Penn 9/109 main gears in a 155?

[Wolfram M]

For sure, the plastic sideplates would be fine. Titanium is one of those "Mr. T has TITANIUM in the mill!" things, one of my last contract jobs before I started teaching had nearly 60K$ of titanium plate laying on my shop floor before the contract fell through-I sold off most of it but still have a 4x8 sheet of 1/2" 6AL4V left.

Aluminum plates are actually the cheapest that I could have the kids machine in the classroom due to coolant/tooling issues, our current coolant in the CNC is not plastic compatible. It will be probably another year before I even start having students ready for the CNC program, I'm trying to both plan ahead and have some fun.

From what I can find, the biggest upgrade for strength of a Beachmaster is to replace the pinion with a ringed pinion. The 109 pinion does not have the groove cut in it for the pinion yoke, and I do not know if it can be cut in or not yet. The 13-209LC pinion could definitely be ringed, however, and the 13-155 could as well for that matter.

[jurelometer]

If you just want to bound the project to putting 109 gears in a beachmaster, then the items from my previous reply are are what I would worry about most. If the 109 pinion works with the beachmaster spool/spindle, and you can fabricate a new sideplate that matches the old sideplate diameter and accommodates the 109 bridge plate with the proper center distance, then you are probably golden.

Improving the load capacity of the reel:

Agree that ringing the pinion is not going to hurt if there is room.  Assuming that was the first point of failure (I am not so sure), on to the other load based points of failure in order:

For most of the the classic Penn models, the gear sleeve to handle junction is the first to go- the gears sleeve head rounds off.  After that the order depends on the model, but it is usually the gear teeth ends shredding (on the main if I remember correctly),  and then the dog wearing prematurely, or even going under or over the ratchet.  I believe that the radial to axial load transfer on the helical gears is half of the root cause behind a lot of the winding failures.  And this also causes some secondary failures, such as the bridge post getting loose. After all this is addressed,  the whole reel can twist at the "spacers  that sort of constitute the frame.   

Let us know how it goes.

-J

[Wolfram M]

So, here's the full plan:

New aluminum spools and stainless spindles to allow a magnetic braking system

New aluminum reel stand/half frame (because my original chromed brass one is already tweaked)

New aluminum side plates (just because it will be fun, not that I think the plastic is a weak spot)

Stainless bridge plate is because my brass bridge plate has been de-zincified in some spots, this is the really coppery colored sections of corroded brass. This can happen when sulfured oils/greases are used on brass, or any other high-sulfur contaminate is left in contact with brass.

I also want to make some hardened stainless or some hard bronze AR dogs, and double-dog the bridge plate. Not sure exactly what method I want to use but there are a lot of examples here on the site of how others did it.

Stainless 98-155 gear sleeves are available, I might make some if they turn up hard to find. My gear sleeve is brass and has some de-zincified areas around the ratchet.

The ringed pinion is the only big failure I've found from other beachmaster users on the internet-they say that under heavy use the pinion flares out or just shears off, but I kinda think they're trying to fish the reel beyond it's limits.

I am under the impression that the maximum usable drag from the beachmaster or even the 109 drag stack should be about 8-9lbs fully tightened down, and trying to work it harder than that is what will cause gear sleeve and pinion damage.

With all the "improvements" (are they really improvements?) that I want to make I still don't think that the reel could go more than 10lbs of drag. I'll wind up building a dozen or so of each part eventually.

[Gfish]

Cool!
Good to know about the sulfured grease/oil staining those parts—-always wondered what caused that.
Heading down to the P.O. to mail the 109 this afternoon.
Excited to see some of your results.