Aluminum Jig Master side plate sets

[STRIPER LOU]

I'm with you on that one John!!!!! That combo would be a knockout.
....................Lou

[Aiala]

Well, I actually am getting a custom-built rod (my upcoming birthday present!) but it's for a different reel. For now, my Cortez beauty will ride on a cherry 7-foot Fenwick Pacificstik Supreme 670C 30-50lb:



With those turquoise-and-black wraps over the honey-colored blank, I think it'll look positively bodacious!   

~A~

[Alto Mare]

Nice Aiala. Give me a call if you need to get rid of those Fenwicks when you get your custom builts .

[Tightlines667]

Can't wait to see the finished rod

[thorhammer]

 Ma'am, (and we already discussed "ma'am" as you will recall, I hereby indite you on charges of sandbagging..  Who sits on those cherry sticks without telling us? I always loved those and actually am wrapping a couple on that scheme.  Nicely done!!!!

J

[Aiala]

Nice, Aiala. Give me a call if you need to get rid of those Fenwicks when you get your custom builts.

I'll bear it in mind, Sal. They do match up wonderfully with a 970.   

~A~

[Shark Hunter]

Very Nice Aiala.

[David Hall]

really pops with all those bright colours, I like it.

[Maxed Out]

Aiala, you outdid yourself again with another home run. 


    Ted

[Tightlines667]

Well, I actually am getting a custom-built rod (my upcoming birthday present!) but it's for a different reel....

Aiala,

Don't forget to keep.us in the loop on this one.  I for one am excited to see the final product.

John

[Tightlines667]

I just reread this thread, and am a bit embarrassed to share that I ran into some considerable difficulty getting all the parts to marry and perform as I would have liked.  I had dog clearance issues when using the second gen SS sleeves, (easily remedied), and problems with the inner diameter of the PC 5:1 pinion being a bit too tight on an older Tiburon spool.  The SS jack seemed a bit sticky, and seemed to bind a bit on the pinion (if/when the pinion was not perfectly square.  I noticed the jack has the ability to move ever so slightly side to side.  For some reason the jack/pinion assembly just didn'the seem to hold the pinion square and smart to the maingear.  I messed around with different stock and aftermarket Jacks and yokes, and tried different spool/main body assemblies with mixed results.  The plates are beautifully crafted and clearly have tight tollerances, and plenty of 'headspace' above the drag stack (I ended up using a shortened and fitted spacer, and a heavy spring washer over a delron on top, and an identical  (same size as Sal's) undergear washer.  The ProChallenger SS gears are clearly well made, and mesh well with one another, but it seems these 5:1 gears require a bit tighter fit then the 4:1 set, or the very first prototype 5:1 gears, and the inner diameter of the pinion is just a bit tight for some spools.  The SS gears are always a bit noisy at first, and tend to quite down with use, but I just had trouble getting all of the pieces to fit.  Stock spool worked great, stock headplate parts worked great, modified drag worked great, and te double dog bridges was clicking away, and engaging solidly with no unwanted binding.  I just wonder if using the fitted spacer, with te bridge moved the maingear ever so slightly away from te pinion, and the 5:1 pinion with smaller teeth, was just not seated quite close enough or square to the main, when the jack/yoke assembly was engaged?  I eventually got the performance I was after, but it just seemed a bit more 'finacy' then some of the other JM builds I have done. 

Anyways, I got the job done, and the reels off my bench (no pictures available), but I am not 100% confident in my results (a rare event indeed). 

Looks like everyone else who posted on their builds here, had only minor issues (dog adjustment, dog post clearance, pinion/spool shaft polishing, minor yoke polish/adjustment) and we're able to sort them quickly.

Has anyone else experienced any troubles with their Jigmaster builds that havn't yet been duscussed?

I hesitate to bring up my issues (bumpy slipping gears, poor freespool, tight and rough winding/esp. Under pressure).  I think I eventually got them sorted, and I am sure had I been willing to deviate away from any one of the aftermarket components I installed, the trouble would have been much less. 

Maybe I was just a bit tired and not thinking clearly or something, but it seemed as soon as I solved one problem, I had another, then another to deal with. 

These plates are beautiful, and I love all of the aftermarket components available for these Penns, but they are not always just plug-and-play.  I enjoy the customizing part, and realize this entails tweaking buts and pieces to get the well oiled performance machine you envisioned, but sometimes it goes smoothly, and sometimes it doesn't. 

Sorry for the long rant, better get back after the Internationals on my bench

[sdlehr]

The SS jack seemed a bit sticky, and seemed to bind a bit on the pinion (if/when the pinion was not perfectly square.  I noticed the jack has the ability to move ever so slightly side to side.  For some reason the jack/pinion assembly just didn'the seem to hold the pinion square and smart to the maingear.

John, I don't think this is likely to be your problem, but check the eccentric spring and see if the tip that passes through the eccentric is sticking up far enough to contact the eccentric jack and move it sideways..... I had a hard time finding what was causing my problem a few months ago. The clutch mechanism would shift once and then get stuck. The spring was moving the eccentric jack just far enough from the proper position to cause it to jam and not shift. My solution (I later found a reference to the same problem from Sal) was just to grind the spring down flush with the eccentric.

Oh, and BTW, the Jigmaster pinion doesn't always stay square when you shift without the spool spindle in the pinion gear; You can hold it square with your finger and it will shift smoothly. You know (but some newbs may not) that the spindle passes through the pinion gear, and that pinion gear behaves differently when there is a spindle in it as compared to when there is not. Sal tells me you can ruin a pinion gear by repeatedly jamming it up against the bridge like that.

Hope that helps.



Sid

[Alto Mare]

The SS jack seemed a bit sticky, and seemed to bind a bit on the pinion (if/when the pinion was not perfectly square.  I noticed the jack has the ability to move ever so slightly side to side.  For some reason the jack/pinion assembly just didn'the seem to hold the pinion square and smart to the maingear.

John, I don't think this is likely to be your problem, but check the eccentric spring and see if the tip that passes through the eccentric is sticking up far enough to contact the eccentric jack and move it sideways..... I had a hard time finding what was causing my problem a few months ago. The clutch mechanism would shift once and then get stuck. The spring was moving the eccentric jack just far enough from the proper position to cause it to jam and not shift. My solution (I later found a reference to the same problem from Sal) was just to grind the spring down flush with the eccentric.

Oh, and BTW, the Jigmaster pinion doesn't always stay square when you shift without the spool spindle in the pinion gear; You can hold it square with your finger and it will shift smoothly. You know (but some newbs may not) that the spindle passes through the pinion gear, and that pinion gear behaves differently when there is a spindle in it as compared to when there is not. Sal tells me you can ruin a pinion gear by repeatedly jamming it up against the bridge like that.

Hope that helps.



Sid

You learn quick Sid,  at the rate you're going, you'll be showing us how its done in no time 

[Yogi_fish808]

I just reread this thread, and am a bit embarrassed to share that I ran into some considerable difficulty getting all the parts to marry and perform as I would have liked.  I had dog clearance issues when using the second gen SS sleeves, (easily remedied), and problems with the inner diameter of the PC 5:1 pinion being a bit too tight on an older Tiburon spool.  The SS jack seemed a bit sticky, and seemed to bind a bit on the pinion (if/when the pinion was not perfectly square.  I noticed the jack has the ability to move ever so slightly side to side.  For some reason the jack/pinion assembly just didn'the seem to hold the pinion square and smart to the maingear.  I messed around with different stock and aftermarket Jacks and yokes, and tried different spool/main body assemblies with mixed results.  The plates are beautifully crafted and clearly have tight tollerances, and plenty of 'headspace' above the drag stack (I ended up using a shortened and fitted spacer, and a heavy spring washer over a delron on top, and an identical  (same size as Sal's) undergear washer.  The ProChallenger SS gears are clearly well made, and mesh well with one another, but it seems these 5:1 gears require a bit tighter fit then the 4:1 set, or the very first prototype 5:1 gears, and the inner diameter of the pinion is just a bit tight for some spools.  The SS gears are always a bit noisy at first, and tend to quite down with use, but I just had trouble getting all of the pieces to fit.  Stock spool worked great, stock headplate parts worked great, modified drag worked great, and te double dog bridges was clicking away, and engaging solidly with no unwanted binding.  I just wonder if using the fitted spacer, with te bridge moved the maingear ever so slightly away from te pinion, and the 5:1 pinion with smaller teeth, was just not seated quite close enough or square to the main, when the jack/yoke assembly was engaged?  I eventually got the performance I was after, but it just seemed a bit more 'finacy' then some of the other JM builds I have done.  

Anyways, I got the job done, and the reels off my bench (no pictures available), but I am not 100% confident in my results (a rare event indeed).  

Looks like everyone else who posted on their builds here, had only minor issues (dog adjustment, dog post clearance, pinion/spool shaft polishing, minor yoke polish/adjustment) and we're able to sort them quickly.

Has anyone else experienced any troubles with their Jigmaster builds that havn't yet been duscussed?

I hesitate to bring up my issues (bumpy slipping gears, poor freespool, tight and rough winding/esp. Under pressure).  I think I eventually got them sorted, and I am sure had I been willing to deviate away from any one of the aftermarket components I installed, the trouble would have been much less.  

Maybe I was just a bit tired and not thinking clearly or something, but it seemed as soon as I solved one problem, I had another, then another to deal with.  

These plates are beautiful, and I love all of the aftermarket components available for these Penns, but they are not always just plug-and-play.  I enjoy the customizing part, and realize this entails tweaking buts and pieces to get the well oiled performance machine you envisioned, but sometimes it goes smoothly, and sometimes it doesn't.  

Sorry for the long rant, better get back after the Internationals on my bench

I had this problem too with the 5:1 gears and the Tiburon Spool. Mine was a Yellowfin spool and simply would not allow to main/pinion gears to mesh and resulted in major binding/skipping under load. Frank the reel guru on Facebooks 808SC has said it's a very common issue with Tib spools as the spindles were machined a touch thicker and the shoulders are a bit taller/thicker too. First, forget the 5:1 Black Gears, they aren't going to work properly with the Tib spool no matter how much tuning and work you put in. I have the exact same SS internals on a Newell 300C jigmaster (except I'm using a newell spool vs Tiburon) and the 5:1's work awesome...so the issue is the Tib spool and BP 5:1 gears simply don't work well together.

Issues I had were probably similar to a few people's projects. These were as follows:
-Spool spindle not clearing pinion (would not fit over the spool shaft)
-After sanding down spindle for clearance through pinion the spindle shoulders were hitting the pinion during freespool.
-Couldn't center the spool (pushed far to the clicker side, with edge of lip almost showing).
Hopefully the solution I found thru trial/error saves you more headaches and helps out. It may not be what other guys would recommend but it's worked for me and has already allowed the reel to muscle in a 5'+ gray reef shark.

The obvious 1st thing to try was sanding the spindle shaft to match the clearance of the stock penn spool. Wet sanded w/ fine grit, oiled steel wool, Nevr-Dull to a mirror polish. Sanded down the shoulders/beveled them a little more. Pinion can now slide over shaft and engage the spool, great.

The next issue that came up was while attempting to cast an 8oz lead w/ bait the spindle shoulders would hit/vibrate like crazy off the pinion, killing free spool. Still the clearance between the spindle shoulders and pinion were so bad I had to have the spool super far off center, almost all the way to the left.

Here's what I've come up with that has her sorted out nicely. Casts very smoothly, spool is centered, pinion/spindle shift into freespool/retrieve fine. To be clear along with the Cortez plates I'm using a Tiburon YFS kit, Gen 1 SS sleeve, BP SS bridge/yoke/eccentric, Penn Steel 4:1 main and pinion w/ Bryan's 5+1 and a delrin undergear. Not sure if it will work with a different combo of aftermarket and stock parts, but it should.

I noticed rub marks on the center edge of the pinion after trying to make this reel work. So I chamfered the edges of the pinion and also took a round needle file (a dremel would work too) and made a tapered round channel in the center lined up with the hole, smoothed the edges out with fine grit sandpaper.





The face of these shoulders aren't flat so it causes them to rub on the pinion during casting/freespool


Centered spool, spins without bumps or hitting the pinion. Casts as well as a heavy tib spool could be expected to.


Hopefully this helped, Aloha!

[Tightlines667]

Nice to hear I am not the only one that had troubles marrying the PC 5:1 pinion to an Tiburon spool.  The early spool had shoulders that were short, and recessed into the spool a bit.  This coupled with the heavy/stepped /ramp wear were a bit problematic.  I was able to sand/Polish the spool shaft to fit the pinion, but getting it to seat and unseat properly by carefully shaping the worn shoulder ended up a but of a failure.  As I said the spool worked fine with a stock 4:1 pinion.  The other issue was that lightly sanding/shaping the jack (as I have done with much sucess before) in order to smooth out the shifting, seemed to cause the yoke to be prone to slight shifting when the engaged in these plates.  The jack/yoke worked great with the 5:1 set in a stock sideplate, so I suspect it had something to do with the tighter tollerances.  For this reason, I was hesitant to mess with the jack tabs.  Curiously, the stock bronze jack worked much better with the gears, in this plate.  Seems this may be related to the fact that bronze has a natural friction reducing property that the SS lacks.  In fact the SS jack, and yoke combo seemed to work better then using both stock bronze parts.  Kinda makes me wonder if I should have tried a brass jack, and SS yoke combo.  I also wonder how quickly the SS pinion will actually chew up the stock yoke (I mean to the point of affecting performance, or compromising integrity).  Most of us service our reels reguarily, so why not use a smoother stock yoke.  I have seen old stock yokes with hardened steel pinions, and years of heavy use, and only moderate wear visable.  

Wish, I would have thought of applying your modifications (chamfering/tapering) to the pinion before settling on 'It's performing good enough with the non-Tiburon spool, and it will get better with use' cop out.  I usually don't let work off my bench until it is performing flawlessly, but in the interest if time I had to make an exception here.  If there is anything I have learned about the time factor with regards to reel repair work, it is to never restrict yourself to a short window to complete work.  Reasonable expectations are fine, and sometimes things come together quicker then expected, but it pays to take the time to get it right, even if it doe$n't.  Also, it's inevitable that at least a few of the reels you service will work great on your bench, but experience some sort of problem during 'real world' field use.  Personally, I have dealt with these 1-5% issues by standing behind my work dealing with this issues as soon as I am made aware if them.  

It's all a constant learning process, kinda what continues to make this stuff challenging and rewarding.