....it's just that they remain free spinning until the cage deflection becomes too great and then bearing damage and handle binding result.

Alto Mare · July 03, 2015, 03:24:17 PM

maybe a good idea to combine the two, they might play nice together $:-\$ .

Rivverrat · July 03, 2015, 06:43:30 PM

Bushing with thrust bearing on both sides?

After some thought this would be far from great also.

I have thought a lot in the past regarding what Sal brings up combining a bushing & bearing. I'm also wondering if a step in diameter in the shaft in the transition from one to the other would help in some way. Just thinking out loud.

Some times I think that thoughts along these lines are a waste. But I'm reminded this simply is not true. When one looks at the gun industry & dealing with the pressures of new cartridges in semi auto.....Also even here on this forum there is Sal & others improving the performance several levels using ANTIQUE GEAR

& surpassing in some instances the performance of reels made today in the same class.
So I will continue to believe these mental & mechanical gymnastics are a worth while endeavor.

The lever drag has far to many benefits for me not to use it for my end goal of a record size fish. The high maintenance compared to other makes of reels is of course it's weakness. That is why I bring this up...Jeff

Keta · July 03, 2015, 08:27:43 PM

Quote from: Rivverrat on July 03, 2015, 06:43:30 PM
Bushing with thrust bearing on both sides?

One side, you don't want the plane bearing (bushing) turning.

The real cure is to find a source for affordable angular contact bearings.

Rivverrat · July 03, 2015, 08:49:10 PM

Keta, I do believe that at some point the wide use of an angular contact bearing is coming. I have often wondered what the hold up is. As soon as I can find the size of the pinion bearing for my A-Series 12 I'm going to start looking to see whats available & the cost. Being that I don't fish salt water. I'm thinking I can get away with chrome-molly or carbon steel. Should help make it cheaper.

My tools & dial gauge are some distance from me any one know the size of this bearing please let me know.

johndtuttle · July 03, 2015, 09:17:27 PM

Quote from: Rivverrat on July 03, 2015, 08:49:10 PM
Keta, I do believe that at some point the wide use of an angular contact bearing is coming. I have often wondered what the hold up is. As soon as I can find the size of the pinion bearing for my A-Series 12 I'm going to start looking to see whats available & the cost. Being that I don't fish salt water. I'm thinking I can get away with chrome-molly or carbon steel. Should help make it cheaper.

My tools & dial gauge are some distance from me any one know the size of this bearing please let me know.

Bearings are one of the ultimate volume manufactured commodities. If you can use 10,000 of them then the price comes down a bit. For a 100,000 units then the tooling starts to pay off (numbers out of thin air but you get the idea).

Some standard bearing we see all the time is probably produced in the hundreds of thousands of units from a single factory and sold worldwide.

Avet's number they need for a saltwater resistant angular contact bearing are pretty far down the road from that...and the cost would probably only add a very small number of additional sales to them.

The Penn answer has been the thrust bearing assembly, but I have no insight as to how they figure in the cost equation. But truly, the cost is the spool redesign to accommodate it all and make it work. I bet Avet et al are doing their homework on it right now.

Someone around here plugged in some cheap chrome angular contact bearings into a reel....I don't recall how that turned out?

jurelometer · July 03, 2015, 10:01:30 PM

FWIW- Standard ball bearings can handle misalignment much better than angular contact bearings. There is a lot of misalignment going on inside of fishing reels.

Rivverrat · July 03, 2015, 10:13:52 PM

John I have been wondering when or if Avet is going to do something in regards to this. They are probably the one that has the biggest need for it. Their HX Raptor is the one reel that I hear more praise than insult about.
I have a friend that fishes Avet reels. He loves them. He is quite content to fish them in their sweet spot. He has little issue with them. Accept at times desiring a bit more usable drag level. Even in some of the Raptor series he wishes they had a bit more. Or better stated wish they could make better use of what they produce in the upper range. He did have an issue with heavy sinkers & their effect on bearings in the little SX.

johndtuttle · July 03, 2015, 10:34:03 PM

Quote from: Rivverrat on July 03, 2015, 10:13:52 PM
John I have been wondering when or if Avet is going to do something in regards to this. They are probably the one that has the biggest need for it. There HX Raptor is the one reel that I hear more praise than insult about.
I have a friend that fishes Avet reels. He loves them. He is quite content to fish them in their sweet spot. He has little issue with them. Accept at times desiring a bit more usable drag level. Even in some of the Raptor series he wishes they had a bit more. Or better stated wish they could make better use of what they produce in the upper range. He did have an issue with heavy sinkers & their effect on bearings in the little SX.

The thing is the redesign is probably deferred till Avet actually feels the pain in sales. The cost of the actual engineering process is not inconsiderable and that has deferred this issue in the past. R and D at these companies is not someone using their spare time...it is a budget item by people that are paid to do it.

An Avet is an outstanding reel for the open water live bait fishing that is the norm in Avet's primary market and if you talk to them there is no problem at all with their reels for the coin (they do have a good point there for a Made in USA reel). Don't push an Avet too hard, grease it up and they last forever.

But it's just really weird to take a reel offshore and then worry about pushing it to full if you felt the need....totally counter-logical when Tuna are around (they get big in all the waters you fish for them, if less common some places than others) or when fishing yellows on the bottom etc...but I am sure they are feeling some squeeze with all the competition.

Who knows?

Robert Janssen · July 03, 2015, 11:00:34 PM

FWIW I spent some time and effort on the Avet MXL Angular Contact bearing question a while back. Not really as a matter of personal concern, but just to put an end to the incessant debating about it. (admittedly, I also aspired to make a potentially lucrative little business of it)

I procured the almost impossible-to-find expensive angular contact bearings of the correct size, as well as thrust bearings, and tested them in a very detailed, exact, scientific method in several different configurations, intending to write a big long post with a lot of pics about it, but never did. Yet.

The thing is, that it really didn't make much difference. The end result was that it did not improve performance much.

I still have one more thing to try there, but just haven't gotten to it yet.

This all doesn't really have relevance to the original question of this thread, but anyway...

Quote from: Rivverrat on July 03, 2015, 05:16:49 AM
Has any one tried a bushing in place of a bearing in a lever drag? I cant be the only one who's thought about it.

Yes. Many years ago. It doesn't work.

Depends on where in the reel you mean, of course... I don't think anyone has asked that. The Ambassadeur 6600LD has a bushing too.

.

Rivverrat · July 03, 2015, 11:36:54 PM

Quote from: jurelometer on July 03, 2015, 10:01:30 PM
FWIW- Standard ball bearings can handle misalignment much better than angular contact bearings. There is a lot of misalignment going on inside of fishing reels.

I believe this is very much a non issue when dealing with reels such as the Andros & others that use a cross pin in the main shaft. This pretty much negates any alignment issue. Being that they are self aligning.