drag adjustment on vintage reels

[reelynew]

Hi All,

I noticed that on my vintage reels, the range of adjustment for the drag appears to be much less than on my more modern reels.  I noticed this on my Mitchell 308 and my DQ 110N.  What I mean by this is, that there is a much smaller range when I start to apply tension on the drag, the moment I feel resistance to when I am unable to pull line off the reel is a lot shorter on the vintage reels.

Is there something I can do or a part to replace on these reels to get finer adjustments?

Thanks for your thoughts,

Matt

[alantani]

careful here.  alot of reels have plastic parts that will melt with the heat, or just crack.  springs (coil or belleville) in the drag stack will allow for finer adjustment, but less range. 

[reelynew]

Thank you Alan.

If I understand you correctly, a newer, stronger, tighter spring would in effect create more adjustment over a shorter range?

Matt

[alantani]

yup.  softer springs allow finer adjustments but a generally lower range. 

[happyhooker]

Some drags have no springs of any kind in the drag stack, and the only thing that gives you any range adjustment is the compressability (I hope that is a word) of the drag disk material.  Incorporating a wave washer (aka Belleville) into the stack can help, assuming there is space for it.  I have made this work OK on an old Heddon greenie and a Berkley 426, to name two I recall offhand.

Frank

[jurelometer]

Yep.  All a drag spring does is increase the travel distance (and therefore knob rotations) to achieve the same clamping load.  Clamping load in excess of what the parts can handle is the risk, not the spring itself.  You can over-tighten with a soft spring or no spring at all.

The amount of load per mm of travel increases as the spring is compressed.  If you want "fine tuning", the best spring is the one that is in the low range of its compression for the drag range that you are intersected in.

-J